Challenge,  On Writing,  publishing,  workshops

Ten December Online Workshops

November 3, 2016 /

Ten December Online Workshops…

Instead of constantly having the workshop schedule listed in every post and on the side of this blog, I’m just going to do instead an occasional post about the upcoming online workshops.

Feel free to forward these workshop posts to anyone you think might be interested. Online workshops are geared to any writer working on the craft and business of their writing.

As the next three months go on, we will be moving the workshops to a more friendly and less “clunky” place. Teachable.com. So I will announce that as they get moved, starting with the lectures first.

And even though not yet listed, we will be starting two new workshops in January and February. One will be “Endings” and the other will be “Secondary Plots.” Both will be high-level craft workshops.

So here are the December online workshops that are available. The full list and descriptions of the workshops (plus the January and February schedule and sign-up instruction) is at www.wmgpublishingworkshops.com

Class #51… Dec 6th … The Business of Writing
Class #52… Dec 6th … Point of View
Class #53… Dec 6th … Writing Mysteries
Class #54… Dec 6th … Speed
Class #55… Dec 6th … Teams in Fiction
Class #56… Dec 7th … Depth in Writing
Class #57… Dec 7th … Plotting With Depth
Class #58… Dec 7th … Writing Fiction Sales Copy
Class #59… Dec 7th … Writing and Selling Short Stories
Class #60… Dec 7th … Advanced Depth

Also, if you are wondering which order to take the workshops in, we have developed a basic curriculum. You can get that at

Workshop Curriculum

All of the workshops are limited to just five writers and all have openings at the moment.

Any questions at all, feel free to write me.

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9 Comments

  • Becca

    November 3, 2016 at 8:10 am

    Dean,

    Do you ever get stuck in a novel and then cycle back several chapters to where you were last having fun and just write from there? I’m tempted to do that in this mystery novel I’m writing, but I’m not sure if that’s just my critical voice trying to keep me from finishing. I have put writing a novel on a pedestal for so long and I’m trying to bring it back down to just having fun, but have been floundering for a few weeks now. Any tips?

    • dwsmith

      November 3, 2016 at 2:40 pm

      Becca, yup, do that regularly. When my creative voice isn’t enjoying a story, I know I have forced it by critical voice in the wrong direction. So I jump back and just go at it again. And the two chapters are the clue. Usually takes that long for a wrong direction to grind down to a halt. So it was your critical voice that took you in a wrong direction to make sure you didn’t finish.

      And great job trying to bring novels off pedestals and just think of them as stories. Fun stories to write. Nothing more. Just because something has a few more words than another story doesn’t make it more important. It just has more words. And because a story has fewer words doesn’t make it less important either. Writers are weird in that kind of thinking but we all do it at times. The key is get past it.

      Also keep in mind that just because you had fun writing a story doesn’t mean the story has less value. Sometimes we all purposely make a story hard just to make it feel like it has more value. Not kidding, seen that a lot.

      • Marsha

        November 4, 2016 at 6:01 am

        Thank you Becca. I was about to ask the exact same question!

        I have just run into this and was floundering trying to figure out why the story I was having so much fun with suddenly ran into a brick wall with every new word a struggle.

        After mulling it over (and not producing a single new word for several days now) I remembered you mentioning this somewhere, Dean, and I suspected that I had let my critical voice take the story in a wrong direction. Good to have that confirmed. I’ll cut back two chapters—the point where I stopped having fun and every sentence became torture—and move forward from there.

        Great lesson in how sneaky and debilitating the critical voice can be. It almost had me, and would have if not for your generosity Dean. Because you share so much you inspire (me anyways) and help us through the rough patches.

        • dwsmith

          November 4, 2016 at 2:48 pm

          But you guys are the writers. I don’t deserve any credit at all because I think of myself more like a directional sign stuck in the dirt beside the road with an arrow pointing and a sign saying “Go that direction.” When you are traveling you don’t give signs any credit because you are the one doing the traveling and making the decisions to follow or not follow a sign.

          But thanks for the kind thoughts. Keep having fun.

  • Isabo Kelly

    November 3, 2016 at 9:02 am

    Hey Dean, as you move the lectures, and the Classic workshops, will we still have access to the ones we’ve signed up to? (Cause if not, I need to go take some quick notes *grin*) Thanks!