Taught my first creative writing class last night

Last night I taught my first creative writing class. I think it went pretty good. I talked for two hours straight, only taking breaks when people asked questions, and every single topic was something we could have talked about more. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

There are 84 people enrolled. We filled the biggest classroom they had at this location, and they still had to turn people away. Right now we’re doing it in the same building as the police academy (I requested that because it was closest to the freeway, so I thought it would be the easiest for people coming from Salt Lake City) but if I end up doing this again we’ll have to move it to the Ogden campus where they’ve got bigger classrooms available.

With this class I’m trying to focus on the professional, making a living aspect, rather than the artsy literati side of creative writing. I’m trying to keep it nuts and bolts, practical, pragmatic, get it done and get paid.

This is from the handout. It is more of a checklist of things I want to talk about, than an official schedule. Like last night we spent the first hour on how to write better, and the second half on how to sell your stuff.  I think I touched briefly on everything in the business section, but only scratched the surface on a few things. Now I’ve got a list of comments and questions from the online streaming students to incorporate into next week’s lesson.

Creative Writing Class Outline

The two steps to becoming a successful professional author.

  1. Get good enough people will give you money for your stuff.
  2. Find the people who will give you money for your stuff.

Part 1: Getting good enough.

On the “rules” of writing.

  1. Does your audience like it? Leave it in.
  2. Does your audience hate it? Take it out.

The spark and where ideas come from/contagious enthusiasm

Outlining vs. Discovery Writing

Plotting

1st vs. 3rd Person

Creating characters

Pacing and intensity

Dialog, and why it is different than talking

The pros and cons of “writing what you know”

Accuracy and research

Time management for writers and the evil myth of Writer’s Block

Message/the author works for the reader, not the other way around

Editing, if it sucks, fix it

Alpha Readers, or your mom might not be your target audience

Pros and cons of Writing Groups

Finished? Now write the next one.

Part 2: Getting Paid

Ugly Fact Time: Author pay scale and failure rate

How traditional publishing works

  • Small press vs. Large press
  • What are literary agents and do you need one?

How self-publishing works

Novels vs. short fiction markets

Contracts and what to watch out for

Advances and earning out

Structuring your business and paying taxes

Other rights (foreign translations, audiobook, movie options)

Networking, marketing, and finding your target audience

When to quit your day job

Charity stuff! Medical fund for Mason Hall
A Long Time Until Now by Michael Z. Williamson, on sale now!

94 thoughts on “Taught my first creative writing class last night”

  1. On the “rules” of writing.

    1. Does your audience like it? Leave it in.
    2. Does your audience hate it? Take it out.

    Finally, real rules for writing that actually WORK!

    Every other “rule” really works out as “strong suggestions”.

  2. Fantastic!

    Will there be a archive of the lectures later on? Is there a possibility of posting some of them to Youtube, or at least interesting excerpts?

    Thanks in advance for your answers.

  3. Hoping there will be video of this available. Are there videos of some of your lectures at LTUE? I’ve heard mention of your combat panel. It’s really hard to find good advice on writing combat scenes…

    1. Oh gods yes, I wish. I wonder if there would be recordings of Larry, or other authors who’re fantastic at writing action scenes (not just fight scenes) giving advice.

      1. I’ve always lumped courtroom drama in with fight scenes. I’ve also seen sex scenes, of all things, equated with fight scenes.

        1. I can totally see the “sex scene/fight scene” comparison. They’re both action scenes, after all, both very physical, and both need to reveal/develop character and/or progress the plot in order to be interesting. And they’re also both things that a lot of people either naturally have the knack for or don’t.

      2. If you are of the “learn by reading” persuasion, Rafael Sabatini apparently wrote fight scenes so well that they can be used, as is, for fight choreography direction.

    2. Indeed. I don’t live anywhere near Utah and my travel budget is . . . laughable. I would recommend Larry for my local convention, but I think that *might* prove *slightly* controversial at the moment.

  4. great class. Wasn’t able to be there live (bedtime for the kids) but watched late in the evening. I think the resources you mentioned for publishing, agents and contracts was the best.

    Every other writing class I have taken has always been about character and story, which is fine, but this is giving the most important part – get paid!

    My only question is how many online students are there and did you break the online registration system? 🙂

      1. I believe what they are doing is leaving up the classes for one week after recording, so that you can watch them based on your schedule.

        1. Confirmed. I registered last night (Wed.) and they just emailed me the link to Tuesday night’s video. So it’s not too late folks!

  5. So jealous, wish I lived in Utah. Especially as these are many of the questions I need answered as I grind on with my first book.

  6. OK, so I am attending the class (via the inner webtubes) and I took reasonably good notes last night. I have been trying to take what Larry said and hammer it into a shape that fits in with his outline.

    It is a little challenging, because Larry has a tendency to tell great stories to illustrate his points, but the stories tend a get a bit *ahem* “far afield” occasionally. So, I am taking what he said and picking the pieces apart and then reassembling them into something that fits into his outline.

    Not sure it will be worth it to anyone else, but I can post it when it is done. It won’t be nearly as good as listening to Larry in person, but he gave a lot of good information last night, and it might provide a little value.

    David

    1. This would be great as long as it’s okay with the host. Thanks for being willing to pull the info together.

    2. Oh yeah, I’m totally a rambling story teller. I’m way more concise in print. 🙂

      If you want to share your notes, I’m totally fine with that.

      I can’t share recordings of the class because those actually belong to Weber State University.

      1. Any possibility of persuading Weber State to release at least a few clips of the recordings online? (Wink wink nudge nudge) 🙂

  7. A youtube type recording of the class would be fantastic!

    I don’t know that I ever want to be a writer vs a consumer, but to hear all the nuts and bolts of this kind of thing would be so awesome.

    David, how are you doing the classes? I’m guessing through the school site…?? Needs more info here please!

    1. http://continue.weber.edu/communityed/fictionwriter.aspx

      That is the link to the class website. I’m attending the class in the classroom, and it’s a ton of fun. Larry is a natural, leading us through his personal experience to get published. The administrator told us that they’re leaving the video up for a week so that the online participants have the opportunity to view the classroom excitement. My wife and I are really looking forward to the next class. Thanks Larry you’re doing a great job!

      1. Yes, thank you. I just signed up for online attendance. Having the video available for time shifting makes all the difference.

  8. Dan Wells, John D Brown, Brandon Sanderson AND one Mr. L. Correia have videos up on youtube, describing elements of writing and story telling.

    Well worth wasting an hour or 3 over there.

    Posting college course videos? I’d be concerned about copyrights and legal permissions. Just my 2¢.

  9. Does anyone know if the online course is only available live or are the classes available as a video to watch later? The course page is a bit light on information about how the online course works. The 6-8pm (mountain time) class time doesn’t completely fit into my schedule.

    1. The web streaming is available for watching for a week for those who are signed up for it. (there are still a few openings left for the streaming version)

      1. It would have been nice for Weber State to say that on the signup page. I’d have enrolled if they had.

  10. There are a number of places that sell audio & video recordings of college courses & lectures. I think Audible even has some. There’s obviously a market because the class sold out pretty quickly as I recall. If the school wants to sell the videos, I’ll buy.

  11. Online student here.

    It was a nice lecture, chock full of useful information. I even made some contacts there on the chat window. $99 well spent; Larry should do these more often.

  12. I am not a writer, but used to be a big fan. One of my gripes, Larry, was that a lot of the stuff being written…well…it read like stuff that was cranked out of a work shop. It was unoriginal and the bulk of it read like a chitty rip off of Scalzi or some other twit that was basically ripping off somebody else.

    From my lofty perch in the peanut gallery…I don’t want to see any more Larry’s or Scalzi’s or Heinlein’s. I want something ORIGINAL that will make me sit up, take notice and make me think after I’ve finished my read.

    I would dearly like to remind the Usual Suspects that does not include gratuitous homosexuality, feminism, or socialism. That shit is all tired and worn out and when I see it I throw out the book and scratch the author off my list. Message fiction is very difficult to write and only a handful of authors can do it.

    Full disclosure…I bought one of your books and found it unremarkable. It was fairly original…but I found it bored me. No offense, but I like hard science fiction and detest fantasy and the occult so that’s just me. I like what you are doing with the Hugo’s though – and wish you the best of luck. If you could help stem the tide of shitty leftist crap being passed off as good fiction – you are worth every cent you’ve made and more.

    Good luck, Larry.

    1. Larry’s teaching is more in the line of “how to,” not “what to.” And while there are a boatload of writers who will give you advice on the craft of writing, there are darned few who teach the business of writing. (And most of what I’ve seen in that vein is from agents who have appointed themselves the gatekeepers of publishing, and who expect you to respect their authority.)

    2. So, ummm… what are you doing here? Not being hostile, but you’re going to show up, try to compare Mr. C to Scalzi, don’t mention which book you actually read, and claim that Mr. C’s work is “boring” and “stale.”

      Name me one other author who created a good 30’s noir with hard magic system, extra-dimensional beings, global geopolitics, secret societies, and both heroes and villains that were absolute badasses. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

    3. So you are saying that I don’t write the kind of stuff you like to read, so you don’t like to read the kind of stuff I like… Okay then. Glad we got that cleared up.

      I truly do not understand your point. You aren’t a writer. Check. You used to be a big fan. Of what? Writing? But Me? You’ve read one book of mine and didn’t like it.

      If you don’t think there is anything original, even though there are more books being published now than at any other time in human history, with a massive indy e-book revolution, that says more about your reading habits than it does about the entire business of writing (especially since you admit to limiting yourself to one small genre).

      And I have absolutely no idea what this has to do with me teaching a creative writing class.

      1. Personally, I read what he wrote as a very convoluted backhanded compliment. A quick skim of it results in it sounding insulting, but my brain translated it as ‘I don’t like your writing, and I don’t like the genre you write in (and completely acknowledge this being due to personal tastes), but I like what you are doing with regard to the Hugos, so I hope more sci-fi like the stuff I used to enjoy will appear again one day because of what you are doing.’

        That’s how I read it though, and I could be completely and totally wrong. It seems like a bit of a smokescreen for the Skim Till Offended Crowd.

        1. That was my interpretation too. He doesn’t like Larry’s genre but approved of Larry’s efforts via Sad Puppies.

          Rightly or wrongly, I took him as a hard sci-fi reader.

          On the other hand, it could be the first effort at “trojan horsing”, so who knows.

          1. I think he’s for real. I’ve seen that name on comments on other blogs not related to literature, and those comments tend to be of a similar nature. Opinionated, blunt, not afraid to disagree.

          2. Yeah, I gathered that his tastes seem to run into high in the Mohs-scale SF range from the way he talked. If so, I do sympathize with his unhappiness with how the genre went because a few recent attempts into hard SF made me wish I could delete from my brain what I’d read. There were interesting ideas, but there was no ‘story’ worth reading. It would have been better if the ideas were presented in a similar fashion to Expedition: Being An Account In Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV.”

            …I must find out if there are still copies of that book available. My art teacher in high school introduced me to Wayne Barlowe’s work and I’d never been able to find copies of his books since.

            @Dave H: Not afraid to disagree, opinionated and blunt? Gee, how many of us does that describe over here?

          3. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a hard sci-fi book and enjoyed it. Probably something by Peter F. Hamilton or Jack McDevitt (hmmm, that reminds me, I must get the omnibus editions of Hamilton’s Greg Mandel novels…).

            …That’s why I really hope Cixin Liu’s “Three-Body Problem” lives up to the hype.

          4. I love hard sci-fi, at leadt in theory. It is hard to find good stuff, though, especially that remembers to add a story. That’s one thing I enjoy about David Weber’s books. They’re by no means solid science, but they FEEL like they are. It’s a trick of writing that I appreciate.

      2. No offense meant, Larry. I admit it, I read only a couple of your books and lost interest in one of them and didn’t finish it. That is no cut on you, it is merely a matter of differing tastes. As I age I seem to be drawn to historical fiction.

        My point is that I see books being cranked out according to a all too predictable formulas. It’s not just you and SF – it seems to be endemic to the publishing industry and to Hollywood and other media. By the time I get half way through a book or moviie I can tell that it will usually end in one of a couple different and boring ways. I dunno if this makes sense – and again, I mean no offense to you personally – but it seems to me that writers today are changing the pathway through the story maze but leaving the end point always the same. I’m not seeing creativity; I am seeing rote and rigor. Some of it probably has to do with age – I have been a voracious reader since I was a tot. Kicking me in the literary seat of the pants with something new will be a lot harder to do than with a younger person in their 20’s, I suppose.

        I may be wrong but I don’t think you can ‘teach’ creativity. And maybe ‘originality’ is a term that means something different to me than to you. I am probably wrong about everything as your fanboys seem to suggest…but the sense I get is that you are capable of producing much better work than you have been. I can see how a vague comment like this might infuriate an accomplished author but it isn’t meant that way. I think you should write – and leave the teaching for those who can’t. I sense talent in your works.

        Good luck, sport. I will be watching you. 😉

        1. It’s not just you and SF – it seems to be endemic to the publishing industry and to Hollywood and other media. By the time I get half way through a book or moviie I can tell that it will usually end in one of a couple different and boring ways. I dunno if this makes sense – and again, I mean no offense to you personally – but it seems to me that writers today are changing the pathway through the story maze but leaving the end point always the same.

          I can sympathise with that point of view, since it was what lead me to abandon almost entirely for some years, watching movies / tv shows made in the US and watch anime and read manga for a long while. (Not suggesting that you try it, but that was my reasons for doing so.)

          My hubby does things like “I bet that that character is (insert role here.)” He’s right about 80% of the time so I can see the bit about predictability there.

        2. I may be wrong but I don’t think you can ‘teach’ creativity.

          You may be right. I think it’s possible to teach someone how to expand an idea into a story, but getting them to have the idea in the first place might require more than just teaching.

          But I know for sure you can kill creativity. Rules will do that. That’s why Larry starts his lecture by saying that the “rules” they teach to writers are really just guidelines.

          1. I may be wrong but I don’t think you can ‘teach’ creativity.

            You are wrong. You many not be able to *teach* it, but people can certainly learn it. Creativity is just another job skill. It isn’t magic.

          2. Creativity is easy. We all do it all the time. If you’re human, you’re creative.

            What eludes people with fiction is what to target their creativity powers on. And that’s easy to point out.

        3. Infuriate? 😀 Dude, you must be new around here. You aren’t a blip on the anger-meter.

          Glen, you strike me as one of those guys who are just full of helpful advice. Problem is you don’t really know as much as you think you do about the topic you’re talking about.

          On the differing tastes, no kidding. I talk about that in the class. Every writer has a different target audience. Different audiences like and dislike different writers. Nothing wrong with that. We’re in agreement there. After that though, you’re pretty much wrong. 🙂

          Creativity can be learned. It is a skill. Like any other. It isn’t magic.

          You know why endings are often predictable? Because writing is an entertainment product. Our job is to provide entertainment to readers, and in turn, they give us money. Since millions of very smart people have been doing this for thousands of years, we’ve discovered some basic tools of story telling that tend to work. These things are called tropes. They exist for a reason.

          Original is overrated. Anything you think is original, probably isn’t, and you just haven’t read the other things that have done that same thing before. Pick something successful that you think is original, and then talk about it in front of a large group of readers, and inevitably there are going to be examples of people who did it before the one you think is all new. Especially on endings, but I’ll get to that.

          Truly original stories are rare, and they often fail miserably in the market, because nobody likes them. Because they’re too different. Except for hipsters, who love to be edgy (and even then they usually just skim it so they can talk about how original and brilliant they are at parties). Yeah, I can write something that has never been done before, and then sell ten copies. Yay.

          On original endings, there are only so many ways you can end a story. Most of them were explored by the time Shakespeare was being accused of being unoriginal by his contemporary critics. The reason we tend to end stories in predictable manners is that the READERS LIKE IT. See above. We’re entertainers. You want to be edgy and original, and have an oddball ending? Go for it. But you violate that reader enjoyment and you just failed in your job.

          I’ve written a bunch of books. I’ve got one with a truly surprising, not everyone lives happily ever after, WTF just happened ending. Reactions to that ending have been… mixed. That’s the risk you take.

          Oh, and as far as how to spend my free time, thanks for your valuable career advice, but no. I write what I enjoy writing, and it pleases those “fanboys”. They are my target audience that pays my bills. I have zero desire to please wannabe critics who don’t even like my chosen genre. I put you in the same category as other people who tell me I should be writing instead of shooting guns, painting, or anything else that I do for fun to recharge my creative battery. Duly noted, and then immediately disregarded.

          Look, right now I’m way up in the top 1% of success in my chosen career field. Why don’t you go find a leading brain surgeon and bitch at him for playing golf instead of operating on brains? And by the way, tell him he’s operating on brains wrong. You know, because you drove by a hospital once. I’m making about $150 an hour to teach this class, and that isn’t even worth my time. I’m doing this because it sounded like fun. The five minutes I took to write this response weren’t worth my time either, but explaining how little you know about this career while I ate breakfast amused me. 🙂

          1. Larry, thanks for teaching the class. It’s far more educational and valuable to be taught by those who can and have. It’s also very entertaining to learn from someone who has genuine enthusiasm.

          2. >>You know why endings are often predictable? Because writing is an entertainment product

            If you look at Georgette Heyer, for example, in pretty much all of her romance novels, you know within two chapters who’s going to fall in love at the end of the book. She’s done a dozen different treatments of the classic “to reform a rake” storyline. People (including me!) still read her books with great enjoyment.

          3. Also, I too am an older guy who has been reading since he was a tot, and he’s full of shit. Your books are not boring, predictable, and unremarkable. Just the opposite! You keep writing them, I’ll keep buying them and reading them.

          4. Kathryn – That’s true pretty much across the board in romance, that you know the main couple will have a HEA by the end. It’s expected to the point of being required. And, when I read romance, if I don’t immediately know which two people we are rooting for to fall in love, I’ll sometimes flip to the end to find out who ends up together so I know right away who I’m rooting for. (This is one reason I don’t like love triangles.) But yeah, Heyer in particular had like two basic types of romantic leads, and she wrote 50 or so books based on those, just different variations on the same theme. So I agree that “originality” is overrated, especially since people often mean different things by that word.

          5. Which book had a WTF ending? I think I’ve read all your published novels (not counting the new one not yet released except in ARC), and while I can think of several where not everyone lived, none of them spring to mind as having a WTF ending.

          6. Ah, apparently it’s been too long since I read that one. I can’t even remember the ending. (Which may be because, while I find the Dead Six novels entertaining, they are my least favorite of your stories. Probably because of the lack of fantasy elements. *shrug*)

        4. “There is nothing new under the sun.”

          If, by originality, you mean something that has never been written before, you are doomed to disappointment, because such a thing does not exist.

          If you want stories that don’t conform to the usual Western tropes, I would recommend that you check out some of the Chinese historical fiction movies that are available on Netflix. They are… quite different, and might satisfy your itch for something not western standard.

          1. That’s why I enjoyed the various Japanese tropes employed in manga/anime. They weren’t familiar to me.

            Just finished watching Log Horizon last night and it was thoroughly enjoyable, and have ordered the first light novel translation.

            For those worried that it is a Sword Art Online ‘copycat’ it isn’t. Thoroughly different premise and focus.

  13. If you do decide to do another class, please let us know. I can’t do it this year- have the *money* for a change, but not the *time.* I’m still scribbling bits and scraps here and there, but eventually it’s put up or shut up time, and I’d like to do it right.

    Good on ya, you lucky dogs that are taking the class, though! Don’t mind my jealousy over here, I’m sure it will burn itself out in a few months… *chuckle*

  14. “The acme of prose style is exemplified by that simple, graceful clause: “Pay to the order of. . . .”‘”
    -Robert A. Heinlein

  15. My husband is signed up for the class via the intarweebs. As a marital benefit, I got to listen in here and there last night (when not chasing the youngest Wee Thing around and trying to chivy her into bed). Possibly I’ll get a second look if he plays through it again.

    Thus far, it seemed to me like an excellent round-up of the advice you’d have gotten from reading Writer’s Digest for 20 years and removed the filter of people who are ears deep in the publishing industry proper. Also peppered with anecdotes and advice from the front lines that you certainly won’t get from other sources. It is, necessarily, a little vague in places – simply because the nuts and bolts of things like how to market yourself are going to vary SO wildly based on what you’re actually writing. I do think that the advice was certainly applicable to nearly any genre. (The possible exceptions being things like romance and cozy mysteries – both of which seem to be extremely formulaic).

    All in all, even the 60% or so I caught by proxy was cogent and useful.

    (Added note: Said husband had a few issues with his registration that were rapidly resolved with the help of the kind and knowledgeable staff at WSU. And _I_ learned that there is such a thing as a “Utah accent”, and had to make the poor woman repeat herself twice.

  16. Larry,
    Would you please video these sessions and make them available to purchase.

    Your outline is EXACTLY what I need to know, and while obviously it will date, there is absolutely nothing stopping you updating it every year or two as market conditions fluctuate.

    I am in Australia and DESPERATE to attend, but it is not possible other than say via Skype / Go-To-Meeting / Adobe Connect or similar software.

  17. Larry, great class last night! Took down a lot of notes, especially with the business side of things. Enjoyed the many anecdotes. You would get along well with a friend of mine from church. Gun nut as well, and full of stories about everything!

    My greatest take away, though, was on the “writing better” side of things and how you shredded the mystique behind plotting. It’s something I’ve always struggled with whenever I’ve sat down to work on a piece of long fiction. I have A and Z figured out, and maybe M and O, but what about the rest?

    Well, you said just sit down and plot it out. Half hour to an hour. If it works, great! If not, figure out why and take a second stab.

    I’m working on the first book of a trilogy and I’m at that point. My goal before next class is to have the plotting done from A-Z. Limiting myself to no more than two sentences of description for each scene.

    Looking forward to next week!

  18. Larry,
    I had the pleasure last summer of hearing you in several panels at a small con. For story telling, you are a modern day Mark Twain.
    A large, liberal stupidity crushing, International Lord of Hatey hate hate, Tetsubo wielding Mark Twain.

  19. OK, with the kind permission of Larry, I have posted the first part of my writeup of my notes from last night’s class. This basically corresponds to the first hour of the presentation. I will have the second half up in the next couple of days. I intend to provide a full set of notes for the entire class that people can refer to. Once the class is over and I have a full set of notes, I will probably collect them into a document and make a PDF or something of them

    The URL is

    http://harrdharrharr.org/correia-first-week-1-of-2/

    Enjoy, everyone.

    David

    1. Dude. That’s not notes, that’s an annotated transcript. Thank, I was going to have to listen again to take notes. 🙂

      @correia45: As one of the intarweb lurkers I really appreciated it. The only thing that detracted was technical problems with the mic’s. I suspect the tech staff will have that fixed before the next one.

      1. Fantastic work David! Thank you very much.

        And if you’re going to be an Internet Troll. You need to work on it some more.

        Your skills as a troll are terrible. You’re helpful, and obviously hard working and smart.

        Go read MHI Vendetta again. Or maybe you’re Larry’s troll, in that case, keep up the good work!

    2. Just had to say that those were awesome, and I’m looking forward to the next installment. Thanks to both you and Larry.

      1. Excellent!

        One question that came to mind reading the “novels vs. short stories” section: I’ve been told that short stories are a good way to build yourself up for being a “real” writer: you can churn out a bunch of them, get practice figuring out how this writing stuff is done, and sell the ones that are any good. Then when you present yourself to an agent or publisher, you can include in your cover letter, “I’m the author of 3 stories purchased by Weird Tales and 1 purchased by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” and that makes it more likely that you’re work will get a look.

        For those writers who read these comments, is there any truth to that? Or is it a case of “if you want to write novels, just write novels.”

  20. I wish to hell I was going to be around enough this month to have been able to take it via the net, but overseas they knock the bandwidth down so low it’d take 8 hours to get the two hours of video… sigh

  21. I’ve been a lot of writing classes over the years. (Including a degree in English that didn’t even suck the fun out of reading for me. I mean, jeez, I had classes on Star Trek and comparing sci-fi novels to the films)

    A lot of the stuff Larry said I’d heard in one form or another at some point.

    Aside from the stuff I hadn’t heard, the single biggest thing I got out of this week’s class was Larry’s friggin contagious enthusiasm.

    After being on the edges of the Hugo fights on FB (and participating some) that was something I sorely needed.

    Totally worth the two hours in my beat up piece of crap car.

    (Actually, now that I think of it, that is the farthest single drive my car has made in at least a decade. Still worth it.)

  22. Hey Larry. First time posting to your fine website.

    It is fitting I would first break the ice on a class on creative writing. Some of the last “real” classes I took on CW were in college, which nearly destroyed me. I learned how to apologize for my opinions, fumble and bumble until a mentor of mine years later taught me how to stop BSing and say what I think.

    Anyway, I’m now a published author myself, 1 book out, sequel with my publisher, and a 3rd in second draft. I’m sure you’re buried with new authors who would love your review / support, so I’m probably nothing new. Or, I could say, what’s one more?

    Keep it up, I admire how well you stand up for your convictions.

      1. “Damn, ” said the Duchess, putting out her cigar on the shoulder of her nearest Renfield. “Igor, the lighting has tripped the breaker. Fix it!”

        Igor looked at the writhing figure on the slab, then out at the drenching rain pounding on the window of the laboratory. Getting wet or getting experimented on? Easy choice. “Yesss, mistress.”

  23. Mr Correiga – I hope that your students came away feeling that learnt something or at least that they had fun. Or possibly both.

  24. Hi Larry! I’ve really been enjoying the class. I just wanted to drop by and let you know that me and several other of the online students have started a closed Facebook group for students in your class. We thought we would use it to continue discussions, ask for tips, share information, etc. The link for it is here if you would like to share it with other members of the class:

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishinghunters/

    Thanks again for the great class!

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