The first four online workshops are now done, for the most part. The writers who took the classes are going back over the entire six weeks of videos to review. (Or at least I hope they are.) And that’s a lot of reviewing, since there are about forty or more videos to look at for each class. But except for answering a few questions here and there, my job is done.
Thanks, everyone, who participated in the first four.
So what did I learn?
First: Doing these workshops was great fun for me. I’m not sure what I was thinking in that regard, but it turned out that reading the assignments, thinking about them, interacting with the writers, was a ton of fun. Far, far more than I thought it would be.
Second: Doing these workshops didn’t take a lot of my time away from my writing or other activities. Honestly, I was worried about that. That worry didn’t turn out to be the case at all for me. I worked the time needed to focus on the workshops in and around the writing and other tasks, and often worked on a few assignments at a time during a break because it got my mind thinking in other directions. So not having the workshops be disruptive to my life and writing was a wonderful surprise. Trust me, when writers are here in town for the workshops here on the coast, my life stops for that week. (grin)
Third: I ended up learning more about each topic I taught. Now I understand that the best way to learn about something is to attempt to teach it, but realize that some of these workshops I have taught here on the coast three or four times. So when Kris and I set up the structure for each online workshop, I figured I would be going over again what I had already done before. Turns out that with these online workshops, there are different questions than when in person, and the writers forced me into thinking about things I had never thought about before. And that helped me learn even more, almost every week with all four workshops. So again, thank you all for that. Great fun for me. I love learning.
Fourth: There are some really, really fine writers out there who also love to learn. I had the pleasure to watch writers mature in seemingly fast speed. Especially in the Pitches and Blurbs and Openings workshops. Both of those are craft focused where the writers were writing new work almost every assignment. (The Cliffhangers workshop and the Genre Structure workshops were also craft focused, but not as much writing because of the nature of the topic. More study assignments that were, at times, more difficult than writing new.)
Fifth: I got the chance to meet online some writers I might never had had the chance to meet otherwise. And that’s very cool. I expected that to a degree, but not to the level that it happened. And now I am a fan of a bunch of new writers coming in.
Were there any downsides to the online workshops?
Simply put: Nope. I can’t think of a one.
In fact, I’m looking forward to the December workshops starting up. And after watching these work for me, Allyson is looking forward to the January Cover and Interior workshops to start as well.
And I got some great suggestions on how to improve the workshops for the future from those who took them. Some of the suggestions were not right for these workshops, other suggestions Kris and I will work into the future workshops, and a few basic ones I will do starting in December. Thanks for the help folks.
And I sure hope the workshops worked as well for those taking them as they did for me on this side. The feedback has been great so far, which also is wonderful to hear. So thanks for that as well. Very much appreciated.
So here are the workshop openings available for the next three months.
I will have this list updated over on the right side column and will update this post during the next week or so as well. If you are interested in signing up for any of these workshops, please carefully follow the instructions under the Online Workshops tab above.
For those of you interested and afraid these might take up too much of your time, let me be clear here. They take just over an hour to watch the videos each week. The videos are divided into ten minute segments, so you don’t have to spend the entire hour all at once. The assignments often take about two hours per week. So if you can carve out four or five hours per week for the workshop, you will have all the time you need to really do it right and watch the videos more than once.
So even with the holidays coming up in December, you should be fine and have more than enough time to give the focus to your writing.
Workshop Schedule Openings.
(Again, if interested, follow the instructions under Online Workshops tab above. There are also full descriptions of each workshop there. The dates are the day the workshop starts.)
Workshop #5… (Mon Dec 3rd) Cliffhangers… 2 spots open
Workshop #6…(Tues Dec 4th) Pitches and Blurbs… 2 spots open
Workshop #7… (Wed Dec 5th) Essentials… 2 spots open
Workshop #8… (Thurs Dec 6th) Idea to Story… Full
Workshop #8a… (Fri Dec 7th) Idea to Story… 5 spots open
Workshop #D1… (Mon Jan 7th) Book Cover Design… Full
Workshop #D2…(Tues Jan 8th) Book Cover Design… 6 spots open
Workshop #D3… (Wed Jan 9th) Interior Book Design… 6 spots open
Workshop #D4… (Thurs Jan 10th) Interior Book Design… 8 spots open
Workshop #9… (Mon Feb 4th) Cliffhangers… 8 spots open
Workshop #10…(Tues Feb 5th) Pitches and Blurbs… 5 spots open
Workshop #11… (Wed Feb 6th) Genre Structure… 6 spots open
Workshop #12… (Thurs Feb 7th) Openings… 5 spots open
Workshop #12a… (Fri Feb 8th) Idea to Story… 12 spots
I sure hope you can join me and Allyson (and Kris helping behind the scenes) for these online workshops. Any questions, feel free to write me directly or ask in the comments section.
I just finished the Pitches & Blurbs. To all you writers here, especially indie-writers, I highly recommend it. Well worth the investment in time and money. Thanks Dean. I looking forward to doing more.
The same for Cliffhangers. It was a great course – definitely well worth it. Some good tips on writing in general as well as on the main subject.
I’m looking forward to the next one.
You know – I really like this method of studying. When you say something that gets my brain spinning off on its own tangent, I can stop the video and rewind to listen again to what I missed!
Dean, I’m glad to hear that it isn’t going to impact your writing time. I was worried about that.
Also, quick question…. Would me taking two different sessions be too much for me to do at a time? Not sure if I want to do that yet, but just thought I’d ask.
Thanks!
Karen
Karen,
At first I suggest writers only take one session at a time, but as we got into it and saw the work load and such, I changed my mind. And a couple writers took two the first sessions and it seemed to work for them.
Here is how I look at it. If you take one session, figure on spending about five hours per week total, at most, on it, for six weeks, plus a seventh week of reviewing everything. So if you take two, make sure you can carve out of your life around 8 to 10 hours per week. That make sense?
Hi Karen,
For what it’s worth, I think it depends on what workshops you’re doing together. Cliffhangers was very study oriented, not a lot of original writing. I personally wouldn’t want to take two study-oriented classes at the same time — such as Cliffhangers with Genre Structure — but I certainly wouldn’t have minded taking Cliffhangers together with Openings (which does have a lot of original writing, I believe).
Just a thought.
Openings does have a lot of original writing. As Jeff said, Cliffhangers is very study focused. Genre Structure has a mix. Ideas to Story is original writing heavy. Essentials is a mix. Pitches and Blurbs is a mix, leaning to original writing. Good point, Jeff.
I just finished Genre Structure and it was fantastic. It brought into focus a lot of things had I problems with (I drift while I’m writing). This kept me focused and motivated. I came up with quite a few ideas that I am going to work on. I’m looking forward to From Idea to Story and expect it will be just as wonderful. Thanks Dean.
Slightly OT. I’m planning to epublish my YA manuscript “Box o Crap,” soon. I talked with the cover designer who’s done my erotic/romance shorts and she suggested changing the title due to censorship issues. She thinks Crap in the title would be a problem, especially for that genre. I am not sure why. The S word would be an issue, sure. Any thoughts on title censorship? Thanks.
I can’t see a problem with the title, Larry, except from the perspective of the readers. Picking up a book with that title is going to lead to an expectation of the content is all. (grin) So title is fine for what you are worrying about. But it has a problem in another area. Thinking of titling a book “Boring” and you get the idea. (grin) So I honestly would change it. But that’s just my opinion. (grin)
I had considered that. It’s risky to title something that could be considered a comment on the quality.
Hmmm. Any chance you’re giving a workshop on how to write an amazing title? The content and blurb, I’ve got ‘em.
The genre structure workshop was everything I hoped it would be and more, absolutely wonderful! However, I did spend more than 4-5 hours a week on it, possibly because there was so much to learn which I then tried to apply to my writing.
I just finished Genre Structures, and it helped clarify my thinking about things I’d been wrestling with.
I also just finished the Openings workshop, would recommend it to everyone. Yesterday I began reading over a novel I’d finished just before it began, and held. From the get-go I realized I needed it a lot more than I realized. And implementing it is helping me define the feeling I want readers to have.
I’m signed up for a few others, and looking forward to them.
And I can’t believe the book cover and interior design workshops still have openings. Those are a must for all indie writers.
I learned loads from the Cliffhangers course. I was really pleased I did it.
I had been a bit concerned about having to do new writing as coursework because I’m working on a novel and didn’t want to be pulled off-story by having to come up with other stuff and so I was relieved that in the Cliffhangers course, the ‘homework’ is to find and analyse particular sorts of cliffhangers in best-sellers. It was highly informative!
I’m thinking of doing the Openings workshop next and can see from people’s comments that that involves writing. Is that likely to be difficult if you’re working on a novel or is part of the discipline that you should be able to work on lots of different projects? This is my first novel and I’m not sure I’d be able to pull myself out of it and get back into it that easily.
Julie, It is completely up to you if you want to tackle new projects in the Openings workshop before finishing a first novel. But Richard commented on that right below this, so he would have a better sense since he took it. For me, I move easily from one project to another and back, but many writers don’t, and every writer is different, so I honestly don’t have an opinion of value on your question. Sorry.
Hi, Julie, I highly recommend you taken the Openings course — unless you’re already 100% sure you already know it all. Since you’re working on your first novel, you can’t have that assurance.
I can tell you, the main content was NOT what I expected — ordinary advice you’ll find in writing books about “hooking” the reader. That’s part of it, but by NO means the real value. I’ve never seen it explicitly explained anywhere else.
Some — but not all — weeks, the homework was to write a few original openings based on situations Dean gives you. He wanted only a few hundred words, so it was not an extreme amount of writing.
Myself, I completed my daily work on my WIP before I began the workshop, since I do that first of all. Writing a few openings once a week, and not every week, didn’t interfere with work on my WIP. (Some weeks the assignment was to go find examples in bestsellers, as is apparently the norm in Cliffhangers. That was actually more time consuming.)
Now that I’m going back to the novel I thought I’d completed in early September to apply what I just learned, I can see how what I learned helps me focus on how to best guide the reader.
It also helps with the entire chapter or story, not just the openings.
I strongly recommend it to everyone.
Cool!
I’m signed up for the February Openings class and have really been looking forward to it. It’s been hard to wait, but now it’ll be even harder! Grin!
Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait!
Thanks, Richard – no, I certainly don’t know it all! I expect to be anyway learning for the rest of my life. It sounds as though you had a similar experience on your course in finding that you were learning different things about openings than you had expected, just as I was surprised at the range of possible cliffhangers and how they should be structured to work well. Complete eye-opener.
That’s good to know that Dean provides the situations to write about – my concern was not the writing, it was imagining new situations outside the story of my WIP and I’d assumed that that would be part of the homework. I am reassured! Thanks very much for your response.
The only downside is that I didn’t get to stay at the Anchor and had to make my own breakfast.
Seriously, a terrific learning experience that let everyone fit the classes into their own schedules. I was frankly surprised at how much I learned about cliffhangers by doing research of best selling authors.
I just finished the Pitches & Blurbs workshop and even though I was a bit worried at the beginning, because I am not a native English speaker, I am oh so happy I did it.
It is not about having a huge vocabulary but about using it correctly. It is more about understanding what you should be doing, and about the hows and whys. Your aim is the AHA-Effect, that clicking in your mind, that allows you to proceed alone from that point on.
It was not too much writing work, approximately 1-2 hours a week, but I spent a lot of time in front of my bookshelf going through book covers, tags and blurbs.
This workshop was an eye opener, even for me, who has been working on pitches for sequential art for many years. Writing is a different medium and there are many explicit and implicit rules in the traditional publishing environment that you normally would need time and insight to understand – it is what whispers to the reader that she is holding a professionally done book in her hands. This workshop is a wonderful short-cut. And I thank Dean for providing it even to those of us, who live far away.
For me, it worked so well, that I have already signed on to two more workshops … That says it all, does it not?
And as an aside, Dean, I did in fact get that request (thanks to the printout of one of the assingments sitting on my table one early morning, where it was seen and read by someone visiting us).
There will be a whole album out. 13 songs. Lyrics by Lassal
All done.
Now THAT was an unexpected outcome of the workshop. It was not even on my radar.
Pitches & Blurbs: Snappy sentences, dressed to sell.
Yep. It worked.
Hey, Lassal, that is fantastic. Glad it worked out! Well done.
The more I read the comments about the different workshops everyone took, the more eager I am to take them all. Wish I could block off six weeks and dive into four or five at a time.
On the flip side, the silver lining is this: I won’t run out of things to study!
But isn’t that what makes writing so great? You can never master it. The learning never stops. Sometimes, I shake my head in dismay, thinking it’s a hopeless cause; I’m never going to be as good as [insert your favorite author's name here]. But more often than not — when I look down the road, when I focus on the long-term, when I DON’T allow myself to think in the short term — writer excites me more than anything else for one simple reason: I’ll never get bored being a writer since there’s always something to learn, something to tweak, something to try.
And Jeff, I can tell you that if you keep that desire to keep learning, even after thirty-five years, it doesn’t get boring because there are still a ton to learn. And I’m always surprised by the learning for some reason. I go out after it and then surprised when I find it. Go figure. (grin)
Dean, I told you you were a natural teacher back in the days of coal-burning computers when we both hung out on AOL, so I am not at all surprised how well these online workshops are turning out.
And I’m not surprised you’re learning more every time you teach. You’ve got a nimble and thoughtful mind. (Though the chasm between ‘thoughtful’ and ‘thinks things through’ can be documented by your several dozen ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ stories.) As a teacher I always tasked my more gifted students with teaching others – not to take a load off me, thought that was a fillip, but because teaching gave the advanced student deeper and more textured insights into the subject.
I’ve been advocating for your online workshops every chance I get and have invoked yours and Kris’s names so often when refuting academia in the online MFA program I’m going through that a few peers have prefaced position posts with variations of “Though Smith and Rusch note this is not the case in professional publishing, in narrative theory ….”
You know you’ll be seeing me virtually in 2013.