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Wrap Up and Start New
STARTING FRESH… The few of you who jumped into the May short story challenge are starting up. Remember to have fun. Still two spots open if anyone wants me to read their short stories. And a number of spots open in the novel challenge starting in June. Information on both the short story challenge and the novel challenge with me as a first reader is below. I finished my challenge last night of 30 short stories in 30 days and the final cover is done below. After I finish the next chapter of the Magic Bakery, I’ll do the blurbs for those stories and post them in one blog. Later in…
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Challenge Hit!! 30 Stories in 30 Days
DAY THIRTY… Challenge Hit!! Stories from April all done. Wow, feels great to be honest. April turned out to be the worst month I could have tried this and yet I managed to do it by just chugging right along. One story at a time. That really was the key. The last story was one more Marble Grant story. 12 of the 30 are Marble Grant and I didn’t even have that character or realize she existed until the 9th story in the challenge. The story tonight is called “Obvious Creeper” from two story-title halves slammed together. Turned out I wrote it in two sessions with a short break. 2,200 words. Tomorrow…
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Reminder About the Strengths Workshops
THE FULL SERIES IS RECORDED AND AVAILABLE… All six of the Strengths Workshops now exist. And they are still available for a short time. If you ever wished a major professional writer would tell you what you are doing right and where you need work, now is your chance. And not just one, but two of us. Kris and I have been making our living in fiction and publishing now for over thirty years each. We have also started two mid-sized publishing companies over the years. And both of us have over twenty million copies of our books in print and have been on every major bestseller list. Kris and I…
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Story Twenty-Nine
DAY TWENTY-NINE… Almost there. One more day and Stories from April will be done. And once again Marble Grant caught my attention. I was working on workshop stuff and I got an image of a man sitting in a hallway in a hotel in Vegas. Now I never start any story with an image but went over and typed it in and low-and-behold, there was Marble Grant again. So 11 stories of hers. Maybe I should do just one more tomorrow and have an entire year of Smith’s Monthly start with her stories. We shall see tomorrow night. Took me two hours of actual writing with an hour in the…
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Story Twenty-Eight
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT… Tonight I finished the 10th Marble Grant story. I came up with Marble Grant in story #9, “Blind Date” which was her origin story, the story she gets killed in. Then I wrote the origin story of her partner and lover, Sims, another female ghost agent. That was in the story “That Old Tingling.” Tonight, after a late start and being tired, Marble Grant finally dealt with a serious issue in her 10th story. 3,100 words in three sessions. Story is titled “Lost Time.” Now I have one Marble Grant story for the next ten issues of Smith’s Monthly. A character no one but Kris has read and…
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A Novel Challenge
A CHALLENGE… Over the last week or so since I announced the short story challenge, I have gotten numbers of questions about doing something similar for novels. Being a first reader for novels in a workshop challenge format. Now honestly, at first I just laughed. I flat didn’t do that sort of thing for anyone. But I got a few more requests and got thinking about it and talked with Kris. She is really enjoying reading my new short story every day and thinks if I structured reading novels for the summer in a workshop challenge, I might enjoy it. And if I limited it. Really, really limited it. After…
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Story Twenty-Seven in Twenty-Seven Days
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN… In my continuing quest to get ten Marble Grant stories, a brand new character who didn’t exist for me three weeks ago, I wrote another Marble Grant story tonight. That’s nine now. One more and I will have a Marble Grant story opening the next ten issues of Smith’s Monthly. And tonight I actually started with the cover image, since the branding on these stories is so clear and I am using the same artist for all of them. Now I have written entire novels from a cover (Jonathan Frakes novel Abductors is one.) And numbers of short stories, so not unusual, but not normal either. Then, with the…
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Story Twenty-Six
DAY TWENTY-SIX… As I said last night, on my wall here in the office is a breakdown of the Smith’s Monthly issues I am working on. Ten issues ahead. I have started to put some of that on the widget to the side of the posts, and will update all that in a week. Patreon folks and subscribers, you will be getting ten issues over the next five months as I get caught up. (grin) For three years I tried to start off most issues with a Poker Boy story, but have only written one and have two others. So for the ten issues on the board that will come out as…
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Story Twenty-five
DAY TWENTY-FIVE… Humming along just fine now. Might actually make this challenge, which considering this month, is a flat miracle. We shall see in five days. Today I worked at WMG and did some walking as well. Got four miles in today, slowly ramping that up for the first of May as well. Going back to five miles per day minimum and adding in running again. Going to make another push toward a marathon again. Then I came home to cook dinner, take a nap, and watch some of The Voice from last night. Then around 2:30 a.m. finally got everything done with workshop stuff and got to my writing…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Six
Chapter Six… I get questions all the time about free. Should an author put up their book for free? How about their first book in a series? Does leaving something up for free forever work? Interestingly enough, The Magic Bakery works perfectly to illustrate the answer to these questions so writers can decide for themselves. All I’m going to be talking about in this chapter is basic, standard-retail sales practices. I won’t tell you one thing new in the world. You can see some of these practices working every day from grocery stories to music stores. But explaining these practices to authors who do not understand basic sales of retail has…