Mark your calendars!!
The free, 2009 Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium at BYU will run Thursday – Saturday, February 19 – 21.
The speical guests are Tracy & Laura Hickman (Dragonlance authors) and James C. Christensen (yes, the amazing fantasy artist). But there will be more than a dozen other authors there, including: L.E. Modesitt, Brandon Mull, James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, David Farland, Mette Ivie Harrison, Eric James Stone, Howard Tayler, and a number of others.
Here’s what I’ll be doing:
- Panel: The Principles of Suspense. Fri, Feb 20, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
- Workshop: The 3 Things You Must Learn to Write Killer Stories. Fri, Feb 20, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
- Panel: Myth and Mythology in SF&F. Sat, Feb 21, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
- Reading: from the forthcoming novel and a few of my other published works, Sat, Feb 21, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
If you want to write fiction, you’ll want to attend the workshop. And if you’ve attended the workshop before, know that I’ve made some significant updates to the workshop content for 2009. I’m always learning, and so each time I teach this I’m able to provide more insight.
You’ll also want to carefully review the whole schedule. There are tons of panels with professional authors on them that are going to be both useful and interesting to writers.
My workshop focuses on three incredibly important things. In the beginning, I didn’t know these key things, and that ignorance stymied all my writing efforts for years. Once I learned them, the way was opened. There was still a lot of work involved. But these principles increased my output of quality material 1000% (literally). The principles allowed me to write the story that got me my current three-book contract from Tor.
I’ve taught it now more than a dozen times to all sorts of fiction writers and they’re telling me they’re finding it very useful. You’re going to love this stuff, and I always enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with other writers. The three things are:
- What a story really is. We’re not talking narrative taxonomy, although that’s included. It’s focused on the story effect upon the reader. And why this is one of the most important things you need to understand when writing fiction.
- Parts & principles. Key principles of character, problem, plot, setting, and text as they relate to #1.
- The creative process. The simple but powerful principles of how to get ideas. How to develop them into story. Why writer’s block is a gift and how to use it to produce MORE. Plus a number of other creative principles I wished I’d known.
It’s a highly interactive workshop. Again, the whole symposium, including the workshop, is free. I don’t know another place where you can learn from so many professionals for such a great price.
Hope to see you there!!
Time to update your calendar web page! It still has Curse for December (and Bad Penny for November).
JohnW, thanks for the reminder. I need to set a tickler to update that monthly.
Brilliant, thanks John! I tracked it down on Amazon UK where the prices are adjusted accordingly. Ebook for SERVANT as I already own the Tor paperback, but I’ll definitely be getting the trade version of CURSE.
Good luck with it all!
Btw, the email notification I received had loads of placeholder text at the beginning: ‘ Insert your text here’ sort of stuff. Thought I’d make you aware so you know for next time.
Tim,
I know! Arg. I caught that right after the email went out.
Congratulations!
Hi John.
I’m very glad to see the new version is up and ready. I am wondering if there is going to be a version I can purchase through Itunes (Canada) as I don’t have a kindle but really want to get the ebook for my ipad.
Cheers,
David
David,
Great question. The answer is YES. The project this next week is to get the epub up on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc. I will be sure to post on the site when they are available. Thanks so much for asking 🙂
I’m looking forward to reading Servant again! Congrats!
Awesome.
Blog has been quiet the past couple weeks, but I see that Curse has moved to 85% (and climbing?)! I have been waiting since 2009 for this book! Now it is 2014. Almost there! 🙂
Thanks for your patience. Getting ramped up on this indie process has taken a bit longer than I’d originally estimated. But, as you’re seeing, both the cover art and final edits are moving forward. I just edited one of my most favorite scenes of the whole book. Can’t wait to get this out to readers.
By the way, the calendar has Curse at Feb 2013. Presumably that should be 2014.
That calendar is a freaking vortex. Updated.
Hi John. Hope you are well. Any chance on an update as to when Servant of a Dark God will hit Itunes. I live in Canada and there is still no sign of it. I understand that you are really busy. Hope you had a good Christmas and New Years.
Cheers,
David
David,
It’s a great question. I have been working since mid December to get the books up on iTunes. Going through Smashwords is maddening. I’m going to give them one more shot and then try to figure something else out. Hopefully, we have success this week. I will be sure to post it here when it’s finally up.