classes & workshops

I was asked to stick the speech up online; this is not a literal transcription, but based on my speech notes. I’ll write up some additional notes later on this week. Here is the speech.

(after a little banter about muffins) I would ask you all if you’re having a good time but I know that you are. Because I’ve been so impressed by the enthusiasm, the professionalism, and the talent here, and amazed at how well the presenters are taken care of by the conference. Thank you for the chance to be here.

I figure you are all already stuffed full of writing advice, so I wanted to give you some things for after the conference.

First off, go home and sleep. Decompress. You’ve been working hard all weekend and you deserve it.

Then start to work. If you’re a notetaker, go back over your notes. I still go over mine from Clarion West in 2005 every once in a while. If you’re not, go look to see what other people have written up. I guarantee you’ll find some blog write-ups and other notes. Go find what you might have missed.

And use those notes and ideas to start to write. I try to write, every day, 2000 words, because that’s what Stephen King does and I think he’s a pretty good role model. Note that I say try, because I don’t always hit it. But you must write. Every day you write is a victory.

Still working frantically on the update for the Creating an Online Presence for Writers book, plus prepping for this weekend’s online class. One big change since the last version is Instagram‘s rocket upward in popularity. Here in 2016, it is the number two social media network in number of users, second only after Facebook.

It lets you post pictures, often with some sort of caption, and see what other people are posting. Unlike Facebook, it doesn’t play fast and loose with what you see, but gives you a stream composed of everyone you’re following.

Instagram features a number of filters as well as some basic editing tools that can be applied to uploaded photos. You can add extra filters with the 100 Cameras in 1 app or if you would like to edit the image extensively, try Pixlr-o-matic (http://pixlr.com/).

For me, the two major advantages to Instagram are that a) it’s accessible via my cell phone, which I have with me far more often than my computer, plus b ) it connects with several other social networks, so I can grab a picture at an event, post it to Instagram, and have it autopost in turn to Facebook and Twitter. Similarly, I use it in the kitchen or at restaurant to snap pictures of food.

What do I post overall? Here’s a breakdown of the last 100 Instagram photos on my stream. Only five categories (event, books, and writing process photos) might be considered promotional; you’ll note those pictures occur roughly one in five times; even there, none of them directly sell a book, just mention it, and many are focused on other people and/or their work.

• things that amused or delighted me: 17
• food I’ve cooked: 12
• the cats: 10
• miscellaneous travel photos: 7
• miscellaneous household photos: 7
• miscellaneous event photos: 6
• books: 5
• my writing process: 5
• birds: 4
• flowers: 3
• photos from the cat calendar Aunt Nona gave us for Christmas with sundry amusing handwritten additions: 3
• refrigerator poems: 3
• restaurant food: 3
• sunsets: 3
• clouds: 2
• dioramas constructed of household objects: 2
• my shoes: 2
• rainbows: 2
• the foam on top of my latte, hashtagged #seattle: 2
• photos of friends/family: 2
• other people at events: 1
• selfies with people at events: 1
• selfies: 1
• things that creeped me out: 1
• holiday collage: 1

We are preparing to move and in some ways are inadequately prepared, while in others we are more than ahead. I hadn’t unpacked a good couple of dozen boxes from the study, so those can pretty much just go straight back out (this time we’re hiring movers rather than doing it ourselves).

It’s weird prepping to move again, to hope that this time we’ll manage to achieve escape velocity. We’ve got a renter for this place, and a year’s lease on the new one, so we’ll see. Today I’ll go through cupboards, try to sort out some stuff to pitch rather than take with us, take advantage of the opportunity to declutter and cull some old and faded spices, discard dingy rags, ditch old magazines, etc.

I have tried not to overburden us in preparation, to jettison instead, but there will be some things we’ll need to pick up once there: an ironing board and iron, a table for the sewing machine, a second bath mat, more towels, etc. Instead I’ve been mostly picking up bits for a Halloween costume this year; trying to do something worthy of a SFWA president. I did also breakdown and buy the sourdough its own crock, but that was because Value Village was having 50 percent off day.

I finished one collaboration last week and am picking away at finishing up a bespoke story right now, then more on the novel, because I am so ready for that to be done. I’m also working on the updated Creating an Online Presence for Writers as well as adapting the Character Building and Editing 101 classes for the Fedora platform to go with the shiny new on-demand version of Literary techniques for Genre Writers.

Here’s another video, this time for the Literary Techniques for Speculative Fiction Online Class. This is my favorite so far.

Discussion and in-class writing exercises designed to introduce a number of techniques to use in your own writing such as foreshadowing, alliteration, rhythmic device, allusion, etc, and ways to test them out in short fiction as well as discussion of when and where to use them.

I’ve been having enough fun with the free version of Powtoons that I’m thinking about upgrading. Here’s a video for the flash fiction that I’m 90% happy with. Please like it or share it if you enjoy it.

Video! Please like it or share it if you enjoy it.

More on the e-book that contains all the class info and then some. Here’s the working outline:

Sign up to be notified when the book is released here

Before You Start
What Do You Want to Accomplish?
Your Online Persona
Your Contact Database
Online Tool: MailChimp
How to Measure Success
What is Web 2.0?
Protecting Your Privacy

Your Website
At a Minimum
Your Name
Domain Names
Press Kits

Blogging
What is a Blog?
Parts of a Blog
Parts of a Post
Choosing a Platform
Getting Started
Deciding What to Write About
Writing Your Post
Example of a Book Promotion Post
Example of a Convention Write-up
Images
Linking
Comments from Other People
Content from Other People
Other Best Practices
Group Blogs
Other People’s Blogs
RSS
Monetizing Your Blog
Publicizing Your Blog
Online Tool: WiseStamp
Near + Far Promotional Posts, Annotated

Social Networks
Networking with Sincerity
How Much is Not Enough?
Best Practices
Online Tool: Namechk
Setting Things Up
Getting People to Take Action
Do You Need to Belong to Every Network?
Reviving Dead Media Channels

Facebook
What It Is
Who’s the Mayor of Your Data?
Fan Pages
Groups
Events
Best Practices
Advertising
Privacy
Facebook Metrics

G+
What It Is
Your G+ Profile
Circles
Hangouts
Pages
Best Practices
G+ Tools and Shortcuts

Pinterest
What It Is
Best Practices
Metrics
How Writers, Editors, and Publishers can use Pinterest

Twitter
What It Is
Hashtags and Twitter Chats
Your Profile
What to Tweet About
Getting Followers
Getting Retweeted
Twitter Tools
Wordpress and Twitter
TwitPic
Twitter Metrics: Basic Metrics
Online Tools: Followerwonk
Online Tools: Klout

Other Social Networks
Webforums and Discussion Boards
Foursquare
Tumblr

Bookmarking Sites
Delicious
Digg
Reddit: How Reddit Works
Reddit: AMAs
Reddit: How a Writer Can Use Reddit
Reddit: Communities
Stumbleupon: What It Is
Stumbleupon: Best Practices

Crowdfunding
What It Is
IndieGogo
Kickstarter
Best Practices

Reader Communities
Amazon
GoodReads
LibraryThing
Shelfari
Others
Best Practices

Audio & Video
Podcasting – Audio
Podcasting – Video
Reasons to Use YouTube
Creating a YouTube Channel
Monetizing YouTube
YouTube Metrics
Vimeo/Vine

Search Engines
SEO Basics
Writing Copy with SEO Keywords
Investigating Keywords
Best Practices
Google Analytics
Basics
Best Practices
Resources

Other Metrics
Bit.ly
Klout

Building Your Fan Base
Finding Your Fans
Encouraging Your Fans
Dealing With Trolls
Gamification

Managing Your Time
Tracking Things
Online Tool: Rescue Time
Productive Procrastination

Mobile Devices
What It Is
Making Websites Mobile-friendly
Creating Mobile Apps
Windows Phone App Studio

Miscellania
Introduction
Arguing on the Internet
If You Screw Up
Grouping Up
Managing Multiple Identities
Press Releases
Online Tools: QR Codes
Networks around Us
Self Promotion & Career Building
Selling More Books
Creating an Online Presence For Your Group
Teaching Writing Online
On Award Pimpage
Privacy Best Practices
Online Tools: URL Shorteners
Creative Commons Licenses
Online Tools: Wikis

Appendix: Sites Mentioned.

This Sunday, Folly Blaine and I are teaching another podcasting class. Here’s the description:

Podcasting Basics
Podcasts, both audio and video, are an increasingly popular way to reach an audience. In this two hour session, learn what you need to know to record and edit your own podcast, how to promote your podcast, and what equipment and software to use. As Folly Blaine, Christy records and acts as Podcast Manager for Every Day Fiction, and has also recorded podcasts for Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Wily Writers, and This Mutant Life; Cat is the former fiction editor of Fantasy Magazine and has recorded podcasts for Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Fantasy Magazine. Limited enrollment ““ reserve a slot now!
Sunday, 9:30-11:30 AM PST, February 9
$99

Why might you be interested in podcasting and learning to do your own? Here’s a few reasons:

• It’s a good way to reach a new set of readers. Many of the people who listen to podcasts prefer that to finding your stuff in text form inline. They’ll listen to your story in the car, while exercising, while working, and other places where text isn’t convenient. And they’re always looking for new, good stuff.
• It’s a great way to polish your reading aloud skills. As a writer you’ll need to do readings. We’ll give you some tips in the class, but the best way to get better at it? Practice.
• It makes you comprehend your work in a new way. I always read aloud stories as a last step in polishing them. Combine that with recording a podcast and you’re examining your work in order to figure out how it sounds.
• Last week, my agent told me that authors who record their own books see a significant bump in sales, but that publishing houses don’t like to have them do it, because they’re unsure of the quality. If you can point to previous podcasting experience, you can back up the suggestion that you read your own work and even have samples of what you can do.

When publicizing “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” I made sure it was available in audio form. Did that help earn it a Nebula nomination? I don’t know, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

Enjoy this advice for writers and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

I’m glad I’ve got enough students for the Editing 101 online class that starts tonight, but I’d love a couple more. Mention reading this when you mail me about the class and I’ll give you a special deal. 😉

So what do we do and who is the class aimed at?

The class is aimed both at writers who want to learn to edit their work better as well as editors who want to hone their skills and learn about it as a career path.

Here’s what the three two-hour sessions cover. They’re spaced two weeks apart.

1. Developmental edit. I describe my revision process and how people can adapt it to their own. We look at examples of developmental edits, work through a checklist of items to look for, and talk about developing your own theory and process of editing.
2. Line and copyediting. I look at things on the sentence and paragraph level and supply a number of examples as well as working through an in-class exercise. Again, I try to provide a checklist that you can take away and use in your writing and editing.
3. Editors. I talk about working as an editor, and what resources are available to people who are looking for such work, as well as where people looking for slush-reading positions can find them. I also discuss the writer-editor relationship in a way that should clarify it for both sides of the equation and provide tips on making that process work more smoothly. A class exercise is designed to help you figure out story order for collections, chapbooks, anthologies, and magazine issues.

Got questions? I’d be happy to answer them.

The first session of this class went well! Nisi Shawl was a terrific guest speaker.

In talking about reviews, we talked about good reviews and what they do. Here’s the notes from that.

• Provide a sense of the reviewer, their styles and biases.
• Explain what makes the reviewer say something is very good or very bad.
• Provide a sense of the book’s context and comparable books.
• Make you want to read the book but without creating unreasonable expectations.
• Alert the reader to problematic things without providing preconceptions.
• Be diplomatic but honest.
• Provide an educated impression of the book that tells the reader whether or not they should invest time/money in the book.
• Delve into what about the book created a particular impression.

Other topics we touched on: how you get started doing book reviews, what limits to have regarding spoilers, how to write a negative review well, promoting yourself and your reviews, networking, how to evaluate reviews, and the best way(s) to get better at reviewing. I thought it went really well and had plenty of interesting conversation and questions.

The next Art of the Book Review online class will happen Sunday, March 30, 9:30-11:30 AM PST. Nisi will be appearing as a speaker for the class in this session as well.