The 67 Challenge: Book One
Going Fine So Far…
Some of you might remember that back toward the end of October I set up a challenge for myself for my 67th year. I am 67 years old and decided I wanted to try to publish my age.
Golfers try to shoot their age, so I figured why not?
The rules I put on myself were basically counting books the same way as Asimov counted his books. If my name was on the cover and I did a bunch of work for that, it counted. I excluded short stories because I could publish well over 6o of those per year without pushing. So these books had to be major books.
So on November 10th I started focusing on The 67 and working with WMG on scheduling and such. The 67 Challenge will run to November 9th of this year. That means I have to have everything turned into WMG no later than early October for the book to get published.
So on November 12th the first book in the challenge was published. A novel called Death Takes a Diamond. It is from my Mary Jo Assassin series. They all stand alone. Link for information and how to buy it right here.
I will have a list on the sidebar of all the books in the challenge as this gets up and going a little more. I waited until now to start doing a video for each one. If this works, I will have 67 videos up on YouTube by November 9th.
And I will post them all here as well.
As of today I have had 8 books published. The challenge is off to a decent start.
Here is the first one of The 67. One down, 66 to go.
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January and February Online Workshops Are Now Up on Teachable.
I sent out all letters this weekend to everyone signed up for a January Regular Workshop through me. If you signed up directly on Teachable, no reason for a letter.
All first week videos are now available.
If you have credits from the Kickstarter, you need to write me to sign up. You can also sign up through me and use Paypal just like normal. Or you can go directly to Teachable and sign up there for any workshop using either Paypal or a credit card.
To see all the courses, just hit the link at the top of the Teachable page that says “All Courses” and it will show you all the lectures and workshops available.
Class #1… Jan 2nd … Depth #3: Research
Class #2… Jan 2nd … Author Voice
Class #3… Jan 2nd … Business
Class #4… Jan 2nd … Writing into the Dark
Class #5… Jan 2nd … Writing Fiction Sales Copy
Class #6… Jan 2nd … Think Like a Publisher
Class #7… Jan 3rd … Depth in Writing
Class #8… Jan 3rd … Advanced Character and Dialog
Class #9… Jan 3rd … (empty)
Class #10… Jan 3rd … Pacing Your Novel
Class #11… Jan 3rd … Novel Structure
Class #12… Jan 3rd … Writing Fantasy
Class #13… Feb 6th … Think Like a Publisher
Class #14… Feb 6th … Endings
Class #15… Feb 6th … Point of View
Class #16… Feb 6th … Writing Mysteries
Class #17… Feb 6th … Speed
Class #18… Feb 6th … Teams in Fiction
Class #19… Feb 7th … Depth in Writing
Class #20… Feb 7th … How to Edit Your Own Work
Class #21… Feb 7th … Character Development
Class #22… Feb 7th … Writing Secondary Plot Lines
Class #23… Feb 7th … Advanced Depth
Class #24… Feb 7th … Novel Structure
Full information about any workshop or March and April schedule is under Online Workshops on the sidebar.
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4 Comments
Dustin Hurley
Dean, just wanted to tell you I just bought and read “Writing Into the Dark”. Loved, loved , loved it. Deceptively simple stuff, but life-changing, practical advice. Thanks so much for this. This is “the” book for me as a writer. If anyone wants to fall back in love with the writing process, I suggest getting this book. Hint— love to have this as an audiobook. It would be blaring in my ears all the time. A BIG Thank You!
dwsmith
Thanks, Dustin. Glad it helped get the fun back into writing. Appreciated.
D J Mills
Dustin, Dean’s Online Lecture “Writing Into The Dark” was excellent, too. 🙂
Dustin Hurley
Love to do it. As soon as I can! I’ve actually written into the dark all my life – at least, since I was a young boy and my mom got me a typewriter. I got pretty good at beginnings, but the critical voice would come in and I’d wad it up and throw it in the wastebasket. I would simply give up. As for outlining, I never considered it. I simply hated the idea of writing without discovering the story as I went. Nothing wrong if you outline, it just wasn’t for me. My problem wasn’t the method, it was the critical voice. Many, many stories were left unfinished due to this ruthless killer. Now I’m beating the sneaky sucker one word at a time, one sentence at a time, and enjoying myself immensely. I’m writing stuff I could never have planned in advance. For me, it’s the only way. And I’m loving it.