I have a quick and easy solution to that, as I explain in the video below.

I have a lot of quick solutions to long-term craft problems that writers struggle with. I’m doing to do an entire series of these workshops. Here’s a bit more on the series itself.

I hope you’ll join me with this workshop. You can sign up for the first one right here.

Doing The Work Amid The Noise

There are times in life when being a writer is hard. I don’t mean real-world hard. Real-world hard is when your job is so important that one small error means someone else dies. There are a lot of real-world hard jobs in the world, and they keep the rest of us safe and alive.

As I said in a post a few weeks back, entertainment is important as well. We have an obligation to help those who are doing real-world hard jobs by giving them some kind of respite at the end of their long days.

But that means we have to do the work, and the work comes out of our brains. When we’re panicked and distracted—checking the news every fifteen minutes, looking at our social media, worrying aloud with our friends about what is going to happen next—it’s difficult, if not near impossible to concentrate on our made-up worlds.

They feel so small and unimportant.

We don’t see readers enjoying our work. We have no idea that a reader will close a book and hug it, like I did a week ago when I finished Robert Crais’s latest, The Big Empty. I know that Bob is a slow writer, and I wish he wasn’t, because I would love another of his books right now.

He lives in L.A. Not only are people there dealing with the chaos that is America right now, they’re dealing with the devastating losses of many parts of their community. I suspect he’s distracted.

I know that Connie Willis is because I’m following her Facebook page in which she aggregates all the news of the day. I have no idea how she finds the time to write fiction or if she even is. I hope she is.

I’m a former journalist. I love information, the more the better. But, after the election, I shut off all media. I canceled all of my major newspaper subscriptions, stopped watching everything but the weather on any news channel, and got a lot done. I needed to because of an ongoing business crisis.

But I also needed the rest.

And I knew if I didn’t figure out how to control the information that came to me, I would not write another sentence—at least in fiction.

Writing fiction, as unglamorous as it sounds, is my job. It’s what I do for a living. But it’s also what I would do if the world ended tomorrow (which has gotten closer, according to the Doomsday Clock run by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

I make up stories. I always have. I write them down and have done that since I was in grade school.

Storytelling keeps me sane.

After the despair of the election (not shock, because I kept saying all summer [hell, all year] that this was possible, even if I wasn’t really listening to myself), I needed that quiet. I needed to accept that the world as I had known it for years would change dramatically.

How dramatically? I had—and have—no idea. This post is not about what’s going on out there in the real world. It’s changing too fast. I sat down at 1 p.m. on a Sunday, knowing that by the time I finish, more news will pour in.

It might be good; it might be bad; it might be hopeful; it might be devastating. It might be all those things at once.

It’s too much for the brain to cope with—and right now, it’s designed that way. Which is why I urge you to take care of yourself and your family first. Then take care of your community, whatever that might be, and then pick one or two or three issues to work on and be part of the solution for. If all of us do that, our differences will make sure that we will cover the entire spectrum of problems that are popping up like weeds.

Yes, I know. People are dying. I know. The situation is growing more dire by the day.

One step at a time. That’s all we can do. See above.

The problem is, then, how to corral the brain and give it enough space so that you can write.

That solution is different for each and every one of us. And it’s different each one of us as an individual at different points in our lives.

I can only give you examples from my own life.

Example #1: I got very sick when I was living on the Oregon Coast. I’m already allergic to half the world; there, we later discovered, I was living in mold and was allergic to that too. We moved to the dry desert here in Nevada just in time. I doubt I would have made it through the year otherwise.

But, I was and am a writer. I wrote through all of that, and even wrote a book about my methods for writing when I barely had enough strength to get out of bed. The book is called Writing With Chronic Illness.

Some of the solutions in that book might work for some of you now. Doing the writing first, being happy with what you can accomplish, accepting your limits—all of those are important.

I did them as best I could there. Here, in Las Vegas, I’m healthier, although the chronic conditions do fell me more than I would like. I can get through them easier in this dry climate, so sometimes I forget what I had learned.

Example #2: Our close friend Bill Trojan died, and Dean had to handle Bill’s horribly messy estate. At the same time, my editor at one of the traditional publishing houses had a mental meltdown and spent a half an hour on the phone, screaming at me and telling me I was the worst writer on the planet.

No one treats me like that. No one. So I immediately divorced that publisher, offering to pay back the money they had invested in me and my work so that I could get the rights to my books back.

That was at least $250,000 that I would pay—even though we were embroiled in the estate mess and Dean was not working on publishing and writing, due to that big problem.

My confidence was shaken, and we were in financial difficulties. I had to figure out how to write a funny novel that was still under contract.

I did, a page here and a page there. I remember sitting in my office and writing long paragraphs about how awful that editor was to get her out of my head so that I could actually finish a book that was under contract for someone else.

I did it, but shutting out the noise was almost impossible. It took concentration. It took will power. It took a daily reminder to myself that writing is supposed to be fun.

And you know what? Many days, it ended up being that way, just because of the determination.

Example #3: As many of you know, the last two or so years of my life have been filled with turmoil. Dean lost much of his eyesight, which meant we had to make some massive changes in our lives. Then, just as he was getting used to the changes, he fell on a 5K race and destroyed his right shoulder.

He couldn’t do much work. He was healing. I cared for him and, as I dug deeper into the business at our publishing company, I realized it was sick too.

We had to make drastic changes there, and I had to take over the company completely.

Which meant it got run the Kris way—lots of questions, lots of systems, lots of data, lots of procedures. The old staff buckled under the Kris method (which had not been in place since I got very ill in 2015), and within 2 months, they were gone…leaving problems so massive behind that those problems either had to be solved or the company had to be dissolved.

Dean and I chose solving those problems, and we had (and have) great help in doing so. These sorts of events teach you who your friends really are.

I knew, as we dug in, that I was not going to be focused on the writing. I needed to figure out how to harness that focus in a different way.

I had a novel to finish as well as short story deadlines from traditional short fiction editors. I was not going to miss those deadlines, and I needed to finish that novel.

The problem was that in this small condo, I did not have a second business office. I had to do the work on my laptop and my writing computer in my writing office.

I knew I needed help.

So I set up a challenge with other writers. I made it costly for me to lose (not just pride—which, pardon my French, fuck if I care about personal pride). I started the first challenge in December of 2023, and continued the challenges through most of 2024.

I lost a couple of times. But the challenge was the only thing that got me to the computer. Daily word count…that I had to report (and God, I hate reporting). I couldn’t fudge it for my own sake, and I didn’t.

I finished that novel, and a lot of short fiction, before September hit, and the business stuff combined with some legal matters that were all do-not-miss and I had to miss some writing days.

It irked me—and kept the writing as a focus.

Usually I don’t bring others into my writing process, but I knew I would need it in 2024. So I did it.

I still have a writing challenge going, this one for short stories, because I know that now, I need to get back to massive novel production, and I didn’t want to lose my short story focus. I have to do both (which I have done throughout my career).

It’s not as draconian as the 2024 challenge, but my life is different now. The business has settled into a pattern. We’ve moved the main offices to Nevada, which means I have a business desk. (Yay!) And we’ve gotten through some of the mess left by the old staff, and what’s left we’re slowly wrapping our arms around.

One thing I noticed, though, in all of those crises, is that the world swirled around me, with its problems and its demands. In each of them, it felt like a massive storm pounding on the outside of my house—you know the kind: the rain is horizontal, the winds are devastating, and the view outside the windows is black and gray, with almost no visibility at all.

You just have to wait out those storms and know that when they’re over, everything will be different, but some things will still stand. There will be rebuilding. There will be heartbreak. But the sun will have come out to reveal what’s left.

In the middle of it, though, you just have to survive it and keep the important things safe.

Your writing is one of those important things. It will take effort to keep it safe. Effort on your part.

And you’ll have to figure out what it will take for you to do it. My methods might not work for you. Find what works. Realize that those things might not work in a different kind of crisis.

But you can find a way to be with yourself during these tough times.

Here are a few practical things you can do in most (not all) crises:

• Protect your safe space. For me, that’s my writing space. I couldn’t do it during this last crisis, but I managed somehow. It felt uncomfortable and reminded me yet again about the importance of having a dedicated writing computer.
• Shut off the internet. Dean uses a different computer for his internet research—one that’s just a foot or two away from his writing computer. I shut off my wi-fi, so that clicking over to the internet for research takes a conscious action, and often makes me realize that I was just heading over to distract myself. (Different strokes, y’know.)
• Set a daily writing time. Make sure your family knows what it is, and that you shouldn’t be disturbed. Try to pick a time when it’s not easy to disturb you (early mornings; late evenings)

There are so many other practical things you can do, but again, they become specific to you.

One other thing—a tough thing—is that sometimes the project you were working on when the crisis hit is not the project your creative voice needs right now. You might have to switch—something shorter, something longer, something that requires less research, something that requires a different kind of concentration.

It’s up to you.

But the key here is to remember that when you write, you’re inside and safe from the storm. It will rage around you unabated while you’re working. It’ll probably (sadly) still be there when you’re done with today’s writing session.

But you got that session done. It’s a victory.

Celebrate the tiny victories. Keep writing.

And remember, in almost every difficult time, the only way out is through.

“Doing The Work Amid The Noise ,” copyright © 2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

We’re also offering some coaching on publishing your work.

We’ve been conducting a writer’s block course, and in the webinar, we learned that one thing which actually blocks writers in 2025 is the learning curve for indie publishing. People get stuck at various different places, so we can’t just do a simple do-this, do-that course anymore. (It was possible ten years ago; isn’t possible now)

So Dean wants to help as many folks as he can. But he can only do it one at a time. Therefore, for 3 months, he’ll help a few people get started from wherever they’re stalled. Then, if that works, he’ll do it again for a different group.

If you’re interested, check out this post: https://deanwesleysmith.com/coaching-getting-your-stuff-out/

Life changes. The act of reading changes. The act of writing changes. People’s tastes change. All of this is normal, but sometimes hard to keep track of. So, I’m going to talk about it in this class.

This is a craft class. Like the in-person craft classes that I teach, there will be no discussion of politics or religion. We won’t discuss current events. We will be talking about trends and changes in the world, often dictated by technological change.

So, join me for this. The class will start on Monday. The price is $200 right now, but it will go up to $250 on Monday when the first video goes live. Sign up here.

You want to hear more about the class? Take a look at this video.

The reason I’m wearing the dorky Back To The Future shirt is because I recorded that video on the same day as Dean and I recorded “The Kris & Dean Show Does Back To The Future.” We go through the movie bit by bit to show how to develop characters and how to plant information so that readers/viewers don’t really notice it. The entire show went live last night.

Here’s a taste of how goofy the two of us get when we’re together:

You can sign up for that here. And if you missed “The Kris & Dean Show Does Die Hard,” you can find that here. In that one, we have a lot to say about plotting and keeping up a thriller pace.

And yes, there will be more.

Why is this all happening now? Well, because we moved our WMG offices to Las Vegas. We can record these ease.

So take a look. I hope you have fun with them!

Oh, and the picture of Angel Kitty? That was just to get your attention. ?

Dean and I have resurrected the Kris & Dean Show.The first part of that class started today.

And I said, shortly after we filmed it, that I was thinking we should teach the movie Die Hard again.

Back in the day, when we taught the Kris & Dean Show live, we had an optional movie night. We’d show Die Hard and stop it every few minutes, explaining how this point added to character or that point was a set-up for an important moment later.

There are a lot of tiny try-fail cycles in Die Hard and there are some great character moments.

So…we discussed it, but did nothing. Then a friend of mine gave me a Die Hard Advent Calendar.

As you can tell, from the Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories, I love advent calendars. I get the Jacquie Lawson online calendar every year, and it’s part of my holiday ritual.

I had never thought there would be Die Hard advent calendars (and there’s a bunch) or that Die Hard would become a holiday tradition for a lot of folks. When we started teaching it, back in the day, it was a movie that some people had seen and forgotten about. We also had to get permission to show it when we gave the show at BYU because the movie was R-rated. Dunno if that’s still a thing at BYU, but it was back then.

Anyway, I really do think the calendar tipped me over. I want to see Die Hard again (and I will, at least twice). I want to teach it again, as a refresher for me if nothing else.

So…Dean and I will spend this week reviewing. By next Thursday, we’ll have three-hours of craft and storytelling analysis about Die Hard for you all to see and share.

We’re charging $50 for this extravaganza. I suspect it’ll be worth every dime.

You can sign up here.

Yippee Ki Yay…and all that.

via GIPHY

Right now, that’s cost prohibitive here in Las Vegas. We’re working on making it affordable, and maybe within two years, we can do that.

But right now, we’re doing the novella classes online.

Novellas are my favorite form, and for me, novellas just happen. Twenty years ago, I used to cringe when my crime stories veered into novella territory. Back then, no publication took mystery novellas and the novels had to be at least 90,000 words. I managed to place a few of the shorter novellas in the digest magazines, but it was always tricky. Thank heavens for anthologies, because that was my only shot at the time.

Now, though, with indie publishing, there are many many many uses for novellas, mystery and otherwise.

I had a mystery novella in this past year’s Holiday Spectacular. “Catherine The Great,” which is about a very gifted defense attorney, won the Derringer Award for Novelette (in a tie with David Dean). You’ll be able to get a copy of that when we release the Holiday Spectacular Omnibus in a week or two. (We redid it, with a new cover and a properly edited interior.) I’ll let you know the moment the new version of the omnibus is available.)

I usually don’t sing my own praises, but I’m good at novellas.

The mystery novella class begins tomorrow, and you still have time to sign up. We’re taking signups through the week.

One other workshop starts tomorrow, and it is the one that I had to convince Dean to do. You see, Dean hates the phrase “writer’s block” because he believes it’s an excuse.

If you actually look at the term, though, it’s one of those umbrella phrases. Writer’s block means something different to each writer at different phases of their lives.

• Early-phase writers have trouble getting words on the page. They haven’t learned how to write yet, so they feel “blocked.”
• Long-time professional writers claim they’re never blocked, but they will acknowledge project-block, something I’ve been dealing with on an sf novella. I realized (while Dean’s channel-surfing led him to the end of Oceans Twelve) that I had one character who needed a team around her. And suddenly everything snapped into place. I’ve been struggling with that story for two years. But, unlike early-stage writers, I wrote something (many somethings) else in between.
• All writers go through phases in which life intervenes. People who have taken part in my most recent writing challenge are seeing that. I had a blockbuster August (despite the workshop) and then I hit September, and found myself dealing with all kinds of things that had to take precedence. The day I was going to start back up at full speed was the day that a cold/whatever hit.
• Exhaustion, by the way, feels like writer’s block. It feels like your brain can’t muster up the story or the words. And, really, it can’t. Nike has a great series of ads called “Winning Isn’t Comfortable,” showing the struggle it takes to achieve physically at a high level.Look at this one. Like it or not, writers, you’re using a muscle when you work. Your brain. And it can be pushed for a long time, but in the end, you’re like the runners at the end of the commercial. You think those folks could get up and run a few more miles? Heck, no. Accept it. Rest. And then move forward. (She writes, talking to herself.)

After I convinced Dean we needed to do this class, he asked me if there were enough forms of “writer’s block” to make a week-long workshop. So I had him ask folks on his blog, and the writers we know here in Vegas, and others as well. Within about two hours, we came up with fifty different things that writers had termed “writer’s block.” Each thing has a different solution. Some of those solutions are like the exhaustion one, above: Give it time. Others have easier solutions, like project block: assign it to your subconscious, then go work on something else.

We have the list, and we have the solutions, and wow, are we looking forward to this class. We’re calling it Writers Block Freedom because it provides solutions to the wide variety of symptoms for the problem we all call Writers Block.

And let me be clear here. Some of these so-called symptoms are more challenging than others. The solution isn’t go work on something else. It might be a restructuring of your viewpoint or a way of taking care of your health.

This class also starts tomorrow, and there’s a weekly webinar with the class, one we hope will bring writers together for solutions and pep talks.

Do long-term writers need this? Of course, I was glad we were planning this class, because I felt blocked this month, even though I’m not. I just had real-life priorities that got in the way of the writing, some things that would have forced me to take family leave from my day job if I had one. We all struggle with starting and stopping. That’s part of who we writers are.

Anyway, the link to this class is here. And again, you can sign up all week. In fact, you can sign up at any point, but you will miss several in-person webinars if you do that. So take a look.

By the way, the links I posted above take you directly to the classes, but you might want to poke around the WMG Writer Store all by itself. We’re adding things all the time. And if you went to the Anthology Workshop, you might recognize some of the t-shirt sayings.

I hope to keep you all posted on the various goings on these days, as the fall progresses. Not that it feels like fall here in Vegas. It feels like July. I hope that changes soon…

Of course all of those things had an impact on our writing. We slowed down or
stopped altogether. If we didn’t know better, we would have said we were blocked.
But we weren’t. Life got in the way. It does that sometimes. And sometimes, we as
writers get in our own way.

Dean and I made a list of over 50 things writers call “writer’s block.” The solution for
these things is not one-size-fits all.

We decided, based on our year and our hard-fought wisdom over decades, to help
writers through whatever they’re calling writer’s block.

We’ve designed two courses over 18 weeks, including 16 webinars and lots of
homework, to help writers overcome whatever is stopping them or slowing them
down.

We want to help writers return to the joy of writing.

These classes are new. They start on October 1. And until Monday, you can get
them at a discounted price.

Take a look at the website and the video Dean made explaining what we’re doing.
See if it’s for you.

Questions? See if Dean answered them on his website. Click here.

Join us in breaking free from writer’s block.

Finally Dean Wesley Smith got the bright idea to put them into bundles by topic. There are so many…and they’re all 50% off right now. I’m going to copy one of his posts here:

Any bundle is 50% off on Teachable. And we are still adding in new bundles to focus on certain topics We have six now with more coming soon.

To get a bundle at half price, simply go to WMG Teachable, find the bundle or bundles you want, and hit purchase. Then put in the code…

GREATBUNDLE

And hit apply and you will have it for 50% off. And most bundles are really good deals to start with.

We are doing this because we are launching the FOCUS BUNDLE series.

But first let me list the large bundles, the ones we call Lifetime Subscriptions (yes, they are all 50% off as well.)

• • LIFETIME EVERYTHING SUBSCRIPTION.  Includes EVERYTHING on WMG Teachable and all new stuff going forward. Over $100,000 in value. Regular cost is $10,000. Sale price is $5,000 and if you have another lifetime subscription, write me for more of a discount.
  • LIFETIME WORKSHOP SUBSCRIPTION. Includes over 80 plus workshops, special, classic, and regular with over 3,200 teaching videos and more being added regularly. Valued at over $15,000, regular price is $3,000. Sale price is $1,500.
  • LIFETIME POP-UP SUBSCRIPTION. Includes almost 90 classes on all topics and more being added regularly. Valued at over $13,000, regular price is $3,000. Sale price is $1,500.
  • LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTIONS TO LECTURES and STUDY ALONGS are also available.

We have a lot of other great bundles that are on sale… They include…

• • THE CREATIVE SURVIVAL BUNDLE 2024… All four quarters of creative survival lectures to help you build and survive in the writing career. At least 4 videos every Monday morning for 52 weeks. Original price for all four quarters is $1,500. Sale price is $750.
  • INDIE WRITER’S GUIDE TO SHOPIFY BUNDLE… Two different nine-week classes in this with recorded webinar when it was done. This has a value of $900. Sale price is $450. Entire class is available.
  • INDIE WRITER’S PRODUCTS CLASS BUNDLE… Two different nine-week classes in this with recorded webinar when it was done. This has a value of $900. Sale price is $450. Entire class is available.
  • THE MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY BUNDLE 2024… All four quarters of motivational lectures to help you build and survive in the writing career. At least 4 videos every Monday morning for 52 weeks. Original price for all four quarters is $800. Sale price is $400.
  • BITE-SIZED COPYRIGHT BUNDLE 2023 … All four quarters of copyright lectures to help you learn copyright in an easy fashion. This had at least 4 videos every Monday morning for 52 weeks. Original price for all four quarters is $1,500. Sale price is $750. Entire class is available.
  • THE DECADE AHEAD BUNDLE 2023 … All four quarters of  lectures to help you learn how to prosper and deal with the coming ten years. This had at least 4 videos every Monday morning for 52 weeks. Original price for all four quarters is $1,500. Sale price is $750. Entire class is available.
  • FULL YEAR OF ALL 2024 ADVANCED CRAFT CLASSES.  6 different nine-week classes for advanced craft. Don’t worry, they will repeat every year so if you want you can take two a year. These are advanced. Original price is $2500. Sale price is $1,250. Again, they repeat regularly with assignments every week during the class.
  • FULL YEAR OF ALL 2023 ADVANCED CRAFT CLASSES.  6 different nine-week classes for advanced craft. Don’t worry, they will repeat every year so if you want you can take two a year. These are advanced. Original price is $2500. Sale price is $1,250. Again, they repeat regularly with assignments every week during the class.

There are also some other bundles on sale, but the genre bundles for mystery, science fiction, and fantasy are not all recorded yet and are delayed into the summer. But you can grab them on sale if you don’t mind waiting.

NEW FOCUS BUNDLES

We have six of them up with seven classes per bundle on focused topics.

Topics to Include…

• • Depth (How to open a story… all the different courses) AVAILABLE
  • Learn Beyond Basic Depth AVAILABLE
  • Productivity… AVAILABLE
  • Basic Writing Business… AVAILABLE
  • Writing Science Fiction… AVAILABLE
  • Focus on Characterization… AVAILABLE
  • Writing Mystery
  • Writing Fantasy
  • Licensing
  • Writing Attitude
  • General Writing Techniques
  • Writing Short Fiction
  • Promotion the Right Way

Anyone else have suggestions for bundles combining different classes, pop-ups, and lectures, let me know by email or in the comments. Again, no bundles will be in these FOCUS BUNDLES and they will not be in any LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTIONS… Why? Because if you have the Everything Lifetime, you have these already and can use the bundle for a guide. All of them will be a mix of regular classes, workshops, pop-ups, and lectures.

Sale will last until I get all these FOCUS BUNDLES up, so don’t want too long.

To get a bundle at half price, simply go to WMG Teachable, find the bundle or bundles you want, and hit purchase. Then put in the code…

GREATBUNDLE

And hit apply and you will have it for 50% off. And most bundles are really good deals to start with.

Write Dean directly at Dean dot wmgworkshops at gmail for more information.

On Sunday, the latest class, Military Science Fiction, starts up. Take a look here…and join us!