MWW one-day conference to encourage you to move forward with your writing!
Midwest Writers Workshop’s Fall One-Day Conference is Saturday, October 5, 2019, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the Ball State Alumni Center, 2800 W. Bethel Ave., Muncie, Indiana. The cost for this one-day MWW Fall program is $155 and includes coffee (all day!) and lunch.
REGISTER HERE
We are offering TWO tracks of workshops for this MWW one-day conference to encourage you to move forward with your writing, take the next step, and improve your writing. TRACK 1 includes hands-on workshops on EDITING and REVISION. You can choose from three workshop sessions: Manuscript Makeover: Nonfiction, The Writing Life, or Revising Your Fiction. You will spend the day with the instructor and other writers who share your interest.
Or you can choose TRACK 2, an all-day workshop: NaNoWriMo Bootcamp! Participating in NaNoWriMo again this year? First time? Always meant to, but just never seemed to kick it in gear in time? This Bootcamp has the sure-fire inspiration and advice you need to make it happen this year. Prepare for November’s National Novel Writing Month with hands-on workshops on character development and plot. Your chances of drafting an entire novel increase exponentially when you spend some time preparing yourself for the journey ahead.
Track 1: Editing & Revision Workshops OR
Track 2: NaNoWriMo Bootcamp
TRACK 1:
Manuscript Makeover: Nonfiction – Holly Miller
Send us the first eight pages of your nonfiction work in progress by Sept. 18. Instructor Holly Miller—author of 15 books and more than 2,500 published articles—will edit your pages and use them to show strengths and weaknesses and to illustrate revision techniques and strategies for improvement. Writing exercises and marketing tips will round out the jam-packed (and fun) day. Send pages to midwestwriters@yahoo.com subject line Manuscript Makeover Nonfiction
The Writing Life – Larry Sweazy
That unfinished book is sitting in the drawer because you don’t have time to finish it. Life got in the way of your dream so you set it aside, promising to get back to it someday. Regardless of where you are on your path to fulfilling your writing dream, whether you write novels, short stories, or screenplays, you will encounter roadblocks, time drains, and the lack of energy and desire to finish what you started.
This is an intensive workshop that will help you focus on the time you need to write your masterpiece. This class will offer exercises, practical advice on where to find ideas, time management tips, and step-by-step guidelines that will encourage you to put writing at the top of your to-do list. The techniques taught in this class will apply to all genres and types of writing, and will prepare you to send your work out into the world. Bring a laptop or pen and paper and be prepared to write…with the clock ticking.
Revising Your Fiction – Lucrecia Guerrero
You’ve brought your creativity to bear and have completed a work of fiction. Now, it’s time to turn the analytical brain, and polish your little gem until it shines. Bring in your short story or novel chapter of up to fifteen pages. You are the one who will be revising your own work, so it’s important that you learn revision techniques. In this workshop, you’ll apply revision exercises to your own writing and receive feedback on the results. You’ll be reviewing the whole story, from the overall picture, to the protagonist’s motivation, down to the particular phrase or word. Print out at least one double-spaced hard copy of your manuscript in addition to bringing a copy on your favorite device. Come prepared to write and be a part of a supportive writing community!
TRACK 2:
NaNoWriMo Bootcamp – Sarah Schmitt
To prepare you for the fast moving and creative energy of NaNoWriMo and writing an entire novel in 30 days, Sarah presents these hands-on workshops include Character Development and Plot, and how to keep editing to a minimum. Your chances of finishing a first draft of a novel in November are greatly improved if you prepare in October.
SCHEDULE:
9:30 am – 10:00: Registration
10:00 – 10:15: Welcome
10:15 – 11:45
TRACK 1:
- Manuscript Makeover: Nonfiction – Holly Miller
- Where Do You Get Your Ideas? – Larry Sweazy
- What’s It All About? – Lucrecia Guerrero
TRACK 2:
- NanoWriMo: Character Development Workshop – Sarah Schmitt
- Does your character’s eye color matter? Does he or she resent authority? Why? Character development is imperative for any story. This hands-on workshop will look at how a character’s past influences their actions in the present and where inspiration can be found to create a character as unique as the student writer. As a group we will develop a character to use in the second part of the boot camp. The remainder of the time will be used for each participant to begin developing their own characters.
11:45 am – 12:45 pm: Lunch/social time
12:45 pm – 2:00 pm
TRACK 1:
- Manuscript Makeover: Nonfiction – Holly Miller
- Finding Time to Write – Larry Sweazy
- The Big Picture – Lucrecia Guerrero
TRACK 2:
- NaNoWriMo: Plot – Sarah Schmitt
- Building on the work done during the Character workshop, this session will focus on plot. Again, we will, as a group, plot on an entire story using Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat format. We’ll go through each of the fifteen beats as we craft an entire story line with just a genre.
2:15 – 3:00 pm
TRACK 1:
- Holly Miller: Manuscript Makeover: Nonfiction – Holly Miller
- The Publishing World Deconstructed – Larry Sweazy
- A Closer Look – Lucrecia Guerrero
TRACK 2:
- NaNoWriMo: Writing to Revise Tips – Sarah Schmitt
- Creating an entire novel in 30 days means writing fast and keeping the editing to a minimum. In this session, learn how to satisfy your editorial brain while letting your creative side stay in the driver’s seat. Time permitting, there will be a Q&A session at the end.
3:15 – 4:15 pm: PANEL with all faculty: Larry Sweazy, Lucrecia Guerrero, Sarah Schmitt, Holly Miller
4:15 pm: Send off (with reminder of Agent Fest, March 13-14 & July 23-25, 2020)
FACULTY:
Author or co-author of eleven nonfiction books, four published novels, and 2,500 magazine short stories and articles, Holly Miller has led writing workshops from California to Massachusetts. A consulting editor to two national magazines and a judge for an annual fiction-writing contest, she holds communication degrees from Indiana University and Ball State University and has taught college writing classes for 25 years. Her how-to book, Feature & Magazine Writing, co-authored with colleague David Sumner, is in its third edition. Her greatest joy is helping unpublished writers break into print.
Larry D. Sweazy is a multiple-award winning author of fourteen Western and mystery novels, thirty-one short stories, and over sixty non-fiction articles and book reviews. Larry lives in Noblesville, Indiana with his wife, Rose, and is hard at work on his next novel. More information can be found at www.larrydsweazy.com.
Lucrecia Guerrero’s short stories have been published in numerous literary journals and have been anthologized in FANTASMAS: Stories of the Supernatural, Best of the West, and Not Like the Rest of Us. She was a co-author of “Coming Home,” a play celebrating Indiana’s bicentennial. Chasing Shadows, Chronicle Books, is her collection of linked short stories; and Tree of Sighs, Bilingual Press, a novel. Tree was awarded a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship Award and the Premio Aztlan Literary Award. Recently, the Indiana Humanities named her as one of the workshop facilitators for its “Writing Workshop Program.”
As a former K-8 school librarian and youth services profession for a public library, Sarah Schmitt has always enjoyed pushing books on unsuspecting teens. Now, as a YA author, she gets to write those stories. The author of It’s a Wonderful Death (Sky Pony Press), she uses her hallmark brand of humor to address serious topics facing teens. Sarah has taught at The Indiana Writer’s Center and presents interactive workshops at middle and high schools around the country. She particularly enjoys inspiring other writers to get involved with National Novel Writing Month through her NaNoWriMo Bootcamp program. Sarah has served on the selection committee for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award, Young Hoosier Book Award for Middle Grade and YALSA Teens Top Ten. She lives with her husband, two kidlets, and a ninja cat near Indianapolis, Indiana. You can follow her on Instagram @sarahjschmitt.
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