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Filing System Drawback…
Smith’s Monthly As A Filing System… A number of people have mentioned to me how cool that idea is to keep stories organized. And it really is. When I publish an issue. I have not published an issue since #67, which was November of 2022. Which means I have not filed anything since then. (grin) Granted, for six months of that time I was mostly blind and for another six months of that time I was recovering from surgery and most of this last year I was dealing with business issues. So yes, it has been 2 years and 4 months since I filed anything, but a lot of that…
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My Filing System
I Am Both Organized and Not Organized For 67 months, I did Smith’s Monthly Magazine. Had one short break in the middle somewhere and now it has been on hiatus for over two years because of the life rolls. But it is coming back. Soon. The last few days I discovered once again why I loved doing that magazine and what is really important to me about it almost more than anything. It is my filing system. Every month I would publish four or five or six short stories. I never repeated a short story, so there are 270 different stories in those 67 issues. There are also novels and…
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Questions About Smith’s Monthly…
Is It Coming Back? Answer… I sure hope so. Stopped with #67 last fall when I had the eye issues. Now delayed a bit more with the shoulder injury, but my hope is early next year. Writing comes back up first, then the magazine. Got to get up to at least 70,000 words of fiction a month to fill it. I appreciate the questions about it.
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Smith’s Monthly
Ten Years Ago… Yes, one fine day in 2013 right about this time of the year, Kris and I were headed into Salem, OR from the coast to have dinner and see a movie. I had been noodling on ideas to get myself back really writing after spending most of the year before dealing with my friend’s estate, and then not really writing that much in the last half of 2012 and the early part of 2013. I needed something to get me focused. Earlier that day, while in my office, I had been sorting out my digest fiction magazine collection and came across some Mike Shayne issues. It was…
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Smith’s Monthly
New Place for Smith’s Monthly… We have all of them on our new Shopify store. Right now only the electronic editions are there, but given time, with luck, the paperback copies will be available as well. Check it out. When you see all 67 issues one right after another, you realize how amazing it is. Remember, each issue is about 60,000 to 70,000 words of only my fiction. Four or five original short stories every issue, plus a novel or something else large, plus other stuff. Every month. The November 2022 was the 67th issue. That was the last one I did at the moment because of my eye issues.…
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A Fun Bunch of Covers…
All Smith’s Monthly Covers in One Place… You really might want to check this out. Something I am very proud of. All 65 issues of Smith’s Monthly in one place. https://wmgpublishinginc.com/smiths-monthly-magazine/ Just go there and scroll down. I found it pretty amazing and I did them all. Four or five original short stories in every issue and a bunch of novels, non-fiction, and other stuff. I do a new issue every month and I still find it head-shaking that I am doing this. On another topic, this blog is short because I have to be up at 6:30 am tomorrow morning (yes, I don’t normally go to bed until 3…
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Last Bits of Smith’s Monthly #63
Just Finishing SMITH’S MONTHLY #63 Up Tonight… Fun thing to do on a Friday night. As many of you know, I do all the layout of the magazine, and every month I have a blast with it. There are four original stories in this issue, plus another collection of stories and the novel that is the header of this web site. MELODY RIDGE, which is a combination Jukebox Novel and Thunder Mountain Novel. It is the origin story of all my jukebox stories. So I wanted to put the collection of the short stories, with how the jukebox stories came about, and how thirty years after I started them I…
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Smith’s Monthly #62
Laying It Out Now… June issue. It will be out later in the month. Yes, issue #62 of a monthly magazine that has about 70,000 or so words in it every month. All written by me. No one else. Do the math. That’s is over 800,000 words per year in just Smith’s Monthly, not counting anything else I do. Except for a light copyedit and the actual loading to the accounts, I do everything else on this magazine. I do all the covers for the short stories and the rest of the contents and the magazine itself. I do the layout into trade paper in a two-column format in InDesign.…
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Getting Things Cleaned Up
Licensing Next Week… So got to get a lot of things done ahead of time this weekend. That includes getting Smith’s Monthly #61 laid out and back to WMG so they can fire it out. And recording what I need to record for the week. Tomorrow (Saturday) I will post some recordings in the Master Business Class on the how and the why of the Licensing Expo and details about the WMG Suite. So watch for that later tomorrow. And I did a bunch of business stuff today to get it all out of the way as well. Allyson will be here Sunday, which is the first time in 2.5…
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Smith’s Monthly #53 Published
I Got a Little Carried Away… This monthly issue has 85,000 words in it. Yikes. Since I am working on another new Thunder Mountain novel, I thought I would put the very first one in this issue, along with nine short stories (four new, five in the serialization of Stories from July. The first Thunder Mountain novel (called simply THUNDER MOUNTAIN) was actually in Issue #2 of Smith’s Monthly in November 2013 with a very different cover on it. So anyway, thought I would note the publication today of Issue #53 of Smith’s Monthly. All 85,000 words of it. Yikes!! Here is the link to the page on WMG Publishing.…