• Challenge,  On Writing

    Ground Effect

    With Writing… Basically, ground effect with airplanes is a feeling that the plane pushes away from the ground as it gets closer, can just float over the ground once it is in the air. It has a lot of technical stuff about what causes it, but I don’t really care. What I am talking about is that feeling that it is easier to keep writing day after day when you have been writing day after day. In other words, easier to keep the writing aloft than stop and then have to restart. Stay floating over the runway instead of letting the wheels hit and coasting to a stop. A ton…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing

    Surveys Out for Kickstarter

    Very Quickly This Time… The surveys were sent out today for the Spade/Paladin Kickstarter campaign. If you didn’t get one… — First check your spam filter. — If not there, check your other email address in case you used that for Kickstarter. — If not there, just hold on until Monday. It might appear as email sometimes does. — If you were a backer of the Space/Paladin kickstarter and your pledge went through all right, and you still did not get your survey by MONDAY or TUESDAY, contact Josh at WMG Publishing and he will fire you another one. Subscriptions@wmgbooks.com ON ANOTHER MATTER… Today I managed to get another 4,000…

  • Challenge,  Kickstarter Campaign,  On Writing,  workshops

    Ends at 7 PM Tonight

    West Coast Time… At every award level you get a great new book from Kris called TEN LITTLE FEN. And every backer at $5 and up gets seven stretch goal rewards. That includes seven new books and six new Pop-Up writing classes for no extra charge. But the real key is you don’t want to miss the last few hours of getting two special workshops that will never be available anywhere else again. Only through this campaign. So here one last time is the information about the two special workshops and the six Pop-Up writing classes. This ends in just hours. Spade/Paladin Kickstarter Campaign. EXCLUSIVE TO THIS CAMPAIGN — How…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Fantastic Writing Advice by Keith Johnstone

    Maybe Worth Really Looking At… I found it amazing. This advice came from a blog post Johnstone did back in 2020. Sadly, since that time he has done very few. He is 87 years of age and no longer teaching as far as I can tell as well. But he is an actor, a writer, and is known as one of the pioneers of improvisational theater. In essence, he is amazing. One of his many thoughts in this random blog post of misc. stuff was called Five Ideas. You can read the entire post here… https://www.keithjohnstone.com/post/_misc I was sent this part of the post and think it is amazing. Thanks,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Learning is Forever…

    In Writing and Publishing… Kris and I were talking today on the way back from lunch about some of the writers who have just faded away. And the more we talked, the more we realized that we knew the answer on what happened to most of them. They all just stopped learning. They reached a level that they were happy with their writing and stopped learning for a dozen different reasons. That is flat deadly in just a few years. The reason I hear the most and understand the least is the fear that learning something will upset some perfect balance in their writing and they will never sell again.…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Nine Years

    Talking About the Power of a Streak… Nine years ago today, 3,285 days ago, I started a blogging streak. The idea was to blog about something, anything every day. (I had been doing a few blogs before that on the Star Trek boards and so on.) No excuses. Traveling, sick, computer failures, other more important things to do. None of that mattered. Blog had to be done. And for some reason that got into my DNA and now every night Kris even asks me if I got a blog done. As with all streaks, I had other motives at the start and never, in a billion years, did I think…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Massive Move Day

    Gaining On It… The goal is by 1 week from today, when the movers show up, everything will either be in place in this new condo or ready to go to our new storage unit. Almost no furniture except shelving will go to storage. Just a dining table and chairs, and one desk, but a ton of boxes full of books and files. Basically all our extra author books is the biggest mass. And we will move the digest collection from the other smaller storage unit to this new larger one since the larger one is air conditioned. So everything needs to be boxed and either upstairs in our new…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Sucked Down a Copyright Hole…

    I Do That To Myself At Times… I am such a copyright junkie, when given the excuse, I find myself going deeper and deeper into legal articles and having so much fun. That’s where I lost a few hours tonight. If you have no idea why I would think copyright is fun, take the Magic Bakery classic workshop. Or read my book on the topic. Copyright is magic and is why WMG Publishing exists, five employees have their jobs, and Kris and I live in this fantastic new place. One place I played tonight was the 35 year rule. For example, I signed maybe 60 Work for Hire contracts in…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Skipping a Day

    Still Will Have Four Novels Done In a Month… But as I expected, today turned into a complete work on other stuff day. Except for a few breaks to work on moving or go out to lunch, I spent all day at this internet computer. All day and now into the night. No eye left for my writing computer. Why did I do this? Well, here is why… The Fantasy Collections Class started. The Heroes and Heroines Collection Class started. Vastness of Space Class started. Writing Spaceships Class started. Plus all the regular Tuesday monthly classes for July started. Those are Covers 101, Publishing 101, Writing into the Dark, and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

    LAST DAY OF THE LAST SALE

    ALMOST DONE!!! Just so it is clear. This sale will end on today (Thursday) in the evening West Coast time.  And that will be the last pandemic half-price sale. Hard to believe this is almost over. We started these last spring in a shut-down world as WMG’s way of trying to help writers stay in and stay safe and learning through the turmoil. We hoped after the first few we would end it, and every two months we did another because the pandemic was still strong. Now, for those who are able to get the vaccine, the pandemic fear is over and we are into recovery. The vaccine has turned…