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Story Twenty-four
DAY TWENTY-FOUR… Started off the day working at WMG Publishing and doing all the banking stuff and things like that which is my job as CFO. I also managed to do two covers for the stories of the last two days. Then home to take a nap, cook dinner, and get to the workshops assignments. Got that done around 1 a.m. and headed to watch a little television. Then around 2:30 a.m. I got to my writing computer. I grabbed my half-title sheets and one of the first half titles I saw was “A Lady…” which I am sure came from a mystery magazine. So I kept flipping through titles…
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Story Twenty-Three plus stuff
DAY TWENTY-THREE… Started off the day at the writer’s lunch around 2 p.m. About twelve or so writers and great discussions, since five or six were there from the just-finished science fiction workshop. Great lunch, folks. Great discussions. Thanks! Then I basically took the rest of the day off until around 2:30 a.m. I napped, watched a bunch of television, napped some more. Didn’t even do the cover for the story from yesterday. So two covers to do tomorrow. Then around 2:30 a.m., very groggy, I got to my writing computer. Since last night I did the origin story of Tombstone Dan, one of the two main characters in a…
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Story Twenty-Two
DAY TWENTY-TWO… Science fiction workshop just ended here at the coast tonight. Kris was teaching and I had the pleasure of saying hi before each workshop and by when they were finished in the evening. A great group of writers. And wow did they work hard. I got home around 11 p.m. and went to join Kris, who was in front of the television being a vegetable, which she deserved to be. She read far over a half million words of fiction and assignments this week. So after I watched some television, took a nap, messed around with some e-mail, took another short nap, it was almost 3 a.m. before…
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Story Twenty-One
DAY TWENTY-ONE… Tonight I almost got caught by a beginner’s mistake. Real close, actually. I went to look up a fact and found myself an hour later still playing with research. And it was for nothing I really needed for the story. I just thought it would be cool to look up. Yikes! The worst waste of writing time is research. Not don’t take me wrong, writers often need to research. I am no exception to that and I have fifty or so major research books here in my office, not counting access to our major nonfiction library, not counting the good old Google. But I NEVER research on writing…
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Major New Writing Bundle!
Fantastic Writing Books and Discounts… Wow, Kris has put together one of the most amazing bundles to help writers I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. And AbleGamers is the charity on this bundle, which is one of the best causes I have ever seen. So instead of me going on here about this, let me use Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s words to explain it all and her thinking on how this all went together. Take it away, Kris… ————– The Write Stuff 2017 After a long day at work, consumers want one of two things: they want entertainment or they want escape. Entertaining fiction provides a great escape,…
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Story Twenty
DAY TWENTY… Almost went for two stories tonight. And strangely enough, I started off groggy and not wanting to write anything. But the challenge forced me to the writing computer at around 2 a.m. A good start time for me. I sort of fumbled my way through the half title-sheets, trying to find something that would get my energy going. I spotted one word. “Delightfully.” Now that was fun. Two pages farther in my half-title sheets, I saw the word “Dizzy” and knew I had my title. “Delightfully Dizzy” had to be a Marble Grant story, so I typed that on the subtitle and off I went. I typed in…
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The Magic Bakery: Chapter Five
Chapter Five… I get a lot of questions about pen names and if writers should use pen names in this modern world of publishing. So let me use The Magic Bakery to explain my answer to that question. Now understand, the reason for this book about The Magic Bakery is to help writers understand copyright and the magic power of copyright in this world. But the metaphor of the bakery can help in business logic as well. And in sales. And in promotions. For example, understanding the power of free is clearly illustrated in The Magic Bakery and I will get to that in a later chapter. But for this chapter,…
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Story Nineteen and Some Updates on Challenge
DAY NINETEEN… Turned out to be a fun day today. Most of you don’t know we are having a coast workshop here right now. Fifteen professional writers working with Kris on science fiction. I get to just sort of drift around the edges and talk to them when they appear. Tonight I got to help Kris with a fun assignment. She can really come up with some amazing stuff, as many of you have noted about the assignments in some of the online workshops. (grin) Also, got three people signing up for the short story challenge with me being a first reader. Two for May, one for June. I’m excited about…
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Quick Update to Short Story Challenge
Simple Update and Information… There are two start dates on this. May 2nd as I said originally and June 1st. It means I will be reading stories through July (If anyone decides to take me up on this) but that is fine. Both are 60 day windows to do the challenge. Another note: I will be done with my short story challenge by the first of May and will be starting into writing novels. So I will not be writing short stories at the same time as reading them. Sign Up Information: If you are thinking about this seriously, and think you can write 30 short stories either in one…
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I Opened My Mouth… So Here Is How It Could Work
A CHALLENGE… A few nights ago I mentioned that if anyone wanted to take up a story-a-day for thirty days, I could be their first reader for a price. Yup, said that. Now I understand how really difficult on so many levels this challenge is. This is the second time I have done it and over the years hope to do one in every month of the year. Over different years, of course. Like the first one was in July and got the book Stories from July. This one will be a book called Stories from April. The stories will also be in Smith’s Monthly, in collections, and published stand-alone.…