• Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    November Workshops Available

    All Twelve Are There… And if you have a credit from the recent Kickstarter, just write me to get into the November workshops. Or you can use the credits at any time into the future. Sign up at Teachable.com  And there are lifetime subscriptions available on Teachable as well if you decide to get serious and really try to take as many as possible. Class #49… Nov 6th … Depth #3: Research Class #50… Nov 6th … Author Voice Class #51… Nov 6th … Dialog Class #52… Nov 6th … Writing into the Dark Class #53… Nov 6th … Writing Fiction Sales Copy Class #54… Nov 6th … Writing and Selling Short Stories Class #55……

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Comments Have Been Interesting

    My Best Advice I Can Give?… The comments over the past few days have been fun. Thanks, everyone who left a comment. I help a lot of writers learn in a lot of detail about specific areas of writing through the workshops. But if I had to boil it all down in some general way, here are my suggestions… 1… Read for pleasure. 2… Enjoy writing and telling a story. 3… Write only stories that you feel passionate about and that will entertain you. 4… Be passionate about wanting to keep learning. All the rest is a shrug. If you want my advice on the business of professional writing, that…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Because of Last Night’s Comments

    I Did a Tip of the Week… On how and why bestselling authors give bad advice to young writers. So in a very quick post here, I thought I would list a few reasons that come to me off the top of my head. 1… It was how the bestseller learned in the last century, so beginning writers should learn the same way, even though that is not how the bestselling writer actually works now. 2… It seems like a good way to train beginning writers (like the no adverb silliness). 3… The author is not talking to other authors, but to readers. (Writing as work and rewrite myth comes…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    The Threat of Perfect

    The Voice Does It Again… I think almost every coach and a few of the guest coaches on The Voice have told a singer in one way or another that perfect is a bad thing. Wow, we were stopping the show the last few days every time a coach said that and we gave up after five or six stops just this week alone. I know most of you reading this will just shake your head and go away and wonder why we are watching a reality show like The Voice. The reason is that we learn a ton from it every season. We learn about drive, about technique, and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Intellectual Property

    This is Called IP for Short… Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secrets. All are forms of IP. Writers deal mostly in copyright. That is what we license, but few writers know anything about what they license. And this post will not be a long, dull screed on copyright, I promise. In fact, it will be fairly short. I want to deal with value of copyright is all. A simple topic, right? Nope. “Patents, trademarks and copyrights generally have associated costs and are usually capitalized as assets on the balance sheet.” Oh, oh… So how do you figure the value of that asset when a copyright will last the life of…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    Last Call On October Workshops

    I Will Be Switching Them Out… And if you have a credit from the recent Kickstarter, just write me and I’ll get you into an October workshop if you want. Or you can use the credits at any time into the future. This month might be one of the best months of workshop choices we have ever offered. Sign up at Teachable.com  And there are lifetime subscriptions available on Teachable as well if you decide to get serious and really try to take as many as possible. Class #37… Oct 2nd … How to Study Writing Class #38… Oct 2nd … Endings Class #39… Oct 2nd … Point of View Class #40……

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    New Writing Bundle

    NanoWriMo Writing Bundle… Every year Kevin J. Anderson puts together a fantastic bundle of writing books through Storybundle.com. And this year, in my opinion, he outdid any other year. I have read or looked at most of the books in this group, and I know a lot of the authors, and folks, this bundle is a real deal. Craig Martelle from the 20to50 conferences has a book in here. Joanna Pen, Kevin McLaughline, Blaze Ward, Jamie j. Ferguson, Simon Haynes, and Andrea Pearson to name just a few. Plus Kris has a great book and Kevin and Rebecca teamed up to write one as well. And, of course, I got…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Glitch in the Negotiations Lectures

    We Goofed on One Timing Issue. We wrote down that the first webinar for the first negotiations lecture would be this Sunday, but it isn’t. It is Sunday October 14th. Second one is the 28th. Third one is November 4th. Sorry about that. It has been corrected on the lecture page on Teachable. The webinars for the other two lectures are accurate as far as we can tell now. (grin) Sorry for the confusion. Just a mind-glitch on my part. Still Time To Get In… And if you have a credit from the recent Kickstarter, just write me and I’ll get you into an October workshop if you want. Or…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Stunned By The Voice

    A Detail About The Voice That Flat Amazed Me… One young woman was back after failing last season to get a chair to turn. (She got two this time.) And in the conversation about her courage to come back, and how she had gone away and worked really hard, it was revealed that any time a judge told someone who failed to get a chair to turn to come back, that person had an automatic invite back. That’s right, all a judge had to do was say “come back” to a singer who failed and the invite was automatically there. And then the detail was mentioned that almost knocked me…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    All October Workshops Started

    Still Time To Get In… And if you have a credit from the recent Kickstarter, just write me and I’ll get you into an October workshop if you want. Or you can use the credits at any time into the future. This month might be one of the best months of workshop choices we have ever offered. Sign up at Teachable.com  And there are lifetime subscriptions available on Teachable as well if you decide to get serious and really try to take as many as possible. Class #37… Oct 2nd … How to Study Writing Class #38… Oct 2nd … Endings Class #39… Oct 2nd … Point of View Class #40… Oct…