Updated on 2023-09-28 Thursday from Tokyo, Japan
Watched ‘The Exorcist, Director’s Cut’ (2000) at a Toho cinema on September the tenth. Although it was horrific for many audiences in 1973, and still is today, I found it more of a psychological suspense movie with added shock! On returning home, I ordered the late William Blatty’s novel of the same name, the inspiration for the movie.
Published my weird Christmas-themed novela (eBook), “Lost Present”. Lost Present’s also available for pre-order on Amazon, Kobo, Apple etc., but releasing on 10 October. (The paperback is available for purchase now from Amazon.)
Experimenting with the late Dr. Tanaka’s “Niko Niko slow jogging” ideas. This blends well with barefoot running, which I’ve done for about ten years now.
Visit my NOW archive
And here’s my “Now” bio page - inspired by Derek Sivers and too many others to mention.
Some more about me and my life journey so far.
Subscribe to my monthly email newsletter. (Sign up form is below). As well as a free sci-fi short story for new subscribers, you’ll get updates on what I’m writing. I often expand further on one or more of the NOW topics above.
I will never rent or sell your email address. Unsubscribe at any time.
Below is an edited version of the email newsletter I sent to subscribers on Monday, October 2, 2023. (The newsletter (‘McClure’s Monthly’) is normally sent on the first Monday of the month, while the NOW post is posted here online on the 28th every month.) Links to expired offers have been removed. Images used in the newsletter have also been removed.
Hello,
This is sff (science fiction and fantasy) writer Mark McClure’s October 2023 newsletter*.
We’re into the last quarter of 2023! Where did the time go?
I’m now writing a series of ‘short short fiction’ stories based on writer John DuFresne’s wonderful guide - Flash!: Writing the Very Short Story.
My plan is to finish the 52 short stories in 52 weeks challenge I ‘failed’ at after writing only 30+ stories. I’ll submit some of these short short stories (each probably less than 2000 words) to paying publications; others will be shared via a subscription site I’m planning to launch in 2024. Stay tuned…
An update on my Christmas short story, Lost Present:
The special offer launch price of just 99 cents is now over, and the eBook was available for purchase at $1.50 until 9 October (2023) on my publishing site at: https://payhip.com/b/Oemob
The eBook was also on pre-order until 10 October (2023) at $2.99 from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and other online stores.
(The paperback is available now at $7.99 from Amazon.)
Click https://books2read.com/u/mqBMLQ for how and where to buy both eBook and paperback versions from these vendors.
Thirty free ‘Early Reviewer’ eBook copies of Lost Present were available from October the second, 2023. Visit https://www.librarything.com/ner to find out more (this offer is now closed.)
Watch out for the September What I’m Doing Now page update on my writer’s site.
Click https://markmccluretoday.com/now/ to read the latest update.
The ‘Now’ page doesn’t replace this email newsletter. It was inspired by Derek Sivers, an entrepreneur and founder of CD Baby (he sold it some years ago.)
I’m considering whether to copy and paste these email newsletters to each month’s NOW page (but at least a month in arrears, so that only email subscribers get to read the current edition before non-subscribers, and also have the first option on any book offers or special deals etc.)
Why do this? One reason is to increase the amount of searchable content on my site so that the spiders from Google (and other search engines) have more to crawl. In theory, this should help make my site more authoritative for ‘Mark McClure, writer’ and increase the number of visitors (this is called ‘organic traffic’ in the search engine optimization world.)
As an example, here’s the March 28 NOW page with April the fifth’s email newsletter pasted at the end (minus some special offer links which are no longer valid.)
https://markmccluretoday.com/2023-now/now-20230328/
What do you think I should do?
Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.
Well, that’s it for this month.
The evenings in Tokyo are now cool enough to sleep without a fan (low 20s Celsius). And less humid early mornings mean I can increase my walk from fifteen to thirty minutes without requiring a shower at the end!
The next newsletter will be published on Monday 6 November, 2023.
(2024-03 Update: Well, yes, as you can see, I am indeed posting previous email newsletter content here on my website. However these posts are at least five months behind the emailed newsletters. Sign up if you want to stay current with what I’m writing and publishing.)
*(You, or someone with access to your email address, signed up for sci-fi writer Mark McClure’s monthly newsletter.)
Browse my books for sale from my own publishing site: https://jfrpublishing.com/
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