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Lost Five Challenge Writers
Five Short-Story-Per-Week Writers… They didn’t make it through the holiday season. And actually, that is fewer than I would have expected to lose. Middle of the winter, flu and cold season, holiday, travel, and who knows what else. A ton of reasons to not complete a story in a week, or even think about writing for a few weeks. And this year, with the holidays smack in the middle of the week so none of us had a clue if it was Monday, Tuesday, Friday, or what? Sunday deadline just seemed alien to many, me included. And what was amazing is that all five writers that dropped out over the…
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All Focus On The New Year
Everything Kris and I Are Doing is Focused on 2020 and Beyond… That focus on the new year seems to be taking up a ton of our time and effort over the last week. Tonight, on occasion, I heard swearing coming from Kris’s office because she was focusing on putting her calendar system for 2020 together. It is extensive. And complex. And she has been doing it for all of the thirty-plus years I have known her. And I really appreciate that she does the organization because, to be honest, I depend on her a lot to tell me when we are scheduled to do something here in Vegas. That…
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The Decade Ahead
Four New Classes To Help You Get Through 2020… …And to Plan For 2029 You have been creating all the stories and novels. Getting them out to readers, promoting them, then moving on to the next story. Great! But how do you keep that going? How do you make sure you have a successful year, and at the same time plan for the new decade ahead? In fact, how do you even plan in a realistic way that will help you long term? In other words, how to keep going in 2020 and where would you like to be in 2029? These four quarterly classes will help you with that.…
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Workshop Details
A Number of Details on Workshops… First off, I have four more videos of a licensing holiday focus on the Licensing Transition workshop. Just a four-video idea is all. Something to think about. There will be more videos in that class before the end of the year. Second, the Licensing Transition and the Shared Worlds classes (that will continue on until July) will be closed for new sign-ups on the last day of this month. Two people have asked me to hold them open until then, but that’s it, so if you have been thinking about them, don’t delay now. Sign up on Teachable. And in a few days I…
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Writers Blaming Editors
Funniest Thing I Have Read… Now granted, for most beginning writers, if they read a writer blaming an editor for a rejection, they would nod sagely and say, “Yeah, editors just don’t get me either.” Uh….no. More than likely your story didn’t work. Or it didn’t fit what the editor was looking for in their magazine, or the editor had just bought a story similar to it two weeks earlier, or… or… or… But blaming an editor because the editor did not “see” how really deep your subtext was on page seven and your nifty plot twist on page twenty… Uh… no. And I bet if you are thinking like…
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New Regular Workshops
THE SCHEDULE THROUGH APRIL Here is the next four months of online regular workshops. January is available to sign up now on Teachable. I will also get up February and March fairly shortly as well for sign-ups. Three new workshops included. Starting in January: WRITING ROMANCE. Starting in February: FLOATING VIEWPOINTS Starting in March: MAKING A LIVING Here we go into 2020. Class #1… Jan 7th … WRITING ROMANCEClass #4… Jan 7th … Writing into the DarkClass #5… Jan 7th … Writing Sales CopyClass #6… Jan 8th … Depth in WritingClass #7… Jan 8th … Writing Short StoriesClass #9… Jan 8th… Writing with EmotionClass #10… Jan 8th… Advanced Depth Class…
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Rejections
Most Beginning Writers Think of Rejection Wrong… And for some reason, lately, I’ve been noticing that more and more. And finally, today, after hearing issues with rejections from three different writers, I finally decided I needed to say something here. Let me say this as simply as I can: Rejections are positive. That’s right, they are the best indicator in building a publishing career that you are doing a lot of things right. — You are mailing your stories to editors to try to advance your career and get great advertisement for your indie work. — You are trying new things, pushing your own limits, working to be a better…
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Real Life Sensory Lesson
But Taste is So Hard!… I get that all the time from writer after writer who always seem to be under the misunderstanding that to taste something, the character must actually be chewing on something. Nope. So when I say use all five senses every five hundred words in a story to really add in character and depth, the complaint about taste comes popping up. So here is what happened today… Kris and I had walked to a great lunch spot in the Arts District of Las Vegas. Day was warm, not too hot, sun was out, flowers blooming along the sidewalks. (Yes, flowers bloom here in the winter.) For…
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Writer Delusion
There Are Numbers of Them… But only going to talk about one at the moment. However, just like myths, writers have many, many delusions that hold them back. Delusion: A fiction writer knows for a fact they can write good sales copy. Reason for the Delusion: After all, they are fiction writers and it is their story. Fact: I know of maybe a handful of fiction writers who know how to write good sales copy. And not one New York fiction editor. But most writers have the delusion that they can write sales copy, the second most important element in sales after the cover. And then wonder why their books…
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Tip of the Week Has Ended
Tonight I Posted the Last Five Weeks… And I opened up all the tips from January 1st, 2018 all the way through to those who are signed up right now. And killed the $10 per month charging fee. After two years of weekly tips, I am done in that format. I will be announcing something new and different for 2020 later this month which will have tips as well as much, much more. So anyone who is has been taking Tip of the Week now and was signed up now has access to all 104 writing tips. However, I had two people ask me if they could get all 104…