Back from the master class. For those of you who don’t know where I went, I suppose it might be the right time for a little description of this so-called “master class.”
It lasted for 15 days and took place about a half mile from here, right here on the Oregon Coast in a wonderful hotel called The Historic Anchor Inn. It’s where we hold all our workshops, including the ones coming next year. The Anchor is a treat that should not be missed if traveling the Oregon Coast.
14 professional level writers attended and there were six of us who taught them, plus John Douglas and Ginjer Buchanan from New York the last four days. It was intense for everyone. And a ton of fun. Talking and thinking and working on fiction writing for 15 straight days with other professionals is just flat fun.
The schedule was simple: Mornings for three or four hours, evenings for three or four hours, with a ton of work due between each class. The writers attending wrote around 30,000 words of new fiction in two weeks, some of that short fiction, a bunch of novel proposals (5 actually, for five different books) and a ton of novel pitches and exercises.
Kris had them doing two exercises per day, working on their craft issues, Loren Coleman had them answering business questions every day, and I had them writing upwards of five or six new novel pitches per day, not counting all the rest. Each writer got to roll play the next eight years of their writing careers as well and watch the others do the same.
For the first 10 days I averaged about 6 hours of sleep, the last five days I was lucky if I got four hours per night. Also, it should be known that I ran the workshop, so for a week ahead and four days afterwards, I was still working. Not at the extreme pace of the workshop itself, but still focused. Yesterday, Kris and I got everything we had used out of the Anchor and back into storage finally, and now there are only a few details left to clean up and that workshop is history. And a great memory. Actually, a ton of memories.
We have no future master classes on the schedule. They are just too hard on the instructors, mostly me. The shorter, more focused workshops are going to have to be it for now. Check the list under the workshop tab if interested. E-mail me with questions.
I will be getting the streak page cleaned up in a few moments as well. Sorry I got behind on that. Just too much to do. If I have your number wrong, let me know and I will change it. If you haven’t reported to me in a while, I will move your streak to retired.
I will have a new Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post up shortly. This next one is balancing the myth of self promotion and self selling of books in this new world. Give me a couple days to finish it.
I also have another installment of last springs “Life After…” posts coming as well.
And starting in November, near the middle of the month, I will be putting up original fiction here for free reading. I will have two new static pages, one with an original short story on it, some of them reprint, some new, and a second static page with chapters of an unpublished novel running every week. I will change both the chapters and the short story every week. More on that as the time gets closer.
Feels good to be back and to never have to think of doing a master class again. Last break we took from doing master classes was four years. It will be that long again, at least. They are just too hard on this old guy. Fun, a ton of fun, that’s for sure. But far too hard.
Cheers, Dean
Aww! You tell us how fantastic it is, then tell us you’ll never do it again? LOL! *sigh* It’s understandable, if sad.
I didn’t say never. Just that it’s going to be a while again, if ever. We did the first one in 1999, the second in 2002, then took another four year break between 2004 and 2008, then one this year, now nothing scheduled again for a while. Just about 90 writers have gone through the master class over the last ten years. And we’re still doing the other workshops as well next year. But the master classes are really rough and Kris and I lose a fortune doing them. So we just can’t do them very often. And to be honest, there isn’t a lot of demand for them.
Cheers
Dean
It sure sounds intense! Some day, if you feel like writing a blog post but you’re out of ideas and you’re feeling generous, would you share how you get 5-6 novel pitches out of everyone? Last year I had a goal to come up with one a day, and it fell by the wayside. I need to do that again.
I’ve read through lots of your blog, and I really like the way you work.
Natasha,
The pitches were one page, about 200 – 400 words each and how I got them was in the roll-playing publishing game we run during the master class. If a person’s speed was 4 books a year, and we were doing one year per day, they had to come up with four new novel ideas and do the pitches on all four in active, back-cover-like language. Six of us in a publisher’s meeting went over the pitches and decided to buy or not buy as to quality, content, idea, and so on. And the writer’s game life and income was based on the books they sold, just as in real life. So, since we started at 4 months per day and worked up to a year per day, everyone sort of worked up to doing that many. Some only did one or two per day, since that was their speed, but one person toward the end had worked his speed up to six books a year and was doing six new novel pitches a day, besides all the other writing we were forcing them to do. It is a very intense workshop. Sleep was only optional. =)
If I had told them they would doing that when they started, no one would have believed me. We just eased them into it.
Cheers
Dean
Just be a while, if ever. Sounds almost like Natasha may have been right.
But the way things are going, if it does take you four years to do it again that maybe about right for me to be far enough along to take one.
Sounds like the novel pitches were the fun part, as well as a learning experience.
Dean — I can’t thank you enough for all you did for us at the Master Class! Kris and Loren and everyone else pitched in a lot, too, but you were there almost the whole time, teaching, telling stories, educating. It was a wonderful experience. I’m still recovering! But I’m writing a lot and sending stuff out and having a ball. Thanks again!
I agree with Mike. Even while we were all working as hard as we could to get our work done I was amazed at what you and Kris were doing. I’m very grateful. It made a huge difference in my writing. Thanks!
I think I’ve only told Bob (my husband) a fraction of what went on there. So much happened. So many great memories and the work, AYEEE! Great work, great focused work. Like I told Kris, if I could’ve started another 15 days right after, I would have. I did manage to tell Bob that even though we were getting on average 4 hours of sleep a night, the instructors were reading all of our work. It’s daunting really how much work you guys did for us. Very humbling experience. Life-changing. There’s no way anyone will ever be able to thank you enough. Well, maybe one way, follow your lead and keep writing…
All my best always! -Susan