Linking up everything to do with my Fall 2008/Winter 2009 Classes
An awesome post for writers who are at any stage in the game–but especially those who want to take it seriously. Her advice for dealing with rejection, listening to feedback, and doing things to improve yourself, really ring true to me. Maybe they will for you too.
via Broadside
Northern Writes is pleased to announce the 2009 Yukon Writers Conference, taking place at the Westmark Whitehorse, on April 3 through 5, 2009. The 2009 Yukon Writers Conference is an opportunity for Yukon writers to meet with and learn from six North American editors and one publisher representing a variety of genres.
The conference will include workshops, a panel discussion, individual pitch appointments and an open critique session.
The conference fee of $90 also covers an opening reception, lunches on Saturday and Sunday, and coffee breaks.
The following publisher and editors will present at the event:
Claire Eddy, Senior Editor, Tor/Forge Books, New York
Paula Eykelhof, Editor, Mira Books, Toronto
Lily Gontard, Editor, Yukon, North of Ordinary, Whitehorse
Shawna McCarthy, Editor, Realms of Fantasy and Agent, New Jersey
Lynne Missen, Executive Editor, Children’s Books, HarperCollins, Toronto
Kathleen Scheibling, Editor, Harlequin Books, Toronto
Howard White, Publisher, Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, BC
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Registration deadlines as follows: February 28 if submitting a writing sample/proposal March 15 if not submitting Registration forms and information sheets will be available at the Whitehorse Public Library starting on February 9, or by contacting Marcelle Dubé at (867) 633-4565, mdube@northwestel.net. Please feel free to share this information.
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This conference is not to be missed if you live anywhere near the Yukon. You can’t see these people up close and personal in other venues in the States or in Canada. But here, in Whitehorse, you have a chance to talk with them personally, submit writing, receive critique, and get to know them.
I’ve said before that it was in the Yukon that I met and really got to know some amazing authors/editors from Outside. These meetings were all through conferences like this one that Barb Dunlop and Marcelle Dubé engineered.
If you believe in that Latin phrase on the book above–“I write”–then you’ll want to prepare for this conference. Have ready a manuscript by the end of February to submit to these editors. Come and join us for a chance to develop your writing and all Yukon writers.
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Photo above is from my good friend, Kater Cheek, whose amazing art can be found here at www.catherinecheek.com
Another great market for Science Fiction writers, especially those dabbling in near future fiction. Check out the full Guidelines here. Here’s an excerpt of what they’re looking for.
Futurismic seeks contemporary, near future science fiction for online publication. We’re looking for innovative, exciting stories that use the tools of speculative fiction to examine contemporary issues and take a look at what’s just around the corner.
Whether by established professionals or promising newcomers, we would like to see the very best in today’s SF, with an emphasis on work that truly connects with and illuminates the fast-paced, fascinating times we live in.
Stories should be compelling and well written, with a strong emphasis on characters confronting or embracing imminent cultural, social, technological, and scientific changes.
PLEASE NOTE: Near-future, Earth-based science fiction is our primary focus!
Length: up to 15,000 words! and there’s a webform to submit with. No nasty stamps and paper problems. $200 flat rate for stories, 2-5 weeks to respond.
Click on the Guidelines link and read the rest if you are interested. Good luck!
Happy New Year to Everyone! I hope this coming new year brings you what you want.
It’s a long and interesting journey, no doubt.
Perhaps, you are looking to work on your novel? Perhaps, you have been working on one for years and you want to get some guided help through a course? Maybe, you just plunked one out in November during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and you want to work on revising it, or just getting feedback on it.
Yukon College is offering two courses: Monday nights for Realism/Mainstream writing and Tuesday nights for Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Fantastical Children’s Lit). The school, though, is closed till Jan 2, or Friday. So, if you’re gonna sign up and come to the first class on Monday, you’ll have to sign up on Friday or Next week. Regardless of when you sign up, come to the first classes. We have to get a viable head count to know if the classes will make. We need 8 people each class, at least, to make this happen. We’ll be working on synopsis writing and editing three chapters of your novel.
Click on Writing Classes to learn more.
Also, don’t forget that Yukon writers, in classes or not, should be getting ready for the Editor’s Weekend that is happening at the beginning of April. Six editors are coming up to talk with Yukoners, give workshops, about the next steps in publishing their manuscripts. This coincides with the last weekend of our coursework. So it makes a fitting transition after our class is done to move towards shopping a manuscript around.
So, if working on your novel is part of your planned journey for 2009, I hope to see you in class in the new year!
Hey, Novelists!
For some of you Nanowrimo was a great experience–but what next?? Or some of you have an old novel kicking around in your closet. Dust it off, get it ready.
I’m teaching two courses at Yukon College in the Winter, both of them are Fiction Writing Workshops. You can read more about them if you click on Writing Classes up on the Menu Bar.
In brief: Monday night is for novels that are more realistic–they don’t have magic, or time travel, or science fiction, or monsters in them. They are set in this world, working with people as we know them. They can be set in the past.
If you have at least 3/4 of a novel manuscript through a first draft, you are welcome to join the course. If you don’t have that much done, that’s okay to join too, as long as you know that a majority of people will be working on novels, and that class time discussion will be focussed on longer story arcs. People with novels are required to workshop 3 chapters over the course of the semester, comment on other people’s chapters, and with a group, present one novel to the class, one of the ones that we will be reading (we have three on the schedule), and turning in to the class a synopsis of your novel.
The practical side is that in April you will need one synopsis and the first three chapters of your novel ready to show editors who are coming to the Yukon!! Don’t pass up this opportunity. BIG name people are coming to look for manuscripts and help people move towards publication. They will take our class to the next level, much farther than most could take you. They will also take you to that next level if you AREN’T a part of the class–the Editor’s Weekend is a Yukon Wide event… (oh, it won’t be named Editor’s Weekend…I just made that up….).
Tuesday nights are for those novelists with a speculative element in their novel. There are different considerations when you are working with speculative elements and you will want people who are familiar with those elements. The rest of the class will be VERY similar to the Monday night group–all that’s different is that we will be working with texts that are outside of realism, even just slightly.
The courses are 16 weeks long, are the cheapest prices in any college in North America (dare anyone to beat $150 per course), and I think you will get more bang for your buck. Workshops are good to use to get a good opinion of what to look at more closely. Only come if you are ready to receive the opinions of 15 other readers, and to consider their thoughts on your work.
Come and Join us for a good workshop experience! CRWR 241: Fiction Writing Workshop (Mondays–realism; Tuesdays–Speculative) Starts Jan 5 at Yukon College!
Joanna Lilley has written a great article about the novelists in my two classes writing with Nanowrimo. I know there are more Whitehorse participants out there outside my classes too! More power to all the novelists writing!!
“I just need a kick in the pants!” —You might have said that about writing a novel. You have one in you, but you never had the time or the direction to push it out. Now you do.
If you’re thinking about signing up for the Novel Writing course–then sign up soon! It’s the first time a novel writing course has been offered at Yukon College. It all begins on Monday night, Sept 8, 7-10pm.
Writing can be a lonely business, and novel writing can be daunting–but this course aims to keep you encouraged through a group of people all writing their own novels. Read more about the class on the “Writing Classes” page, and through my posts, “The First Draft is the Hardest.” Write me if you have any questions at jstueart@yahoo.com
There are no prerequisites to the class and Andrew Richardson has agreed to sign off on any students who are interested. You just need to want to write and push out a novel–but with 15 people–it will be enjoyable and we will go through all the roadblocks to writing together! We need 15 people to make the class work at optimum level–there are 7 spaces left.
*All genres of writing are welcome–however, we have a separate class for Science fiction and Fantasy writers on Tuesday nights through the City of Whitehorse, called WorldBuilders, if you want to work with other SFF writers!
Come to Yukon College and take the plunge into a novel!
Hey Potential Participants of Introduction to Novel Writing,
We all know that we can research and plan a novel to death, but that the difference between a great idea and a great novel is writing it.
I should know.
While I pumped out a novel first draft when I was 19, and finished another first draft of another novel when I was 29, I had plenty of problems along the way–especially on the second one.
When I was 17, I had a teacher in Bledsoe, Texas who taught me creative writing for the first time. She was dedicated and I was her only student–outside of the two junior high students she taught Math, English, social studies, etc, the rest of the school day. We worked on my novel. I wrote like crazy every day one summer and every week we would meet and discuss two chapters and I would give her two chapters to review. I finished that novel. It was not a pretty novel: 6 main characters who meet their 6 adult selves–so 12 main characters in a convoluted plot that would have taken a team of cave rescue people to pull a reader out of. But that’s okay. It got a finished draft.
The second novel I worked on for three or four years. I returned again and again to the first few chapters, always tinkering with them. That is, until a good friend of mine set up a system where we each turned in chapters to each other, and through her, I nearly finished that novel—only to discover that I had some major problems.
The third novel–which I haven’t mentioned–has been a wonderful idea. I wrote 52 first chapters. I got as far as chapter three, but I did have it nearly completely plotted out. I felt like there was so much more research I needed to do before I finished it. Blah, blah, blah (the excuses, you’ve heard them, you may have made them. )
Barb Dunlop, a successful romance novelist with many, many books to her credit, told me and others that the main ingredient to writing was “getting your butt in the chair” and writing. I feel like this is the MAIN point to learning how to write. It is a skill. It is a craft. But it is not about knowledge, anymore than cooking is about reading a good cookbook and memorizing recipes. It is about cooking and screwing up and throwing away what you cooked, or eating what you cooked and realizing–hmmm, I forgot salt. It is developing a skill and craft, and that can only be accomplished by doing it.
National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) is a tool whereby people can push out of them a novel that’s been waiting to be finished, that you’ve piddled around on for years, that you’ve researched and researched, outlined and developed. It exists as a set of notes–not a novel. NaNoWriMo–if used well–can get that novel born. The “used well” part is what I’m adding in this course: instruction on how to write a novel, planning the novel, analyzing successful novels, and creating a supportive group.
My succesful writing experiences had three things in common: a supportive person waiting for the next chapter, reading it, ready for it; very little criticism in the first draft stages; deadlines.
The first semester of Introduction to Novel Writing is a semester where you are encouraged to write your novel, given everything you need to write–tool wise–and set in front of a computer and allowed to write. The first semester is low on criticism of your first draft, high on criticism of successful novels (and some stinkers–wait till I show you the Nazi Werewolf novel I once read), and focused on method and productivity.
NEXT semester, we’ll begin workshopping your novel, if you want, and continuing to hone your craft. But you can’t really critique much in the first draft…. the first draft you must self-critique AFTER it is out of you. Because before it comes out, you don’t know what you have. You just have to write and write.
So, I ask you to come to class excited that this will be the year that you finish a complete draft of your novel. It may be ugly, broken up, unruly and wild, but it will be a finished draft and then you can see what you have. I am so proud of my broken, ugly first drafts because–in the end–I know I completed an idea and got a product. I get to choose what happens now, but at least I know what I have.
Come join us this semester and come home with your “idea” on paper!
Bear Witness 