Tag: writing workshops

Pardon My Language! (Writing Workshops, Part Deux)

Whew! August was a God-awful month, not only was it hotter than Hades over here in Northern VA, but I accidentally signed up for more writing workshops than I could shake my proverbial stick at, and it was a real bitch trying to keep up. Despite that, I learned a TON. So here’s the 411 (And for my previous workshop rundown, click here):

  • Social Networking for Unpublished and Published Authors with Beth Barany – Okay, Beth is awesome, Y’all. I’ve taken a handful of social networking/PR type workshops, and I thought they were all good. Some of them were a little high-level or a little jam-packed though and instead of actually doing any of the stuff suggested, I filed it away and vegged out in front of youtube instead. 😛 So Beth keeps the focus primarily on Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging (with a smattering of other stuff like LinkedIn), which of course are the biggies and thereby helps steer us all away from confusion. She helped with specific technical questions, and was infinitely patient with those of us who were all “Umm, where do I click to make that thing do the thing you said it’s supposed to do?”. The workshop had a vast array of experience levels and it seemed like everyone was able to learn something. I, for example, got over my fear of Twitter and discovered its many magical joys (like being able to follow Adam Lambert’s tweets). Ahem…Beth also does creativity coaching for writers and offers tons of services like one-on-one coaching, in-person workshops, and has tons of informative articles on her Writer’s Fun Zone blog (I love the name of her blog, btw – good medicine for those of us who get all angsty and up in our heads about writing). So Beth will probably be hearing from me again, when time and money is available, because she rocks. AND best of all? She’s generous with her time and super sweet! I recently took a workshop from a writer who I will not name, who I felt got a little…harsh with some of us in the workshop, and it made it hard for me to learn and enjoy, so I probably won’t go back to her again for help. I know some authors feel that they should help thicken us pre-pubbed writers’ skin, but I feel like I get enough of that stuff from the agents I query.
  • Public Relations with Marcia James – Apparently I had PR on the brain when I signed up for stuff last month. This was a great workshop, though I admit I was a little overwhelmed by all the material. As a pre-published author I felt like some of it was premature, talking about SWAG and book signings kind of went over my head, but I still felt that this workshop was very worthwhile. First of all, Marcia was great. Funny, nice, very responsive. She was even good enough to check out each participant’s web site and make individual suggestions. There were (I think) something like 16 lectures crammed into a 2 week period, her suggestion was to just print them all and save ’em for later, which is what I did because a few days in my head was spinning. The lectures were all by guest lecturers in the industry though, so I found that the various perspectives were helpful, and as part of the class Marcia offers a 300 page file of various PR options, everything from blogs to visit and where to get cheap business cards to where to get your book reviewed.
  • Prose And Contests: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Writing Contests But Were Afraid To Ask by Amy Atwell – If you enter writing contests or have been thinking about it, this is a REALLY great course. I entered a couple this year, and I see there being a few really big pluses: you get your work critiqued, you get potential exposure with agents and editors, and potentially something cool to put on your resume. Unfortunately, I felt totally confused so after entering two I stopped, not wanting to waste my time and money on something I was pretty sure I was doing wrong. Some chapters just don’t give much in the way of guidelines, either. Amy’s course went into great detail about contests, everything from how to format your entry to interpreting your scores and all the stuff in-between. She’s teaching the course again next month and then not again until next year (click here for her workshop schedule) so strike while the iron’s hot!
  • Nuts and Bolts of Publishing with Misa Ramirez – Misa teaches a variety of workshops, this one covers the publishing industry in a kind of broad way, but she starts off asking what specific questions the participants had about the industry so she can tailor the material and that was nice. She also covers some helpful topics like web presence, author bios, and was nice enough to critique anyone’s bio who asked.
  • Deep POV with Jill Elizabeth Nelson – Personal opinion, improving your skills with deep POV is one of the best things you can do to make your writing stronger. Jill’s workshop format was old-school to me in a good way. She’d give an example, then homework exercises, then a critique, kind of like back in grade school. A lot of people learn really well with this style and I got a great deal out of the workshop. She also does a critique of a small passage of everyone’s own work at the end. My only issue (and this was ME, not Jill) was that I felt a teensy bit uncomfortable sending samples of my work, salty verbiage and all, to a Christian writer, and I kept feeling the need to apologize for all the bad language. She was extremely gracious about it though. I also took a deep POV workshop with Carrie Lofty and it was great too – different teaching styles, both very good.
  • The Book Factory with Kerri Nelson – This one is all about how to amp up your productivity and produce multiple novels a year. Kerri is a super mom and super writer, plus she does a bunch of other stuff like one-on-one critiquing, with three kids roughly the same age as my own three, so I figured I could learn a lot from her. I was right! I am still having a little trouble implementing her methods but I already feel that I am getting more done, and her teaching style is friendly and straightforward. According to her workshop schedule she’ll be teaching this one again in January. I took Kerri’s pitching workshop earlier this year and loved it as well (and her technique is effective, I got a full submission request from the pitch I developed in her workshop).

September is shaping up to be another busy month, more workshops I signed up for and then forgot about, including one on Erotic Novellas (my last MS was 100,000 words so I am VERY excited about this one) so stay tuned!!

Writing Workshops – The Good, The Bad, and How to Ditch Dead Bodies

When I started on this journey to become a published romance writer, I shied away from writing workshops. I read a fantastic book on writing by Elizabeth Berg (Read it!), in which she suggested that while writing classes and workshops were helpful, they could also undermine one’s confidence. I figured, that made sense, and I have you know, “low self-esteem” like many of us do, so I avoided any and all writing workshops.

But then…

I was prowling around the RWA Web Site one day and checking out the vast array of resources that were available to help one’s writing career. One of said resources was a yahoo group devoted to announcing workshops. I figured what the hey, can’t hurt to check it out, right? Turns out, WRITERS are good at coming up with catchy names for the workshops they teach that make ’em sound super interesting to take!

…so I took one…and I liked it.

My “first time” was with mystery author Wendy Lyn Watson who has a fantastic series of novels in the works that manage, quite fantastically, to combine murder and ice cream. The first, I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, is available now, and it’s freaking hilarious. There are some limitations that I have to acknowledge having as a writer, and the inability to use the word “gazongas” as effortlessly as she does in a sentence, is one of them. It makes me sad.

Wendy’s Workshop, on the other hand actually made me quite happy. It was called “Write Naked” and it turned out to be a really good first workshop to take because it was all about finding your voice as a writer. Too many times I will read a novel and LOVE the writers voice so much I find myself trying to channel their writing style. Problem is, it’s a little like finding that author’s home and trying to fit into their pants. In one way or another, it’s going to land you in some trouble.

I have taken the following other workshops thus far, all of them were well worth the time and money:
– Mauled Men, Drowned Dames and Crispy Critters; a Body Disposal Primer for Writers by Jeanne Adams. If you ever have to kill a character and want to make sure you do it right, this is the workshop for you!

– The Warrior Writer by Bob Mayer. This was one of my favorites because his approach is so unique, he is a former Green Beret and brings that experience into his teaching. He focuses more on strategy than art, which is very important. He also has an excellent book out called Who Dares Wins that is a worthwhile read.

– Effective use of POV by Carrie Lofty. This workshop, REALLY helped me to improve the overall quality of my writing. If you want to write deep point of view, this is a fantastic workshop. She really gets into the psychology of your characters and how to make sure they aren’t seeing/experiencing things that aren’t realistic. For example, men aren’t just women with penises. This was a HUGE mistake that I made many times over in my writing. I mean I knew that, but I didn’t KNOW it, you know?

– Loglines, Queries, and Synopsis by Elle James and Delilah Devlin. I found this workshop to be quite painful, but in a good way. None of us want (none of us who are sane, anyway) to write all the other stuff that is required to help us sell our books. They have a great formula that they have put together though, and this is a very worthwhile workshop.

– Pitch Perfect by Kerri Nelson. Kerri also does private online tutoring for creating pitches, synopsis, etc and I can say that her pitch method is DEFINITELY effective because I just got a request for a full manuscript after using the pitch I developed in her workshop!! My old pitch was just God awful, so I can’t thank Kerri enough.

– Marketing for Introverts by Tina Gallagher. As Bob Mayer points out, the writer personality type is the exact opposite of the promoter personality type, and to get your name out there, you’ve got to promote. Tina tells you exactly where to go and what to do!!

So these workshops are great, what’s BAD about them?? Now maybe it’s just me, but I found it EXTREMELY easy to get overwhelmed. I made the rookie mistake of signing up for every damn workshop that looked interesting and there are lots of ’em. Like I said before, writers are good at making their courses look interesting. Thing is, I have found that as a stay at home mom with two kids still in diapers, finding the time to write, maintain my blog and web site, etc. already is a struggle for me. Add in a couple of workshops (many of which have actual ASSIGNMENTS) is quite hard. Then there’s the fact that these workshops are offered by a variety of RWA subchapters, so when you’re tooling around on the interweb signing up work workshops willy-nilly, you can run into some problems. For example, I am signed up for four in August. FOUR.

Previously I determined that two is about all I can handle at a time. I just forgot which ones I had already signed up for.

Also, I was notified by a very polite treasurer with the Low Country RWA subchapter (they have a fantastic course offering btw) that I signed up for the same workshop twice. Twice. As in, I signed up for two workshops twice accidentally. Probably this won’t happen to you, unless you have been running on 4 hours of sleep a night like I do.

So don’t pull a ME and get in over your head with the workshops, be judicious in determining which ones are most important to you, and writing workshops are, in my view, a fabulous way to enhance your craft, your understanding of the industry, and of course your career.

Oh, and join the RWA, because they are your best bet for finding out about workshops, either via their yahoo distribution list or in the back of their Romance Writers Report.