Monster Revision & Deep POV: Suzanne Johnson – OCCRWA August Online Class
July 23, 2017 by Linda McLaughlin in category Online Classes tagged as Monster Revision & Deep POV, OCC/RWA Online Class, point of view, revisions, Susannah Sandlin, Suzanne JohnsonI’m excited about the August OCC/RWA Online Class, Monster Revision & Deep POV, with instructor Suzanne Johnson, who also writes as Susannah Sandlin. I have a manuscript in mind I want to tackle.
Pull out that WIP, ready-to-revise manuscript, or even a chapter from an already-published book, and get ready to dive into “Monster Revision,” an intensive one-pass revision system that’ll take you from Draft Zero to Done.
In this 30-day workshop, we’ll cover a one-week overview series of lessons, followed by three weeks of techniques that will leave you with a lot of tools in your revision toolbox. You’ll get individual feedback on your posted homework (yes, homework!), and I’ll work on a revision of one of my WIPS as we go through the course as illustration.
Part One:
* The Monster Revision Process: It’s easier than you think. Not fast, but not rocket-science.
* The Opening Scene Test.
* The Action-Reaction Test.
Part Two:
Warning: There will be color-coding. Take a deep breath and pull out those highlighters.
For the remainder of the class, we’ll take a sample chapter or two from your manuscript and massage it till it hurts. (You can try doing a whole manuscript during the class but it’ll be more effective to do the techniques on one or two chapters.)
We’ll be covering:
- Methodology and color-coding, and why deep POV is an important part of revision.
- Setting and description, including timeline, continuity, and backstory quicksand.
- What’s important to show, and what is better told.
- Dialogue as Action, and isolating character voice.
- Internal dialogue: pace, voice.
- Emotion: raw, ugly, visceral, internal.
- The color wheel.
- Read to the dog.
- DIY Toolbox: manual and online.
About the Instructor:
Suzanne Johnson was happily ensconced in New Orleans as a university magazine editor when Hurricane Katrina sent her adopted hometown underwater. She took her Katrina experiences, added wizards and magic (and the sexy undead pirate Jean Lafitte), and began what has become the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series published by Tor Books. Writing under the name Susannah Sandlin, she also writes award-winning paranormal romance, including the popular Penton Legacy series for Montlake Romance, and romantic suspense and thrillers, including two series, The Collectors and Wilds of the Bayou, also for Montlake.
Suzanne grew up in Alabama halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’s birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of college football and fried gator on a stick. She currently lives in Auburn, Alabama, where she is a full-time author.
Enrollment Information:
This is a 4-week online course that uses email and Yahoo Groups. If you do not have a Yahoo ID you will be prompted to create one when you join the class, but the process is not difficult. The class is open to anyone wishing to participate. The cost is $30.00 per person or, if you are a member of OCCRWA, $20.00 per person.
Enroll here: http://occrwa.org/classes/august-online-class/
Linda McLaughlin
OCC/RWA Online Class Co-coordinator
Visual Content Marketing for the Confused and Terrified Writer
February 3, 2017 by Marianne H. Donley in category Writing: It's a Business tagged as Elena Dillion, Marketing, OCC/RWA Online Class, Social Media
What is visual content and why do you need it for your marketing strategy? And how does this apply to your author business? The answer is fairly simple.
Visual content is anything that uses pictures, graphics, video, etc. When you see a GIF of cats falling off tables? That’s visual content. A pretty graphic with a quote from a book? Visual Content. Those fabulous cooking videos where they make a cinnamon roll apple pie in twenty seconds? Visual content.
It’s what will get your content seen. As a matter of fact, statistically, your readers are 44% more likely to engage with visual content. Hmmm. 44%? Hard to ignore. We all want to work smarter not harder, right? In this class, you will learn:
How to decide what kind of visuals will work for you and your business
How to create all kinds of visuals
How to make one piece of content work in many different ways
Drive traffic where you want it to go (your website, lead page, Amazon or other retailer page)
Save time and effort in your marketing efforts
This class for you if you’e never created any kind of graphics on your own. It’s for authors who need to learn how to create visual content for their author business and are unsure about using new technology. We will go over:
Strategies for smarter marketing
Tools that make visual content easier to create and more manageable
How to plan out your content and marketing so it takes up less precious writing time.
And believe it or not? I’ll make it fun. I’ll teach you how to create a graphic while you’re standing in line for coffee. =)
Join me for the fun in the February 2017 OCCRWA Visual Content Marketing for the Confused and Terrified Writer class!
About the instructor:
Who Am I?
I’m Elena Dillon, an author of the award winning Young Adult ‘Breathe’ series. When I’m not writing, I love to help my author friends with technology and social media. I’ve taught Social Media for the Confused and Terrified, Pinterest for the Confused and Terrified, Visual Content for Authors and spoken at numerous conferences, chapters and groups about social media and indie publishing.
Most of the time, I’m a wife to my husband of twenty-six years, mom to my two grown kids and servant to my high-maintenance English bulldog, Brutus, while I wait, not so patiently, for grandbabies.
Enrollment Information
This is a 4-week online course that uses email and Yahoo Groups. If you do not have a Yahoo ID you will be prompted to create one when you join the class, but the process is not difficult. The class is open to anyone wishing to participate.
Enroll at: http://occrwa.org/classes/february-online-class/
Class dates: February 13 to March 10
Two Classes For Writers – Self-Publishing and Book Promotion by Kitty Bucholtz
August 9, 2016 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing Classes tagged as Author promotion, E-book marketing, Kitty Bucholtz, Marketing, OCC/RWA Online Class, OCCRWA Online Class, Online Class, Online Classes, promotion, self publishing, self-publishingThis month I’m teaching a brand new online class for OCC – “7 Ways to Market and Promote Your Book Without Breaking the Bank.” I’m excited to share the things I’ve learned about inexpensive promotions – including having an author newsletter – with my writer friends!
The 4-week class starts next Monday, August 15, 2016, and costs $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members. You don’t have to be a member of RWA to enroll in the class. You can read more about it and sign up for the class here. I hope to see you there! [Note: Signing up is a 2-step process. You must hit the purple “Yahoo Groups Join Now” button AND then come back to the page and pay via PayPal. If you only do one step or the other, you won’t be in the class until you complete both steps.]
This week I also re-opened my full-sized online course, “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing.” I’m so excited about everything I’m doing on the new website! There are five modules covering every step you need to take to get from finished manuscript to published book. I’ve spread it out over eight weeks, which should be plenty of time to learn what you need to do in the lessons and then go apply it. And you’ll have lifetime access so you can come back to the lessons as often as you like.
I’ve included videos, audio downloads, text-based lectures, and worksheets to help you through the entire process. There’s also a private Facebook group where students can ask questions and share their experiences. Two of the three tiers give students access to weekly/monthly live video-based Q&A calls, and those in the upper tier also get a private coaching call with me.
There are payment plans for all three tiers, and bonuses for anyone who signs up by August 15. You can learn more about it all at WriteNowWorkshop.com. If you have any questions, please email me at kitty AT writenowworkshop.com.
I’m looking forward to helping more writers self-publish their books and find new ways to promote them. I hope to see you in one of my classes!
Kitty Bucholtz
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon . The free short story Superhero in Disguise and the new short story Welcome to Loon Lake are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.
0 0 Read moreMarch’s OCCRWA Online Class is “Speed Writing: Which Plan Works Best for You?”, with MM Pollard
February 26, 2016 by Marianne H. Donley in category Archives tagged as MM Pollard, OCC/RWA Online Class, Speedwriting
About the Class:
It’s easy to find how-to books on writing fast, but which one represents the solution to your plotting problem?
Let MM Pollard, writer, editor, and workshop presenter, help you sort through all of the different advice on this subject in eight lessons. She will focus on increasing daily word count as well as on quicker methods to plan and organize your book, using information from several fiction and nonfiction writers who have done just that. Students will be encouraged to try the techniques presented in each lesson to see if they work for them.
About the Instructor:
As an English teacher for fifteen years and, currently as editor for Black Velvet Seductions and the MM in Workshops with MM, MM Pollard has helped writers correct ungrammatical grammar, misused usage, problematic punctuation, and poor writing. Check out Testimonials on her blog, MM’s Fundamentals of English. While you are there, sign up for her monthly newsletter and even look at previous newsletters.
MM began presenting workshops four years ago and has presented on many sites, including her own. Many RWA chapters, including From the Heart RWA, RWA Online, OCC/RWA, Passionate Ink, Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal RW, Maryland RWA, and Florida RW, have also sponsored her workshops. In February, 2015, she presented at FRW’s Fun in the Sun Conference, and her dream come true!
Through her fun workshops—English class can be fun!—MM is sure she can help you, too, master the fundamentals of English composition.
For more information and to register go to http://occrwa.org/classes/march-online-class/
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Permission to forward
Angela Kyle
OCCRWA Online Class Promos
Learn to Self-Publish Your Book This Month – and Have It On Sale Next Month!
September 10, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, OCC/RWA Online Class, Online Class, self publishing, self-publishingJust a quick reminder that I’ll be teaching “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing” starting on Monday, September 15, 2014. That’s this upcoming Monday!
It’s a 4-week online course that will help you take your completed manuscript, and format it and upload it so it’s finally for sale. Yay you! Someone asked, if your manuscript is not quite complete, can you take the class anyway and use a test version to go through the steps so you know what to do when you’re ready? Yes, you can!
The class will consist of written lectures with step-by-step instructions for getting your book ready, as well as videos showing you what to do. You may have already read dozens of blogs and books about how this person or that person created their self-published book, so you already know there is more than one way to go about this. I will show you how I do it and, as a class, we’ll all help each other as each person chooses their own tools (software, distributors, etc.).
For only $30 ($20 for OCC members), this class is a great deal! And half of the proceeds go to support the Orange County Chapter of RWA. Tell your friends and sign up today!
Have questions? Email me at Kitty at KittyBucholtz dot com. I hope to see you in class!
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this year.
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