About fifteen years ago playing racquetball, I had my first dreadful experience of sciatica, which left me unable to move for weeks. That was the impetus to discover yoga, which has been a blessing in my life. I haven’t played racquetball since. Until yesterday when I discovered that I still enjoyed it and that it still…
Month: December 2019
Practice and Writers of the Future
Yesterday I turned in the final short story of 2019, “Shipwreck on the Flaming River.” Set in my Argosy universe, the story begins in the Temple of Isis in Alexandria and features a new Argosy character, Thaddeus. A rough Greek who specializes in stripping shipwrecks of their valuables he is surprised to be summoned to…
New Life Anniversary
When one of my coworkers died in her chair, I realized that it could be me and I would never have pursued what I truly wanted to do: write. This week is my three-year anniversary of leaving my job to pursue writing. It was a very good job working with people I truly liked, and…
2019’s Best Writing/Publishing Education
Is there a book or a story you want to write in 2020 but aren’t sure how to approach the whole writing/publishing jazz? Here is my list of my favorite teachers and sites from 2019. I didn’t cover books, but I may write about that in a future blog post. Please be aware that your…
People Like Us…
I’ve come to realize that when it comes to a choice between a carrot and a stick, I work better for carrots. In fact, if you give me the carrots, I’m pretty much guaranteed to respond to the bribe. Sticks, though, not so much. Do with me what you will. I won’t respond. Today I’m writing…
Planning the Year of Publication
Yesterday we dived into 2020’s intensive planning, looking at how our Year of Publication will break out. 2020 is more complex to manage than 2019 was. I found 2019 challenging because I had to learn quite a bit to write a good short story and then I had to write a story a week. (I…
A Quiet Day of Planning
About a week ago I wrote up my tips for writing a story a week. Now, in response to a Dean Wesley Smith post about people dropping out of the Great Challenge a bunch of my fellows who are writing a short story a week have chimed in with their tips on how to make…
Wisdom in the Cracks
Today is my first workout of 2020. Yes, I know that it is still 2019, but every good project has a prototype that you can tweak and improve before it is due. So let’s call today my first prototype workout. 2020 is filled with ambitious plans, including writing, publishing, coming back to fitness and losing…
Story Numbers
Next week I’ll post the list of stories I’ve written this year and my finalized plans for 2020. Right now I am at 39 stories for the year having sent the latest story to Dean last night. I’ll end the year with 40 stories written in 2019, which is exactly my goal for the year….
Fitness Conundrum
I wrote a lot this last year. I participated in a lot of writing events. I made a lot of art. And I gained a lot of weight. it turns out that writing about people burning calories doesn’t translate into a calorie burn for the writer. I’m working on a fitness plan for next year….