-
Goodbye Miss Thang
Miss Thang The very sick elderly cat we have been trying to get back to health for the last two months didn’t make it. More on all that below. ——- The Day Started the day off with a visit to the vet. Then back to WMG store for the writer’s meeting and lunch in the back area. It feels sort of strange, actually, to have a writer’s meeting in a store I own. In my first bookstore, both the science fiction club and the writer’s workshop met in my store every week. One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. That was in 1982-1984. Things go around and come around again in…
-
Day 1,000
Day 1,000 Now ain’t that a kick? 1,000 days of writing this blog without missing a day. 95 more days before it becomes three years of counting. Now that’s a streak. I’ve talked about the power of streaks, but going to do so again in the topic below. ——- The Day Got to the office around 2 p.m. and then went off and did errands, then walked with two other writers, getting back to the store around five. I worked until about 7 p.m. in the new store, then home to cook dinner. Then assignments, getting that done around 11 p.m. and taking a nap before going to watch some…
-
Author Earnings Report
AUTHOR EARNINGS REPORT Today a new Author Earnings report came out form Hugh Howey and Data Guy. Normally these reports are amazing, especially watching the trends from quarter to quarter over the last year plus. But this time they went even farther. They got 82% of all books sold in paper, audio, and ebook on Amazon. And they talked a lot about the dark matter, the huge area of books that sell very, very few copies yet make up a lot of the volume on Amazon. This report is a stunner. Take your time and read it. I’ll give a few of my opinions below in the topic of the…
-
Some of My History
Some of My History Today, while working on a new project for this web site (see the topic of the night below), I came across a video of what it was like when I was skiing. Now, I was never as good as the guys they are showing here, but I skied with some of them regularly. And a number of others who were in the early days of the hotdogging, as we called it. I was into snow skiing and the fun of the early days of hotdogging from 1969 to the spring of 1972. Crazy fun. In person, I can tell you some wild stories. But watching this…
-
Clean Copy
Clean Copy Tonight I was running through The Idanha Hotel to put in the corrections Kris had found on her read, at least the ones I agreed with. That was the book I wrote in seven days last week, remember? Well, this time through I agreed with all of her corrections, mostly just typos, and what was even more interesting, this was the cleanest manuscript I have had in a very long time. I normally do clean copy in my one draft, but this was noticeably cleaner. Kris only found about one typo every six or seven manuscript pages, and sometimes there would be no typos in numbers of chapters.…
-
Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Epilogue
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Epilogue The Challenge Was Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Looking Back The Writing of The Idanha Hotel: A Thunder Mountain Novel Day 1… 3,700 words. Total words so far… 3,700 words. Day 2… 5,100 words. Total words so far… 8,800 words. Day 3… 5,600 words. Total words so far… 14,400 words. Day 4… 6,050 words. Total words so far… 20,450 words. Day 5… 7,500 words. Total words so far……
-
Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Ten
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Ten: Day Seven The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Seven (9,000 word day) Got the book done!!!! The goal today was at 9,000 words and needed to be the focus of my day because I had no idea how many words I would actually need to end this book. I had 3,000 words in the bank, so that helped the worry some. Counting 3,000 words for…
-
Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Eight
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Eight: Day Five The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Five (7,000 word day) Once again made my goal for the night. I paid a ton more attention to the challenge today than I did yesterday. Seven thousand words is a serious number of words in one day and I gave the writing of that much the respect it needed to make it happen. Counting 3,000 words for Day…
-
Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Seven
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Seven: Day Four The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Four Once again made my goal for the night. Barely. And wow was this a ton harder than yesterday. The next three days ought to be very interesting, to say the least. Counting 3,000 words for Day One and 4,000 words for Day Two, 5,000 words for Day Three, and 6,000 words for Day Four, I needed…
-
Time of Great Forgetting
Time of Great Forgetting From the looks of how the April workshops sign-ups are going, we are entering into the time of great forgetting for writers just slightly ahead of time. The Time of Great Forgetting is when the year-end resolutions for writers are long forgotten and the weather is getting better. Usually this forgetting time for writers without a full-year focus doesn’t start until late April and then runs through until the middle of July. I always find it interesting that I am ramping up as other writers are just sort of drifting away. But I am a professional year-round writer. I have my bad months, sure, but I never stop…