But There Are Details To Learn… Watching The Voice and in a couple places, the coaches told an artist to do some little trick or another. Watch having your head up too much, plant your feet to stay grounded, things like that to help in the technique of the song. It dawned on me that earlier in the evening I had been doing the same thing in some writer’s assignments. Things like watching information flow in descriptions, when to use character descriptions of clothes, when not to use dialog, and so on. All just techniques that are small and obvious once you understand them, yet as Kris said, each of…

I Got a Question… The question was basically how did I handle things like moves and sickness and other life rolls when I had book contracts. Good question, since for a few days right now I am deciding to not write as I get things switched around. I am going to put much of my answer here expanded some. I want to be clear that with traditional contracts and deadlines, I never missed a deadline in over a 100 novels. Not a one. And I thought writers who did miss contract deadlines to be problem writers. And as a ghost writer, I often wrote books for publishers because some famous…

Takes Planning To Get Back To Writing… When life turns and decides you are just not going to write for a short time, I learned a long time ago to not fight it. All that does is make the writing miserable and also you will lose in the end. So here I am with a challenge to do 67 published titles this year and to do that I will need to get back writing solidly by the end of the month. So Kris and I tonight spent some time working on planning how I will get back. I think I have a plan that will work, but it will depend…

Not Writing at the Moment… If you were coming to see progress, none to report, but that might change shortly and I’ll get back at it. And get back to reporting and talking about different aspects of writing and publishing. But for just a quick moment, I need to point out that sometimes life just doesn’t allow writing to happen. And I can write in 15 minute bits of time without a problem, but not even that much time for me at the moment. Sometimes the stuff that stops you from writing is bad stuff, or bad health stuff. Never fun. And if that happens, try your best to not…

Allyson Did An Ad… I saw a nifty ad that Allyson did for storybundle.com for The Femme Fatale bundle. And just had to post it here. Award-winning mystery writer O’Neil De Noux curated this bundle and has some amazing novels and writers in this one. Libby Fisher Hellman, Lawrence Block, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, to name just three major writers. And trust me, The Perfect Man by Kris is unlike any book you have ever read. And no way to ever go wrong with Grandmaster Lawrence Block. Now add in major mystery writers like Thomas Pluck and Julie Smith and this is a home run of a bundle. Wait! There…

Now solved… But I was late getting assignments back on the first day of the Pop-Up Weekender workshops. I should be fine tomorrow, but sorry for the delay tonight. And I am still stunned I am in the mystery bundle I talked about last night. Give it a look. No time tonight to write on anything, and I’m so tired after all the fun on the email, I’m going to cut this short as well. At least the blogging streak continues.    

And I Still Got a Little Writing Done… Which I find stunning. I was hoping to have the Marble Grant novel done tonight, but not going to make it, so going to switch to another book for the next ten days, then come back to Marble Grant. I will explain my reasons as I go along. Today was a day of running around, a ton of errands, meetings, then finishing up some workshop stuff on the March Pop-Up Weekender workshops that start this Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. Then finished up the February regular workshop assignments and the first week of the March regular workshop assignments, then watched an hour…

Yes, Not Even Two Weeks Ago… Fantastic writer and now editor, Ron Collins has decided to take a look at the very whacked-out Anthology Workshop we do every year. And this year we just finished it not even two weeks ago. This year he and his wonderful daughter, Brigid, were co-editing a volume of Fiction River. And they did great and it was great fun having them in the mix. Ron has also attended as a writer for about six years and Brigid for three or four at least. So they had an idea what they were walking into. Sort of. It is always different on the editor side of…

LAUGHED MYSELF TO THE WRITING COMPUTER… I found myself tonight in one of those myth areas that just kill many beginning writers and some professional writers at times. Here is how it goes… (I bet a bunch of you will understand and recognize this one. (grin)) I got jammed with all sorts of things today and ended up at WMG offices until 2 a.m. tonight working on stuff. So got home, rested for a short time, then came in here and did assignments and cleaned up my email and such. Worked with Kris some before she went to bed on the plans for tomorrow, and made sure I had my…