• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    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…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    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…

  • Challenge,  Smiths Monthly

    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.

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  Smiths Monthly

    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…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff

    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…

  • Challenge,  Cover Fun,  Smiths Monthly

    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…

  • Challenge,  Smiths Monthly,  Uncategorized

    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.…

  • Challenge,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    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.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Smiths Monthly

    I Hope Everyone Had a Chance At The Sale…

    I Tried to Answer Questions Quickly… On request of two people, I will leave the half-price discount code in place until I get up tomorrow morning around 10 am west coast time in case someone missed something. Then the sale will be done. Kris and I and everyone at WMG Publishing really hope the sale helped and the classes will help your writing and publishing down the road. Speaking of classes, Kris and I just finished putting together the last two Pop-Ups from the Pulphouse Kickstarter and all five Pop-Ups from the stretch rewards will be sent out on the 31st. Also, I will be contacting everyone who signed up…

  • Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Kickstarter Campaign

    Worked All Day On Kickstarter and Move

    And I Also Put Together an Issue of Smith’s Monthly… And finished a novella. Yeah, sort of a busy day. (Giant understatement.) With Kris’s pushing to keep us on schedule, we spent part of a second day just sorting art. I didn’t realize just how many signed pieces of art we have, not counting things like monster movie posters (originals in good shape) from the 1960s. (I will sell those eventually.) And maybe a good 100 Pulp magazine cover art, reproduced on cloth. All going to storage. So much of our even signed art is just going into storage. We have a stunning amount of room for art in our…