Odyssey writing workshops charitable trust announces winter 2012 online classes

The following is the press release I'm passing on from the Odyssey writing workshops charitable trust. And to be totally honest, I'm more than half interested in the "Secrets of Literary Agents" class.  The following was sent by Jeanne Cavelos and all the "I" references should be attributed to her, not me here on Speak Coffee:

Last winter, we had a huge response to the three online courses we offered.  Writers from all over the world applied; only fourteen were admitted to each course.  Using the latest technology, we were able to interact with each other in live class meetings and exchange homework and critiques.  Students were committed and enthusiastic and worked hard, taking their writing to the next level.

For seventeen years, Odyssey has pursued its mission to help developing writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work by holding its annual six-week, in-person workshop in Manchester, New Hampshire.  But two years ago we expanded our mission, taking the teaching techniques that are so effective at the workshop and adapting them to create online classes.  We have worked very hard to ensure that our online classes are of the same quality and caliber as our in-person workshop and that they deserve to carry the name of Odyssey.  Courses provide a supportive yet challenging, energizing atmosphere, with class size limited to fourteen students.

This year, I'm excited to announce that we are again offering three different online courses covering some of the most critical issues for developing writers:

Showing versus Telling in Fantastic FictionCourse Meets:  January 4 - February 1, 2012
Instructor:  Jeanne Cavelos
Application Deadline:  December 8, 2011

Perhaps the first rule most writers hear is "Show, don't tell."  Yet in my experience, few writers actually understand the difference between showing and telling.  Even fewer understand that showing and telling are not two opposing possibilities, but two ends of a spectrum offering a range of subtle gradations.  To write with power, a writer must know where on that spectrum he should be at every moment, and he must be able to control the levels of showing and telling.  The skillful manipulation of showing and telling can make settings vivid, bring characters to life, put the reader in the middle of the action, and convey powerful emotions.  We will study examples of the successful and unsuccessful use of showing and telling.  We'll also discuss the special necessity of showing in fantastic fiction, and the challenges of doing so.

Secrets of Literary AgentsCourse Meets:  January 9 - 23, 2012
Instructor:  Lindsay Ribar
Application Deadline:  December 13, 2011

The best chance a developing writer has of getting an agent is to query someone who has become an agent only in the last few years.  Such an agent is still developing her list of writers and is actively looking for new writers to represent.  Because of this, I felt the best teacher for a course on getting a literary agent would be just such an up-and-coming agent.

In Secrets of Literary Agents, junior agent and author Lindsay Ribar reveals everything authors need to know about getting and working with an agent.  The right literary agent can help shape and build an author's career.  The wrong one can sink it.  In this course, Lindsay will explain why you need an agent in today's market and what an agent can do for you.  She will show you how to identify qualified agents appropriate for your work, and how to figure out which of those are the best candidates to approach.  You'll learn what agents are looking for in a query, a synopsis, and a novel opening, and how many submissions yours must compete against to get an agent's attention.  Lindsay will take you inside the minds of agents to reveal how they evaluate projects.

Lindsay will also prepare you for working with an agent.  She'll explain the contracts between agents and authors:  clauses to avoid, clauses to insist on.  You'll learn how many authors an agent represents and what an average day is like.  She'll let you know what is reasonable for an author to expect of an agent, and what is unreasonable, and how to build a positive, long-term relationship with an agent.  Lindsay will also discuss changes and trends in the publishing industry, particularly those involving fantasy, science fiction, and young adult literature.  Which sub-genres, publishers, and editors provide the best opportunities for new writers?  What is the role of e-publishing from an agent's perspective?  And how are these changes affecting literary agents?

Narrative Structures in Fantastic FictionCourse Meets:  January 25 - February 22, 2012
Instructor:  Bruce Holland Rogers
Application Deadline:  December 29, 2011

Award-winning author Bruce Holland Rogers finds structure one of the most useful guides when writing a story.  Often he will start a story with no more than a subject and a structure, and it will take him to fascinating places and leave him with a satisfying, unified story.
Structure can provide a story with unity, and it can give an author direction. If you ever get lost in the middle of writing a story, or you can't find the right climax, this course is for you.  Bruce will teach you how to identify and use powerful strategies, modes, and structures.  While most writers have a strong sense of what genre or sub-genre they're writing in, they have little sense of what type of structure they are using, if any.  This leads to muddled, dissatisfying plots.  Bruce will lay out a fascinating array of various structures, beginning with flash fiction structures, moving on to short story structures, and finally covering structures for long narratives.  Bruce will discuss the requirements and goals of these various structures, and how they can be developed with originality and emotion.

More information about our online classes can be found here:  http://www.sff.net/odyssey/online.html
If you've visited the Odyssey site recently, you may need to click REFRESH on your browser to see the new content.

PLEASE NOTE:  Those application deadlines are coming up soon!  If you would like to apply for more than one course, you must apply separately for each one.

If you're ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them, you'd be welcome to apply to our online classes and learn the tools and techniques to take your writing to the next level.

Workshop = you - your voice

Agent Kristin Norton has a short and sweet little post up on Pub Rants about voice being workshopped out of students. To which I wholeheartedly agree. When I left college I had a super-quirky but non-functional writer voice. Which the MFA has since beat out of me.

(I should of course admit that the voice I was left with was highly functional -- something I did not have before -- if not terribly interesting.)

I've also since realized that the MFA made me get super distant from my characters (and I used to love love love to be right up in their heads) because I had an instructor or two right at the beginning of my study who loved to dissect the character's neuroses and therefore the author's.  And yeah, okay, so she was normally right on the money with which neuroses my characters held were made up and which were my own.  But that sort of detective work -- and namely, announcing that detective work to my peers -- made me not write characters like me.

I got super-distant from my characters. And then I got despondent. I tried, flailed. Thought about focusing solely on nonfiction without the veil of fiction to obscure what I was saying, then hit on the notion of folklore as the lens to focus my fiction writing through. Thus my big break.

While folklore in the MFA workshop was its own sort of uphill battle, no one stopped to suggest that it was a poignant narrative and if you made it up then all the more poignant.

So I dropped the closeness of my narrative voice in favor of the fairy tale voice. I dropped the quirky wondrous sarcastic voice that had been my signature as an undergrad. A voice that would give me my first fiction publication. And after a 2-3 year hiatus, only now am I slowly attempting to regain that voice.  But certainly not in all  of my works.

Voice is something I struggle dearly with. My writing teachers and peers like to tell me that "I think you've found your voice" whenever they see the writing come together for me.

I've been told, so far, that I have "found my voice" on three vastly different projects. Possibly four -- my memory is faulty.

I've also been told that my voice often waffles within a single piece. Little wonder, all things considered.

I've been told my quirky voice was "it"; that my fairy tale voice was "it"; that my contemporary folklore voice waffled too much but my high fantasy voice was spot on, (read: "it").

Is this a matter of an author having a "soft ear" and therefore being able to pick up many voices? Is it a matter of my own fear closing off avenues? Or is it simply workshop workshopping the voice out of individuals in favor of craft? (which if you read the linked post above,  you'll see is no bad thing so long as craft is learned and voice is regained).  I don't know. I really don't know. But I'll keep trying on new voices for as long as I can. Writing voices fascinate me, much like speaking with accents/dialects fascinate me. Please, don't ask those who knew me in middle school about the Irish accent I adopted after watching The Secret of Roan Inish; the accent came easily to me, and I used it to annoy the crap out of everyone around me.

Odyssey Workshop Online

Each summer Odyssey offers an intense, six week writing workshop on the campus of St. Anselm College for speculative writers whose work is of publishable quality or approaching publishable quality. The online workshops don't have nearly the depth or breadth of information as the summer course, but they provide a much more focused discussion for those who would like to brush up on an area or who would like to investigate without making the big commitment of time and money that going to the summer workshop involves. I've been to the summer workshop and highly recommend it. I haven't participated in an online workshop, but I heard good things about last winter's online workshop from people who participated in it. The following comes from the Odyssey Workshop press release:

ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP ANNOUNCES WINTER 2011 ONLINE CLASSES

The Odyssey Writing Workshop, one of the most respected programs for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, is offering three online writing classes this winter. Each class is focused on a particular element of fiction writing and is designed for writers at a particular skill level, from beginners to professional writers.

For sixteen years, Odyssey has pursued its mission to help developing writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work by holding its annual six-week, in-person workshop in Manchester, New Hampshire. But last year, using the latest technology, Odyssey expanded its mission, taking the teaching techniques that are so effective at the workshop and adapting them to create online classes. Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos explains, "We have worked very hard to ensure that our online classes are of the same quality and caliber as our in-person workshop and that they deserve to carry the name of Odyssey." Courses provide a supportive yet challenging, energizing atmosphere, with a class size limited to fourteen students. While courses are designed for adult writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, interested writers of other genres are welcome to apply.

Last winter, Odyssey offered its first online course, Showing versus Telling in Fantastic Fiction. "The class was a huge success," Jeanne Cavelos says. "Using Web conferencing software, we held live class sessions with fourteen students from the US, Japan, and Australia. We had some great discussions, and the students proved that they could commit significant amounts of time and energy to a rigorous, demanding course despite the long distances. They worked intensely on recognizing and manipulating showing and telling in their fiction and made exciting improvements."

This year, in response to demand, Odyssey is offering three different online courses covering some of the most critical issues for developing writers:

Three-Act Structure in Fantastic Fiction
Course Meets: January 5 - February 2, 2011
Instructor: Jeanne Cavelos
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Application Deadline: December 9, 2010
One of the greatest weaknesses of developing writers is plot. One of the best tools for strengthening plot is the act. Plotting in acts creates a more suspenseful, unpredictable, and emotionally satisfying experience for the reader. The strongest plots often have three acts. In this course, students will study plots of a variety of works, and they'll learn how to create their own strong three-act plots.

Worldbuilding in Fantastic Fiction
Course Meets: January 12 - January 26, 2011
Instructor: Melissa Scott
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Application Deadline: December 16, 2010
The most prominent element that separates science fiction, fantasy, and much horror from other genres is the setting. A unique, fully realized, believable world provides much of the appeal of fantastic fiction. Creating a vivid, consistent world is not a simple task. Incorporating that world gracefully into a story is another challenge. Award-winning author Melissa Scott is the absolute expert on the subject, and in this mini-course, she will guide students through the process step by step.

Writing in Scenes
Course Meets: February 9 - 23, 2011
Instructor: Nancy Kress
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Application Deadline: January 10, 2011
For award-winning author Nancy Kress, one principle made all the difference in her writing, transforming it from promising but unsalable to compelling and published. That one principle was writing in scenes. In this unique mini-course, Nancy will explain how to determine the purpose and shape of a scene. She'll discuss the five modes of expression used in a scene, how to find the optimal balance between these five modes for a particular scene, and the importance of dialogue as the heart of almost all scenes. Nancy, an acclaimed writing teacher, provides great insights into the process of creating a scene.

More information about Odyssey's Online Classes is available at http://www.sff.net/odyssey/online.html or by emailing jcavelos@sff.net.

Odyssey's Online Classes pack valuable content into each session and provide assignments that challenge students to take their writing to the next level. The classes provide the tools and techniques students need to improve their writing, along with feedback on their work that reveals whether they are successfully using those tools and techniques.

Cavelos says, "If you're ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them, you'd be welcome to apply to one of our online classes."

In addition, the Odyssey Web site, www.odysseyworkshop.org, offers many resources for writers, including free podcasts, writing and publishing tips, a weekly writing blog, and a critique service.

On Process: Waiting for Workshop

Fact: workshop causes anxiety.

Anytime you create something then ask people for their honest opinions, a certain amount of anxiety is involved. As you repeat this process again and again the amount of the anxiety diminishes but it never fully goes away.

It might reduce down to such a low level that you can look people in the eye and say I'm not worried, and you might be putting up a good front or you might honestly believe that you have no fear because the anxiety about workshop is so minimal that it has fused with the regular anxieties of day-to-day life: did I turn off the oven? Am I going to have clean underwear for tomorrow? Did anyone walk the dog before we left?

Then, if you're me, after you've reduced your workshop-anxiety down to the level of clean-laundry-anxiety, you go and write something different from what you've written before. Because it is different you can't anticipate the reception it will be given at workshop (being able to anticipate made you able to not worry previously). You won't know if you are out of your comfort zone or workshop is out of its comfort zone because the whole thing has so many variables that it has blurred into one giant mess. You will then re-initiate the old process of waiting for workshop.

First -- after doing everything you can (within the time limit) to finish and polish your story -- you continued to work after the time limit to further finish and further polish your story. Took a deep breath. Shrugged. And sent it off.

In the days between submission and workshop you decided the story wasn't all that bad. Then decided it was pretty good. Then decided it was awful. Decided everyone would make little happy noises as they read it. Decided you were going to get pigeonholed by your choice of material and/or conflict. Decided you were going to get your ass handed to you. Imagined the things people would say as they handed you back your ass.

Next you decided that you wouldn't let them hurt you by declaring that you didn't like them before they could do damage. Decided that you should be more open minded. Tried to be positive and think the best of people ... but being positive made you feel like a fake.

Stopped thinking about everyone. Started thinking about a larger project. Built castle in the sky. Started construction on castle. Got side tracked. Made popcorn. Found this guy's book with sweet ass comics in it. Loved this guy's book with sweet ass comics in it. Read No. 11 and said Rah! Rah! Yeah!

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Then stopped. Couldn't figure out if you were avoiding or standing out. Went back. Reread. Worried.

Read No. 12. and forgot about No. 11.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

You accepted the pain -- no, accepted the pain-yet-to-come. Rethought it. Decided acceptance was stupid. Rejected the pain-yet-to-come. Accepted it. Ate more popcorn. Kicked the cat out of the office because she kept trying to tip over your waterbottle. Sketched blueprints for castle. Wrote blog entry. Read blog. Read blog. Read more of guy's book. Read physical book. Went to bed. Stared at dark ceiling. Thought some more. Though negative thoughts phrased positively and wondered if that was enough to improve your Karma. You have rotten Karma lately. Thought about ways to improve your Karma and whether or not they could be done over the internet because you can't go anywhere tomorrow until you get a load of laundry done because you have no clean underwear for tomorrow.

The Fantasy of "Next Semester"

[6,628 / 50,000]

A recent post at Allison Writes got me thinking about the fantasy of "next semester." I have always, always fantasized that next semester I will be on top of things. Next semester I will do every reading thoroughly for every class. I will grade papers promptly. I will give better lectures. I will finish short stories before the semester starts so that what I turn in to workshop is the absolutely most edited thing I can produce.

Instead I end up in situations like I am in now, where I am keeping my head above water. [I had written the sentence "just barely keeping my head above water" but the truth is that I'm a doing smidge better than "just barely" so I cut that phrase.]

I've been turning in things to workshop that I have written only just this semester. In fact, I turned in something this week that I wrote the night before. Not because it was due but because I wanted to get it out of me and onto the page and (for some reason) out in front of the group while I was still feeling energetic. Unfortunately the group now has two weeks to look at it before they talk to me and I'm certain I'll feel it is poo in two weeks time. In that piece I also committed what I believe are errors that I did NOT fix, because a perverse part of me wants affirmation that those things were wrong. I want to know that the error I wanted to fix really was an error.

Is it perverse, or is it my learning process? Isn't this what toddlers do? They think they know what's right and what's wrong so they do something and say "uh-oh!" and see if their parents say "uh-oh" or get mad or if the rents are cool with it. Trial and error. Action, reaction, alteration of behavior.

Realistically this is a good time for me to be doing it. First off, during the MFA is a great time to try and fail because you get instant feedback and instruction. (Thankfully I signed on for a three year not two year program.) Second, it's good because this semester I'm producing and turning in almost exclusively nonfiction pieces of writing. I believe I've written about this on this blog before, but when I work in nonfiction the writing goes faster because I don't have to come up with characters I just have to remember them. I don't have to imagine the conflict and then debate whether it is believable or not because I know it did happen and by positing it as truth at the beginning people will be more willing to believe the unbelievable. Although what I'm writing about is not all that unbelievable in my opinion.

But what all that means is that when I go back to writing fiction I will have to do prep work. My list of Things to Do/Write/Read Over Winter Break keeps getting longer and longer and ...

In love with an essay

Check out Alexander Chee's essay "Annie Dillard and the Writing Life." I'm in love with this essay. I plan on saving it and giving it to my creative writing students to read ... when I eventually have creative writing students to whom I assign readings.

And, interestingly enough, Dillard, though Chee, finally articulates a reason for literary writers disliking gerunds. Previously it had been one of those "just avoid such-n-such" rules that I had headed but not understood.

The Non-Fiction Workshop

I promised I'd let you know how the non-fiction workshop went and I guess it's only fair to give you an update before and after I go up for workshop the first time.

The class is small and a mix of grad students and undergrad upperclassmen. Despite there only being seven of us, I have managed to hedge as long as possible and have not yet put work up for workshop.

I have embarked on a Post Secret memoir that I mentioned before in my plea for help. The project is, by design, large. However, it is growing into an ungainly mess. Thus my need to wait as long as possible to workshop. I'm trying to give the storyline a shape and that's not happening because I just keep on remembering things and wondering if I should add them in as well.

The nice part about writing nonfiction is that I just remember and write. I can focus on the storytelling aspect and on the sentence level craft without spending as much time thinking about plot, character development or any of the "creation" aspects of generating fictional material. And, as I have (within the past year or two) moved away from using my own life as wholesale story-fodder, that "creation" aspect takes a lot of time and energy in my fiction writing process.

The crazy part is that I keep remembering stuff. The more I think the more I recall. And more. And still more. It's all there, it's just taking a while for me to dig up again.

The awful part is that I'm not a linear thinker. So my narrative is jumpy and so is my process of remembering. This makes editing the "first" section difficult for workshop. I'll be giving them an incomplete narrative (it won't even have in the Post Secret interviews because I haven't addressed the shape of the narrative so I can't figure out where those interview snips best compliment the story), but it will be okay so long as I only give them the "second" part next time. What I don't want to do is give them twenty new pages plus twenty old pages that have been reworked and had a few more scenes added to them.

I'm also spending more time writing and reading for my grad classes than I am teaching and prepping for class.

A professor recently said that he's seen teaching composition ruin many a would-be writer. He went on to explain how easy it is to throw yourself into teaching when your own writing is going poorly and that if you become a really good teacher the need to become a really good writer lessens. Unfortunately I'm having the opposite problem this fall.

Keep Writing!

I once dated a guy who claimed he was on the verge of the next Great American Novel (dispelling the myth of the 'Great American Novel' will be a later entry). He told me he had planned the whole thing out in detail. Plotted it meticulously. Developed characters that the critics were going to love him for. With such great insight into the human condition that it would be on reading lists long after his death. Except this was all in his head. He hadn’t written down a single word.

I pushed for him to write it. To write anything. I even threw my weight behind it both as girlfriend and as fellow writer, but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t even discuss it with me other than to tell me it would be great and talking about it would ruin his vision.

To this day, I’ve never seen him publish anything. Anything.

I don’t tell this story to upset or to discourage. I tell it to reinforce that if you want to write there is a necessity of actually writing. No one runs the Boston Marathon just because they’ve been thinking about it without getting up and running every morning for months before hand. You have to get over whatever is keeping you from running -- your ego, your inexperience, your bad knee or your schedule -- and hit the pavement.

The best advice anyone can give to those who want to write is to write constantly. The second best: don't be afraid to talk about it. Constructive criticism and feedback are very important to learning any new skill. And no one, no matter how great a writing, ever publishes without accepting both criticism and feedback.

But first you need to keep writing. Think of being on that morning run again: it's easier when you're already in motion than when you are starting from a complete stop. The second mile is much easier to start than getting off the couch ever is. Once you decide to write, and write for writing's sake there are ways to trick yourself into writing more. Just like there are ways to trick yourself into running further when you're out on the pavement.

1. Keep paper on you always, I have a thin little pocket notebook perfect for my back pocket. (People keep asking me if I’m a reporter and if I’m feeling spunky I tell them yes.) Write down anything interesting you think or hear or see. I’ve got a great description of the bum who lives on my corner and a transcribed conversation between three hicks about the end of the world all because I kept my eyes and ears open and paper in my back pocket.

2. Keep a journal. Keep five. Anything that makes you write. I have one journal that is notes on my own life, not very useful for stories but cathartic. Another is ideas for fiction. A third is made up entirely of single lines that rattled around in my brain and would not stop bothering me until I gave them space on paper. It might not be a good space, or the right space but I will find that someday and in the meantime I don’t let myself worry about their rhyme or reason. A fourth journal I use for notes on humorous subjects that I might want to blog eventually. My father keeps a journal entirely based around recipes he finds and his experiences making them. You get the picture.

I've read that there's a school of thought that you need to keep at least one handwritten journal so that you can stay in touch with actual "writing." I think this is a bunch of bull. Do what feels right for you. If labor intensive longhand slows down your process then forget it. If you can't type to save your life then use a pad of paper and pay the neighbor kid to type it up later. NO ONE has the upper hand on method; it is, after all, an art not a science.

3. If you struggle with getting to the point where you write for the sake of writing constantly, then take a class. You'll also get that much needed chance to talk about your work. Writing workshops aren’t just for college students. They’re popping up around the country, in city recreation programs, community colleges and bookstores nationwide. And if you still can’t find one there’s always the internet and low-residency MFA programs. Also available are week or weekend long workshop retreats. I went to the Kenyon Review's workshop and loved it. All these options present deadlines. Deadlines are an amazing thing. Some times you really do just need a boot to your behind to get you going. See Poets&Writers for listings of writing programs and conferences and residencies.

4. If you possess more discipline and can do it on your own then set aside time to write each day. Or maybe you want to begin with setting aside a few hours Saturday morning to work yourself into it. Mornings or evenings doesn’t matter, but whichever you choose make sure it is something that you are not going to trade for time to sleep or do laundry when push comes to shove.

In the end, these ideas are all just suggestions to trick yourself into writing. Everyone’s different and maybe something else will work for you. But there is one sure fire way to fail at writing: by not writing. Remember that old boyfriend of mine? He’s only ever written one short story, and, last I heard, still not one word of that supposedly great novel.