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Monday, 29 December, 2008
- Planning 2009
- School News: Prices to increase
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RANT 'O THE WEEK: Planning is so much fun
by WritersCollege.com Director Steve Morrill
Last newsletter for this year. And time for a new beginning for all of us.
This time each year I trek to the office supply superstore and remember the ghost of office supply stores past. Tampa is a medium-sized town and yet I can recall how, up to 1984 when I quit my downtown job and took up writing magazine articles from my spare bedroom, the only office supply store downtown was a small shop with outrageously overpriced and restricted supplies. In this era of big-box office supply stores, open nights and weekends and stocked with a cornecopia of goodies, it's easy to forget what a recent innovation they are, and what a gift they are to small business people everywhere. And we writers are small business people, or aspire to be.
As always, this time of year, I bought a year planner for the coming year. Mostly, I buy the Day-Runner brand, full-size daily sheets and the entire year's worth. I don't buy the expensive "executive" binders they offer; the sheets work fine in a cheap three-ring binder.
Now comes the fun part. The planning.
"Nonsense," I hear you say. "I just write when the Muse strikes. I don't need to plan." Well, I suppose that's true if your plan—if we can call it that—is to never really finish the work, if you do only one writing thing at a time and have the rest of your life to almost get there. And for some people, this is fine and more power to them.
Me, I have people to do and places to see and I need help. I need cheap psychological tricks. I know, for instance, that I wish to write at least several books this year, in addition to much other stuff. Books are the worst for me. I can bang out a magazine article in a few weeks to a month and not do all that much planning for it because the deadline is upon me the moment I get the assignment. But a book? First of all the deadline is months away, maybe a year away. Second, the work required is too horrible to even wrap my mind around. Third, if it's a novel and I have to write the whole thing up front and then find an agent, the world is blissfully ignorant of me and nobody is on my case to get the manuscript in on time. Nobody but me. And fifth—and I know you can relate to this—every time i set aside time to write, something else comes up, something that, while perhaps not of terribly great importance, is still something that must be handled at once and the book deadline is, well, months off, and what's another day more or less?
So, I need two things to make this work. I need a regular schedule that says writing is just as important as anything else in my life and, for this hour, or two, or four, the most important thing to do at this time. And I need some help not having my knees shake and my eyes glaze over as I contemplate the mountain of work before me. I need a schedule.
As important, I need a schedule that breaks down the job into bite-sized chomps that I can handle without screaming. I need a schedule that says that if I buckle down on a regular basis, I'll achieve my daily goals, my weekly and monthly goals, my quarterly goals, et cetera. And, yes, I also need a schedule that says it's OK to go off the rails occasionally, just so I get back to work as soon as possible and make up for lost time and meet those deadlines. I am not going to always keep to the schedule. Life gets in the way sometimes. But I try never to move the deadline. Instead, I build in slack time.
My pronouns: thus far I use "I" but it could be "you" as well. You have your own goals and needs and life to live. I can give only the most generic advice. But that is to try to have a schedule for your writing and try to stick to it as much as possible. If you have family, try to impress your schedule upon them too. Point is to remember that you want to be a writer. You want to produce some form of writing. You have decided that this is an important facet of your personality and of your life goals. A schedule, complete with fixed deadlines, will aid you in enforcing and reinforcing all this.
SCHOOL
NEWS: Price increase.
Remember, sign up between now and the end of the year to beat the price increase. Students already signed up for courses, even if those courses do not start until after the price increase, pay the current prices. You may register now, in other words, for a course that you wish to start in January. I'll extend this offer only to the month of January, 2009.
On January 1 of 2009 I plan to increase prices. I realize that in a downturned economy this is hardly the time to do this, but my fine teachers have been waiting a looong time for a raise and they deserve it. And we're 'way underpriced as it is.
Prices will increase from the present $25/week (i.e. a four-week course costs $100) to $30 per week. So prices would increase as follows:
Course Length |
Current Prices |
New Prices |
4-week course |
standard course $100
extended version* $125 |
standard course $120
extended version* $150 |
6-week course |
standard course $150
extended version*$188 |
standard course $180
extended version* $225 |
8-week course |
standard course $200
extended version* $250 |
standard course $240
extended version* $300 |
* Extended courses merely have twice as many weeks to do the lessons and homework. There's no extra material offered but our students are busy adults with real lives too, and so we make available the option.
FEATURED
COURSES:
| Flash Fiction |
Are you ready to plunge into the pool of flash fiction? Be prepared to hold your breath! Although the water appears shallow, the emotional impact of this writing form boasts depths rivaling the high seas of longer fiction. |
| Web Presence for Writers |
Develop a basic knowledge of the internet, how it functions, how web sites are made, and the steps necessary to build your own web site. Learn how easy it is to have your web presence!
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| Magazine Query Letters |
Learn to write a query letter that can attract the interest of an editor and clinch the sale. |
Small Press and Self-Publishing |
An overview of the booming small press and self-publishing industries, and how you may secure your place in it. |
Speech Writing |
Adding speechwriting skills to your writer's toolkit can make you more marketable. Public relations firms, businesses, local government officials, nonprofit organizations, etc., need people with this skill. |
COOL WEB SITE: I just thought this was funny "Save an Executive" on YouTube.
I asked if I would get a photo and thank-you letter but got no response.
And at the American Society of Journalists & Authors holiday party in New York in December, member Bill Dyszel entertained with several songs about writers. Here's his Morbid Major Magazine song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjlvYOmXLc8&feature=channel
and here's the Writer's National Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCXZgcSs954&feature=channel_page
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