How to use this Page

Here, at the end of 2009, it’s time to look forward to events in early 2010. These are recent announcements I’ve received.

Help a New Fantasy Publisher Get a Start

From Stacy Whitman. As you all know, I’m a children’s book editor. Since I was laid off at Wizards of the Coast, where I edited fantasy and science fiction novels, I’ve been freelancing, and I’ve decided that the next step will be to start my own company. If you guys are on Facebook, you might have already seen me posting about the small press that I’m starting, Tu Publishing. If you’re not, I’m working on starting a small publishing company that will fill a gap in the market, to publish multicultural fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults. Our website is http://www.tupublishing.com, if you want to know more about our mission.

To get started, publishing books takes a lot of money, even on a “shoestring” budget. That’s why I’m doing a Kickstarter campaign—to raise enough money to get started and give a reward to everyone who donates. If enough people donate $5, or $15, or $20, we’ll be able to reach our goal. For every donation through Kickstarter, the donator gets a reward: bookmarks, early copies of books we publish, books donated to libraries, etc. For a really big, pie-in-the-sky donation, I’ve even promised an author visit. :) So they get something for their money, and with enough people banding together, the project can become a reality.

The project has had almost 3 months to run. So far, we’re up to $4031 of $10,000, with just under a week left. So we’ve got some ground to cover—no money exchanges hands if we don’t reach $10,000.

Here’s the link to the Kickstarter page. It’s completely secure—payments are handled through Amazon payments.

Note: Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein also used Kickstarter to fund her book of speeches about writing for kids. It seems to be a new way of getting grass-roots support for a publishing project.

Fearless Writing by Crescent Dragonwagon

A Fearless Writing weekend — the Valentine’s Day/President’s Weekend (Feb. 12-13-14, 2010), Fayetteville, AR. Folks can get full details and register here but I’ll spell out a little more below.

We’ll begin Friday night, work/play together all day Saturday, all day Sunday, with a departure on Monday morning: about 12 hours together, plus informal times at meals — intense, but not at all tense. The workshop costs $895, and THIS INCLUDES ALL MEALS AND ACCOMMODATIONS. (Thank you, Mt. Sequoyah Conference Center!) You can pay all at once, or put $250 and down to hold your place.

IF FOLKS BOOK BY DECEMBER 15, THERE’S A $100 DISCOUNT.

I offer a full money-back guarantee (words you almost never hear about writing workshops, right?

I say them because I’m certain everyone who attends all the sessions will get every minute and every dollar’s worth put into Fearless Writing back ten- or twenty-fold, and because I really want people to come — I’m passionate about it).

Last night we had the next session of Fearless Writing, led by Crescent Dragonwagon. CD focuses on the writing process and creativity.

If you Show Up, the Work Will Flow

CD talks about necessary percepts or perceptions, ways of thinking about our work. Not precepts, but percepts. One is that if you consistently show up, the work will flow.

We started by doing a timed, fifteen-minute free write on any topic you wanted. After that, working as a group, we made lists:

• List of 5-6 fears
• List of 7-8 places humans could shelter (cave, bed, tent, etc.)
• Looking back at our free write, we were asked to circle five verbs.
• Then we contributed verbs to a list of about 10-12 from the group.
• Looking at our free write, we circled nouns and contributed to the group list of 10-12 nouns.
• Looking at our free write, we circled descriptive words and contributed to the group list of 10-12 nouns.
• Finally, we were asked to give a number between 1-100 and the name of a tree; then the name of a former President. These gave us addresses of 88 Oak Street and 8 Roosevelt Rd.

The result looked like a hodge-podge of random words, with different vocabulary levels and different topics. After all, they came from the text of a dozen different writers, writing about a huge variety of topics.

Finally, we were asked to pick out one of the feelings and write it in the top right-hand corner of the page; then fold down that corner so no one could see it. We chose an address and a shelter, both part of a title: The Tent at 88 Oak Street. Then, in a fifteen-minute timed write, we were supposed to write something that incorporated all the other words. ALL of them.

The results were amazing. The flow came for most people and somehow, out of the chaos, story lines appeared. Nothing perfect, of course, but enough to demonstrate that Stories Want to be Told, and that Flow Will Come if You Show Up.

One more session tonight for our final percepts.