• Cave Creek,  Challenge,  Writing in Public

    What Is Writing In Public?

    Got That Question Twice Today… Because I mentioned it when talking about writing the first Cave Creek novel. So even though I will show this and talk about it later this week when I start the novel, here is what I mean. I have, over time, basically did a chronicle here of my day, most of the details, and how much writing I got on a certain project. I did that when I wrote the novel in five days while traveling, and that is the name of the book that came out of the blog posts. And I started the practice when I wrote a novel in ten days as…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Off the Ground and Flying

    The Challenge Has Started… A fun first day today. I was clearly ready to get going. And interestingly enough, so was WMG Publishing. So on the very first day of the challenger I had a novel published. One of the ones I wrote back in July, but now it is out. You can find the book at https://www.wmgpublishinginc.com/project/death-takes-a-diamond/ It just published today so it might be a little slow getting out to all sites. But that has the links there that are available. 1 down, 66 to go. Short Story Challenge… Here is how my day went… Rolled out around 1 p.m. and by 2:30 p.m. I was at the…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Change of Format Again

    Change of Format Again… Okay, I tried the other form for an entire week and honestly, some of it worked and some of it didn’t work for me and some of it didn’t work for numbers of others. Got a few comments, but mostly private e-mails saying people liked the new form on the main page and they liked being able to forward and tweet posts, but not the form having to go to another page to see the counts. So going to leave the new form on the front page. All good there. And going to keep doing posts that are not cluttered so people can share them with ease…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Regaining Focus

    Topic of the Night: Regaining Focus Last night I talked about focus, how times and outside events sometimes cause us to lose focus in our writing. How do you get the focus back on writing besides the simple answer “Slowly?” That answer helps no one, really. So let me give a few ideas on how to regain focus, or at least how I have done it at times. How I have brought back up writing on my priority list over the years when the world is tossing in far too many things. Look at Overall Goals Sometimes losing focus can be not only caused by other things in life taking…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing

    Started New Novel

    Started New Novel I didn’t get very far because, to be honest, just didn’t feel much like doing anything tonight. But got it started, so maybe tomorrow I will get going. It will be the second novel in the Seeders Universe in a row. This one will be called Starburst.  Otherwise, a day of meetings and got my walking in and cooked dinner and watched far too much television. And I did a bunch of workshop stuff as well. October Workshops Click the workshop tab above for description and sign-up or go to www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com. Questions about any of the workshops, feel free to write me. All have openings. And wow, this is a…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Finished Novel Challenge

    Finished The Novel Challenge Took ten days, but all done. Right at 40,000 words finished, around 44,000 words written. Kris has already read the first 32,000 words and likes it, so she will finish it tomorrow, I will run over any corrections she finds, and have it in to WMG before Monday morning. It will have a quick copyedit and then get launched for the bundle starting on September 15th. So all good. Today I got my 10,000 steps in, cooked dinner, had a nap, worked on workshop stuff at WMG for about three hours, and wrote about 3,200 words in just over three hours of writing. Fun day. —— Day…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Day Six: Novel Challenge

    Day Six: Novel Challenge Looking more and more likely this novel challenge will be eight days instead of seven. Again today just not enough time in the day and not enough power in these old eyes to deal with too many computer hours. But as I said to the writers I was walking with this afternoon, isn’t it a weird perspective when a 4,200 word day was a failure? (grin) So anyhow, today I did a ton of running around after getting out of here around 2:30 and managed to get to some exercise with the guys around 4 p.m. Made my 10,000 steps easily today. Then did some grocery…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Writing in Public

    Day Five: Novel Challenge

    Day Five: Novel Challenge As I have been saying, this challenge this time is nothing at all like the first time I did this. And as I expected, I missed my word count today. Just not enough time in the day and energy in the old body to make it. But still two more days to go on this, so we’ll see how it ends up. Worst thing that could happen is that I need an 8th day to finish. Anyway, last night I got only just over five hours sleep because I needed to be up and to the WMG Publishing offices and store by 12:30 p.m. From around 1…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  Writing in Public

    Novel Finished

    Novel Finished Yup, finished the second novel of the month. Of course, the last one I started last month, but got this one done in ten days. ——- The Day I paid no attention to the day today, honestly. Got home from being out doing errands around 5:30 p.m. and I worked, off and on, until 4:30 a.m. on finishing the novel. Mostly on. I wrote about 7,100 total words and cut out about fifteen hundred total, which isn’t bad for me. Book came in just under 40,000 words. The Taft Ranch: A Thunder Mountain Novel will be in Smith’s Monthly #33. I will be turning in the issue to WMG,…

  • Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  Topic of the Night,  workshops,  Writing in Public

    Some New Workshop Ideas

    New Workshop Ideas After meetings this afternoon, Kris and I headed over to the valley to do some shopping, have dinner and see a movie. On the way back we got talking about ideas for new workshops. See topic of the night below on a few of them. ——- The Day WMG Publishing meeting at 2 p.m. and then around 4 p.m. Kris and I headed for the valley. We live on the Oregon Coast, so at times we go into the Wallamette Valley to just get away. So we did some shopping, had diner and saw a movie. Got home around 12 p.m. and I did a little e-mail,…