• Challenge,  News,  On Writing

    New Space Travelers Bundle Now Live

    And I Have A Book In It… Sector Justice: A Seeders Universe novel is in this one. It stands completely alone. Basically a Star Trek like sf novel with a focus on cool space adventure, romance and some sex. Go figure. (grin) And it is a little longer than my normal novel these days. Kristine Kathryn Rusch put this bundle together and it’s a great bundle with some great books, stories, and writers. You can get it on Storybundle. What follows is a blog Kris did about the bundle. Worth the read. ————- The Space Travelers Bundle – Curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch When most people think of science fiction,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Writing Got Me Behind

    And That Felt Great… First time in a while, so sorry if I owed you a letter today or Sunday evening, but Ring Game: A Cold Poker Gang Novel I am working on sort of grabbed me and woudn’t let go. I did three sessions today and two yesterday on the novel. Maybe 10,000 words total. What fun. And just as twisted a book as any of the others. I will be caught up on letters I owe people tomorrow and reading more challenge stories as well. But felt good to have the writing back solidly as it used to be before the move, so I just let it go. Also tonight…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Updates

    Kickstarter and Challenge Updates… First, the Kickstarter surveys (getting your email address and such) will be heading out in the next day or so. We need that information returned quickly if you backed the Diving Kickstarter, so we can get you your reward, plus all the cool stretch rewards. All the workshop stuff will be dealt with in a week or so, after the majority of the surveys are back in. But be thinking about which lecture and Classic workshop you want. (Don’t tell me yet, just be thinking about them.) The Great Challenge and The Great Novel Challenge are both still open. Two novels are in and only two…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Saturday Night Copyright

    Because No One Stops Here On Saturday… So I thought I would pass on a web site with a series of copyright lectures. This was suggested to me by A.B. Alvarez. They are a series of long lectures, like over forty of them, by Professor William Fisher and are offered under the Creative Commons License. Now copyright is a tough, dry area of the law for most people and Professor Fisher does not help that much. But he has some amazing charts and connections that work fantastically. So file this for next time you have a copyright question. http://copyx.org/lectures I spent some time watching a couple of them, including one…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    July Workshops Available

    Including Both Writing Time Travel and Writing Westerns… A great list in July, but they start early this year, the 2nd and 3rd. So keep that in mind. You can still do the first week after the big US holiday, but the workshops start before the holiday. Lifetime subscribers, I will get the Writing Western workshop over into the subscription this next week. Interesting how many new workshops we have done this year. Four different Futures workshops, Emotion, Time Travel, and now Writing Westerns. Seven new workshops and the year is just half done. And four older workshops moved to Classic. So at $300 a workshop, just this spring came…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Day Four of Ramp Up

    Finally Hit All Parts… I managed a bunch of words this morning, made 12,000 steps for the second day in a row, and am down five pounds this week (clearly a lot of that was surface weight.) The weight loss will level at 2 pounds a week going forward. Plus today I actually ran a mile. (In parts, 1/8th of a mile at a time) but a mile anyway. Basically doing intervals, some fast, some medium. For an old fat guy, I still have amazing speed when I kick it on. Surprised me, actually. I am behind on my challenge reading, but should catch that up this weekend without a…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    I Did Another Podcast

    A Second One When I Was At Writers of the Future... John Goodwin, the President of Galaxy Press did the interview. It was great fun. This one was about old pulp writers, rewriting, and clean first drafts, among other things. I think this is about 15 minutes, so worth the time to listen to me and John talk about the old writers. And I got a detail wrong in my old mind. Lester Dent was a real name who wrote 159 Doc Savage novels under the name Kenneth Robeson. Lester Dent was not a pen name. Max Brand was a pen name of Frederick Faust. Names, I am not allowed…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    How To Approach a Licensee?

    Tough Question… And honestly, I don’t know the answer to that exactly because it will be different for every license you give. And different for every project you have. And different for every licensee. Some approach you, others you approach through meetings. So no right answer. For example, you might have a really nifty young adult series with teddy bears, so you would research and set up meetings with teddy bear companies. But you wouldn’t do that with your tech-filled sf series. (Unless it was a very strange series.) Robert Jeschonek wrote an amazing story about sentient underwear that was first published in Fiction River and then I bought it…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Day One of Ramp Up

    Partially Successful… So a good start. No writing, almost 12,000 steps, did some running, and got the food intake under control. Tomorrow I will add in the writing, get over 12,000 steps, and repeat the rest. Tonight, while walking, I set a new goal for myself, longer term than just 100 days for the weight. I want to hit 167 pounds, with luck by October 1st. If I do that, it will mean I have lost 100 pounds since my heaviest. So a great goal. I also want to be able to do ten pull-ups at that point at least. Can’t do one right now. Not a one. So got…

  • Challenge,  Misc

    Tomorrow Starts…

    Ramp Up On Exercise… Going to hit it hard. I kind of let my steps and other stuff slip after the Licensing Expo. So tomorrow I ramp for the summer. Going to 12,000 steps a day and try to keep that as a streak and no more than 1,200-1,500 calories a day intake on most days. That will drop two pounds a week, a top line on healthy weight loss. It’s a famous diet I am using. Eat Less and Move Around More. I’ve lost over 60 pounds doing that so far, and I got a marathon to run this fall. Marathon running weight is exactly 25 pounds under where…