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Nifty Cover
The Cover for the Book About This Challenge. Allyson did it without me asking her. Thanks, Allyson. I love it. I like being able to visualize a cover of a book I am working on. So far this book is only six chapters of thirty long, and six stories of the thirty. But I’m off to a good start, so fingers crossed I get to use this cover. The Day Got up around 11 a.m. again. Then did a little email, packed some boxes, fed Toughie, the feral cat outside who wanted to be toweled down even though it was a beautiful day. He was a little stressed because the…
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Day Four. Exhausted
Lack of Sleep… I was tired yesterday, but ended up only getting about five-and-a-half hours sleep because I needed to be out at the south stores very early to meet a collector who was selling us a large collection. So today I was really exhausted. But still got a story done anyway. The Day Got up around 8:30 a.m.. Then to the south Pop Culture Store and the North by Northwest Bookstore. When I pulled up the collector had unloaded a dozen large tubs of stuff and was waiting for me to tell him which store to take it to. I finally left there after sorting a bunch of it…
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Day Three, Story Three
Pretty Tired, But Still Got To The Story… I tend to get tired on the third day of these challenges, not from the writing, but from the changing of the schedules around to still get everything done. And I got a car-load of stuff out of the house today as well. Not as much on the move as I wanted, but some. One bite at a time will eat this moving elephant, I hope. The Day Got going by around 11 a.m. once again. Then into the office for some stuff there, then off to do errands like mail and banking and such. Then I spent the afternoon and early…
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Day Two of the April Challenge
Amazingly Busy Day… As expected, today, a Monday, got crazy busy in more ways than I had expected. And I had expected a lot, including getting started late with the writing. That happened. The Day Got going by around 11 a.m. and did a bunch of email, then chores around the house here, including taking massive loads of garbage out as I slowly start to work on moving things and tossing other things. I managed to get out of her and to WMG offices around 12:30 and then Allyson followed me 35 miles south to Newport so I could return a rental car I had rented at the Portland airport…
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How To Write Thirty Stories In Thirty Days While Moving
Guess I Need A Cover For This Book… Every story, every book, every challenge starts somewhere. Welcome to the start of this crazy idea of writing thirty short stories in the month of April, 2018, while in the process of packing a house and moving from the Oregon Coast to Las Vegas. You will hear, over the course of this, lots of details about this almost five thousand square foot house overlooking the ocean and on the fourteen hundred square foot condo overlooking downtown Las Vegas. And no worries, WMG Publishing and all the stores are staying right here and so are the workshops, at least for the moment. So…
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Getting Ready To Start The Challenge
Doing All Sorts of Odds and Ends… Mostly I worked to clean up things I was behind on, such as email. And I did some resting as well. So the day was about the focus to get started writing short stories tomorrow. How do I get ready when I have no idea at all what story or stories I will be writing? I won’t even give any idea a thought until I sit down at my writing computer tomorrow. (Even if I did, my memory is so bad I would forget it by then anyway.) Well, I cleaned up my writing desk. That is sort of a signal to me…
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Rolled In After Midnight
So I Am Back On the Coast Until the End of April… Doing workshops, Pulphouse Magazine layout, writing short stories, and packing. A ton of packing. Tomorrow night I’ll talk about my preparation for the short story challenge. Mostly mind-set preparations, since I never plan what I am writing out ahead. So that ends tonight the great cat trip. 26 hour drive, two days of rest and helping them get settled, then a flight back tonight and a drive back to the coast. The cats are safely in the condo in Vegas with Kris and doing as well as could be expected. Now back to writing tomorrow after I get…
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Planning the Impossible
When It Comes to Production… …there are two sides in this modern world. Yesterday I was talking about what might be possible with writing production. But I sure don’t plan on ramping up to a major writing production cycle to have the books and stories sitting in a drawer. Nope, they have to be in Smith’s Monthly and published stand-alone and both those and that magazine takes some real production time and energy at WMG Publishing Inc. (Remember, I am still working at hitting 67 major titles published this year before the middle of November, and that does not count short stories stand alone.) So today I sat down with…
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What Is Possible?
When It Comes to Production… I did a post on streaks, and have shown here that novels in all sorts of locations and challenges are possible. But in a conversation earlier today, I realized that all the challenges I have done with writing lately are time-limited. — Write 30 short stories in thirty days. Check, done twice. — Write a novel in five days while traveling. Check, wrote the book about doing it. — Write four novels in July. Check. All four novels now published. And here I am with over 1700 regular blog posts, a challenge, a streak that is not limited. I have studied a lot of the…
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Some Odds, Some Ends, Some Cool Stuff
Spent the Day Up at WMG Offices Mostly I was doing some recording of coming workshops and such. And I got to play in collectables as well. Including looking for Chevy ads from 1961 newspapers. And going through a bunch of jewelry. And I bought a 1/4 scale Batman Dark Knight Mint in Package. So fun stuff. While I was doing all that on a rainy, cold day on the Oregon Coast, Kris was doing something far, far more important. She was marching in the March for our Lives in Vegas. Here is a picture of her getting ready to go out that she sent me. ———— Femme…