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Busy, Busy Sunday
Meetings, Cats, Workshops, Challenges, and some Writing… Yup, all of that. And more. Writer’s meeting at 2 p.m. up at WMG. I unloaded the car full of stuff I got yesterday in the valley picking. Then Kris and I left the meeting early and managed to catch the wild Gavin in enough time to make a vet appointment. Both cats are in good shape. Then I finished some workshop work up at the office, cooked dinner at home, and went to work on e-mail and challenges. So everyone who is in the June short story challenge or the summer novel challenge should have a letter from me. If not, write…
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And Then There Were Four
Five Cats To Four… One of our new additions from three days ago had to return to the rescue shelter. It seems that little Cloe (They called her Killer.) had a pretty solid hatred for other cats. (The shelter folks would have had no way of knowing that.) She was a sweetheart, sat on our laps, but growled at any other cat and then after two days started attacking the other two cats. Oh, oh. Since we have the two old boys upstairs that she hadn’t met yet, it was only going to get worse, so we checked around with a few friends who didn’t have a cat and then…
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A Standard Friday Night With Three New Cats
Read and Sort of Rested… Got most of my half-mile of running in this afternoon when my knee started hurting and I stopped. I have really bad knees from all the years in sports, so I listen when they tell me enough. I’ll rest it a day or two and go back. I still walked two miles on it and ran across the highway without it hurting, but a few twinges on the stairs tonight. Got to get the weight down before the distance comes up too much or I will have more trouble with the knees. Nature of the beast. Then did a bunch of workshop stuff and cooked…
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Deadlines
I Had A Deadline… Plus a number of the specials deadlines are about to expire. I hit my deadline, but for the third night in a row I didn’t get to do any short story reading. This weekend I sure will get caught up, which will be fun. And I didn’t do any writing either besides nonfiction writing for the deadline. I hope to finish the novel this weekend. I also hit my quarter mile run today, plus a total of five miles milage. Tomorrow a half mile. I stayed at my lower level this second progression because the first time through turned out to be so tough. No point…
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Time Crunched…
That Describes the Day… What little free time I had today went to watching The Voice final. Stunning music. Also had a fun hour plus in the store I hadn’t intended to have. I had planned on working with Josh and Dan for a short time to get an area set up to start working on a massive project. But then this nice guy came in, a collector who knew my old friend Bill. Josh and I got talking with him and he ended up buying two boxes of some L. Ron Hubbard leather books we had in the back warehouse. By the time that was finished, Josh was way…
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Running, Workshops, and Writing
And Pretty Much in That Order… Got out of the house late and then had to run errands. Two banks and both of our stores. Then I spent an hour, with Kris’s help, getting myself so I could get some music over my bluetooth headphones from my phone. Then I headed to do my short run, which trust me, did not feel short or quick, even though it was only three-quarters of a mile. I made it, but it was not a pretty sight. Problem is I don’t have a pace or breathing down yet, so my pace was just under a 9 minute pace, way too fast to be…
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A Response Letter…
To Any Writer Struggling With Ego… Have you ever listened to a kid tell a story? They can just go on and on making stuff up and they sure don’t need an ego to tell a story. And writing a story is just a learned skill, not something that takes an ego. As I have said in a number of workshops and lectures, I am convinced all of my stories suck. And I honestly don’t care because even if I write a story that doesn’t work, who cares? I did the best that I could and to me that is all that matters. If I had ego in thinking every story needed…
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Started Running Finally
Not Much in Distance, But a Start… Like every book or story, you have to start with a first line, a first word. Today, finally, I figured out how to motivate myself enough on the running to get the goals I want done. And interestingly enough, it is a twisted gambling structure that helped me get started. Now, for the folks who love to toss money away in casinos, yet feel they are winning, there are gambling systems. A Martingale is one. (Really silly.) Another is a simple Positive Progressive Betting System. All that one does is give some structure to betting and make a gambler feel lucky at times…
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Great Writer’s Meeting Tonight
23 Professional Writers Talking Business… Once every six weeks or so we have a gathering up at the WMG Publishing offices of the professional writers in the Pacific Northwest that can make it. 3 hours of nothing but business. You get 23 pros in the room like that, all focused, and it is great fun. Topics ranged all over the map tonight, from a fantastic reader survey to Hollywood to Book Pricing to Ads, and on and on. I took notes. Lots of notes. Thanks everyone, for a fantastic and learning evening. —————- JUNE ONLINE WORKSHOPS… All have openings at the moment. Information at www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com Any questions at all, feel free…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine… Beyond Next Year. As I said last chapter, it has been my observation that most writers never look more than a year out, if that. And that lack of being able to see five years and ten years and fifty years into the future causes all sorts of really bad decisions. Now, I wish I could say I had been an exception to this in my first few decades or so in publishing. Nope. Kris was a bunch better at looking long term and making decisions based on that vision. But I wasn’t. And wow did I make some boneheaded mistakes because of that lack of vision. So now…