• Challenge,  workshops

    Killing Critical Voice Workshop

    Now Available!!! After that incredible response yesterday, and a ton of letters from people, all 100% wanting the new Killing Critical Voice workshop, Kris and I spent some time on it and it is now available. Thank you all for the feedback!! Like Writing with Depth workshop, and the Publishing 101 workshop, Killing Critical Voice workshop will be available every month. First one starts on June 3rd, next week. As we got this together, I was very surprised we hadn’t offered this one before. Sort of a well-duh kind of thing. And I warned in the introduction video, this might hurt a little for some people as I hit at…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Controlling Critical Voice

    After Yesterday’s Post… I got a couple of questions about how I control my critical voice when I do so much teaching, which is automatically generated from critical voice. A couple things first. If I ever stopped writing for anything past a short life roll, I would stop teaching at that same moment. Sadly, a couple of my mentors became nothing but teachers and never really wrote again. I lost respect for them, to be honest. Second, I do the teaching to keep learning. When a workshop becomes boring to me, and I can’t learn from it, it goes to classic status or vanishes. Why Kris and I are always…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Critical Voice Kills Take Two

    I Wrote This As a Comment Response Yesterday… So thought it would be good to clean up my comment, expand a little and put here so more people see it. It is on the topic of critical voice shutting off your enjoyment of other author’s work.  It is a matter of taste. Read the last post before reading this. When a book kicks you from the story, it is your taste, not the author’s fault. Always the case. What that author did is simply not to your taste, even if a craft thing. Why does that happen with craft? Because we writers have one way of writing something. When you…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Critical Voice Kills Everything

    Including Your Own Enjoyment of Reading (and Watching Movies)… For some reason, early on, writers think they must start being critical about all sorts of things. Books they don’t like because they are not to their taste, certain types of movies, the wrong use of one thing or another in a story by another author. This is the critical voice, the very thing that works to stop you from writing. And also makes you believe that everything you do must be perfect, therefore you must outline and rewrite and not put something out anywhere until it has been polished to a shine. The job of the critical voice is to…

  • On Writing,  publishing

    Beating Critical Voice For Fiction Writers

    More Than Likely That is Not the Title… But you get the idea. I’m going to start a series of posts here that will turn into a short book at some point about the fight we all wage against Critical Voice (with echoes and dread horror/slasher/music.) And I hope to give a bunch of advice on how to beat back critical voice as well and get the fun back into your writing. So here with go with a short introduction first. Then I’ll go from there over the next weeks. I have sixty-seven books to put out this year. This will be one of them. But I want to write…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Creative Voice Having Fun

    Watching Two-Year-Old-Kids Kris and I always talk about the creative voice being a very, very smart two-year-old kid that knows a ton more about writing than your front critical voice will ever learn. Problem is the front voice doesn’t allow the creative voice to play, set it loose. Lots of reasons for that. So tonight, while I was over at Resorts World Casino, walking, I got to witness twice the creative voice at play in real-world dramatic fashion. (And yes, my 5-mile-per-day streak is still going and at 8 days now. Some running. But tonight, because of the heat, I just went to the mega resort of Resorts World and…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Dangers of Not Trusting The Creative Voice

    Things Stop When You Lose Faith In The Creative Voice… I watch this loss all the time and hear about it from hundreds of writers over every year. Not trusting your creative voice is deadly. This came up a couple days ago when I talked about writing clean first draft work by cycling. And how that keeps the creative voice in control and eliminates the need for a critical-voice second or third draft. Got some great excuses. Fun to read. I just sort of felt sad, actually, because that’s like knowing when a person will die. I can see, over forty years, exactly how long it will take some of…

  • Challenge,  On Writing

    Pulp Speed Post is Back!

    About a Year Since I Last Posted This… I wanted to bring this back again because I also just brought back for May (one month only) the Reaching Pulp Speed regular workshop. (Those of you with lifetime workshop or Everything subscriptions, write me for the May code.) I am also working back to Pulp Speed and above after my last two life events with the eyes and then the arm. So figured I could use it again as well. (grin) (I wrote this post around 2014, then brought it forward to 2016, then 2017, and just about every year or so since, skipping 2022.) Not at all sure why this…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    These Workshops Have Started…

    A Number of Classes Starting Up… These classes started yesterday or today on Teachable. Special Writing Twists (2nd Session… Only available through the Kickstarter) Special Writing Real-World Dark Fantasy (2nd Session… Only available through the Kickstarter) Second quarter of Creative Survival Second quarter of Motivational Monday #32… Apr 2nd… Heinlein’s Rules (this month only) #34… Apr 2nd… Writing into the Dark #35… Apr 2nd… Teams in Fiction #36… Apr 3rd… Writing with Depth (start with this one) #37… Apr 3rd… Applied Depth (this month only) #38… Apr 3rd… Advanced Depth #40… Apr 3rd… Killing the Critical Voice If interested, go to Teachable and hit see all classes and scroll until…

  • Challenge,  workshops

    April Regular Workshops…

    Two Extra For Only This Month… For just this month, Heinlein’s Rules and Applied Depth are back as Regular workshops, meaning I will respond to assignments sent in on them. Only for April!! If you have a lifetime workshop and want to have assignments, just write me and I will get you the code to get into the April classes. Here is the April list of Regular Workshops and their start dates… #32… Apr 2nd… Heinlein’s Rules (this month only) #34… Apr 2nd… Writing into the Dark #35… Apr 2nd… Teams in Fiction #36… Apr 3rd… Writing with Depth (start with this one) #37… Apr 3rd… Applied Depth (this month…