• Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  workshops

    SERIES COLLIDES KICKSTARTER Ends Tonight

    Ends at 7PM West Coast Time… There are two very special workshops only available in this campaign. How to Write Series Endings and also How to Write Cross-Genre Series. And the stories you write for both I will look at, if you want me to, for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. These workshops will have sessions in February and are three weeks long. The tag line on this campaign is… 2 WRITERS, 36 SERIES, 100 STORIES Kris and I know how to write and teach series, so don’t miss these. Ends at 7PM tonight The Series Collide Kickstarter. It also has stretch goals that allows backers to submit stories to Pulphouse Magazine…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    Story #10 New Character…

    Creative Voice Picking Up Speed… Feels great to be honest if I would just give myself more time each day. Today I wrote a 2,500 word story with a brand new character in my worlds, Private Detective Crunch. The story is #10 in ten days. “The Woman Who Fought Mice” was today’s story. I am finding it interesting that even though tired after a long day, I sit down at my dedicated writing computer, pick two half titles and slam them together and next think I know I am about 500 words in and cycling back. Today was just business, business, business, a nap, cooked dinner, watched some of the…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    Challenge Day 5 and Also One Day Sale!!

    Again I Was Stupidly Busy But I expected as much. Didn’t help that I expected it, but at least I didn’t get upset anywhere along the line. Tonight I put up the first weeks of two Monday classes. PUBLISHING MONDAY and also BITE-SIZED BRANDING AND TRADEMARK. As I was talking with Kris about them and how few had signed up, she just laughed. She said I have to know by now writers say they want that sort of thing but actually don’t. It seems that Kris and I are not normal. We want to keep learning everything we can, especially stuff that makes us more money and gets our writing…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    It All Started With Workshops

    We Called Everything a Workshop… At least in the beginning. And we tried to fit everything we decided to try to teach into the workshop format for the first number of years of online classes. But that slowly became clear it would not work, so we came up with lectures, and then Pop-Ups, and then general classes of all kinds and shapes. Every month we do regular workshops, the ones we consider to be the core classes every writer needs. Those regular monthly workshops are six weeks long, have five assignments, and about 40 videos total each. When a workshop loses attention, but we still feel it is important knowledge…

  • Branding,  Challenge,  publishing,  workshops

    Discussion About Publishing…

    So Much To Learn and Do… Indie publishing just eems overwhelming, I know that for a fact. I am going to be doing a lot of my own layouts and publishing on my challenge in this coming year (I will announce what I am doing with the challenge after Christmas as I ramp up.) And I am trying not to panic. Failing at times. So I have really been giving a hard look at all the details now involved with publishing and sales. And slowly realizing I need to figure out a way to organize all that I am learning and have learned to keep the panic down to a…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    32 Years…

    Kris Did a Great Post On Facebook… About our 32 wedding anniversary. We tend to celebrate the day we met, which on May 4th this coming year will be 39 years. But the wedding on the top of our tree farm 32 years ago was very special and a ton of fun. We did it at the last minute, with great friends coming without notice. Professional writers and close friends Chris and Steve York stood up with us and thankfully they haven’t regretted it too much in the last 32 years. Well, maybe a few times… (grin) Here is a picture of us teaching in our old office in Lincoln…

  • Challenge,  Misc,  publishing,  workshops

    Interesting Copyright and Workshop Fun!

    Copyright Notice… Kris and I went to see Wicked (part one) tonight. Great movie and I am a fan of L. Frank Baum’s work in all manner. I have read all 14 of the original OZ books, some numbers of time, and most of his short stories. At one point before my house fire, I even had 12 of the original hardback with dust editions with the fantastic (Denslow and Neill) art. So I am sitting watching the credits tonight and made note of the credit given to the author of the derivative novel, Gregory Maguire. But unless I missed it, not one credit to the original Baum source material…

  • Fun Stuff,  workshops

    Fun Day!

    US Thanksgiving Holiday… We had intended to head out a 6:30 am to a park to the north of Las Vegas for a charity 5k run that started at 8 am. Intended was the operative word, but due to events the day before with business and other stuff, Kris and I both managed to stumble to be round 2 am. (I was a little later.) So the towel was tossed and we got extra sleep. Then I cooked (with a ton of help from Kris) a turkey dinner and we were were joined by four great friends and we had a blast. Kris had baked a bunch of fantastic pumpkin…

  • Challenge,  The Kris and Dean Show,  workshops

    Cleaning Up!

    My Traditional Publishing Brag Shelves… It is all getting boxed up and hauled to storage. Nine shelves filling about 12 filing boxes full of books and magazines that I published stuff in during my traditional publishing days. Sadly over the years, I didn’t keep it up very well, and would take a book out of it for one reason or another and not replace it or get the book back in the right spot. And unlike Kris’s brag shelves where she kept everything in perfect order and also has one copy of all editions. Her brag shelves fill an entire room and her office. We have another brag shelf downstairs…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    Updates!!

    Space Opera… From January 13th through noon on the 16th, Kris is teaching an in-person craft workshop on the topic of Space Opera. (She has won dozens of awards and even more nominations for awards for her space opera writing over the decades, not counting the millions of copies of space opera books and stories she has sold.) So those of you signed up for the in-person space opera craft class here in Vegas, the reading list will be headed out to you later tonight with more information. We are at a fantastic new place for this that we toured today. The Circa. It is just four years old and…