Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Daily Journal, Friday, January 11

Hey Folks, You’ll notice above it says The Daily Journal. That’s right. I have a new goal. The goal is to make this a truly “daily” journal again. That will ensure I write something every day, even when it’s only this little Journal. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride. Or continue the ride. You know, whatever. (grin) The last time I missed a day was back on October 12, 2018. (Closer than I remembered.) So the plan is not to do that anymore. *** I started the day with a marketing effort. … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, January 10

Hey Folks, Wow. I rolled out at 3:45 after the first really good night’s sleep I’ve had in a while. Almost 9 hours. (grin) I breezed through the stuff in the “Of Interest” section (a GREAT section today, by the way), then took a short break, and I’m turning to the novel at 5. Topic: Some Special Book Deals I interrupt our regularly scheduled topics to offer you, my readers, a special deal on some brand-new books. (grin) Yesterday I got everything finalized for Blackwell Ops: Jack Tilden (action-adventure thriller novel) and got it up for pre-publication sale. It’s scheduled … Read more

The Journal, Monday, January 7

Hey Folks, A fairly short Journal entry today. I’m sure you’re relieved after the past few days. (grin) Wow, what a day. A dear friend asked yesterday for a copy of a short story I wrote a couple of years ago titled “Ila and the Piñon Tree.” She wanted to review it for me. So I sent it to her. This morning, she emailed to say some of the text was missing. She was right. What made it even worse is that this edition also contained the Spanish translation by the editor of EstePaís magazine. After about a 20-minute search … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, January 3

Hey Folks, Today’s “Of Interest” is long and loaded with great links. I encourage you to read them. You’ll learn a ton. I considered pasting an excerpt of Kris Rusch’s post on Pricing here, but I decided against it. All you have to do is click the second link below and you’ll get the whole thing. And it’s good. To see what I was going to paste, scroll down to “Here’s [sic] the other things you need to do on setting the right price”. *** Whether or not you decide to use BookFunnel (mentioned recently by Kris Rusch), for some … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, January 1

Hey Folks, Be patient. There’s a LOT in today’s Journal and in the “Of Interest” section. I hope you will find most of it entertaining and/or useful. Happy new year, everybody! May we all have a year filled with peace and good health. I don’t mention prosperity because, after all, we really can’t take it with us. My strongest personal urge is to live as long as I can and leave a legacy of sorts. As they say down south, can I get a big “Hell yeah!”? Like so many, I’m personally glad 2018 is behind us. Without belaboring the … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, December 27

Hey Folks, I got into a short email discussion with a fellow novelist who also writes off into the dark. The upshot was, he wondered whether maybe — when a character does something that’s unexpected and out of character — it’s all right or even necessary to create a history for that character that would explain the unexpected action, a kind of character sketch (my term, not his). I decided to copy my response here as a topic. Topic: Writing Into the Dark, Take 2 I did a post on Writing Off Into the Dark over on the Pro Writers … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, December 20

Hey Folks, Very strange goings on here at the Stanbrough Camp for Odd People. Two days ago, I didn’t write any fiction at all. The story was there, but I wasn’t. Yesterday, I stopped a few hundred words short of 4,000 because I just ran out of steam. My fingers were beginning to hit the wrong keys. Today, just before noon, I had 4,967 words and was NOT out of steam. Part of it’s because the story is really flowing. And the part I finished today is a novellette at 9500 words. It’s the story that wants to be a … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 17

Hey Folks, I rolled out a little before 2 this morning and was in the Hovel by 2 to start my day. I haven’t explained for awhile why I run such “odd” hours, and we’ve had several new folks join us in following this Journal. For me, my hours aren’t odd at all. It’s a matter of balancing writing time with family time, chores, etc. We all have 24 hours in each day, and we all have physical bodies. So the first basic division of our time is between Sleep and Living. I don’t personally care for sleep, and I … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, December 13

Hey Folks, Well, the would-be novel previously (and tentatively) titled Dread is now finished and titled Situation Solved. It’s a hard-nosed police procedural mystery. It came in at 58,000 words. See the numbers below. I completed the “second draft” (spell check) in about ten minutes and it’s now winging its way through the ether to my first reader, a retired Tucson police detective. She’s also a woman, which helps since my protagonist this time around is a woman. (grin) Topic: On (My) Manners A few days ago I mentioned that when you are invited to present sessions at a writers … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 10

Hey Folks, I had an interesting question re the new Gutenberg “blocks” that WordPress shoved upon us recently. The long and short of it is this: If your website is hosted on WordPress.COM, you have to pay extra to be able to add plugins to your website. That’s one of the things I don’t like about WordPress.com. It’s “free,” and then they nickle and dime you to death. Same with a lot of the other so-called free providers. ALSO and more importantly, if your site is hosted on any of those, be absolutely certain to read the terms of service. … Read more