@sandradavies
Active 5 days, 6 hours ago-
Squidge joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
Bella replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoIn theory I think the structure of a timetable is helpful. In practice, especially for a project as huge as this, I just don’t see people sticking to it very closely. Even in the self-edit course people were very variable in their contributions and that was only 6 weeks. That said, no harm in devising a timetable for people to (try to) stick to. I…[Read more]
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoI sort of assumed we might work through each unit on the Craft Seminar as a group, posting exercises for comment the same way we did on the Self-Edit course when I did it. I find the structure of a timetable (however gentle and slow it is) works better for me.
What does everyhbody else feel?
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Athelstone replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoHi Jane, do we need a common start time as it’s a DIY course? I imagine it would be nice/useful to have people at roughly the same stage, for support and encouragement, but real life and so on.
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Athelstone posted an update 6 years, 8 months ago
URGENT!!! The weekend approaches. If you wish to enter the challenge “Songs of Innocence and Experience” then you only have until Tuesday at 22:00 to join the eponymous group and make your choices.
MORE IMPORTANT STILL there are several Denizens who have joined the group but have yet to POST their choices. You must both join AND post to be in…[Read more]
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PS I’m travelling around until Monday PM (family wedding) so probably won’t be able to answer questions until then.
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoYes, just been on Amazon to have a look. There’s a revised edition of Bird by Bird due out in January. Do you have any thoughts when we might start? I’d quite like to save some money by having books delivered to the UK and getting visitors in mid October or end of November to bring them over to France and I’ll need to get a move on for mid…[Read more]
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Kate replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoA daunting amount of material, but nobody said writing would be easy.
Thanks for setting this up Raine. -
Kate joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
Athelstone replied to the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoThanks for kicking all this off, Raine!
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Seagreen joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
Raine started the topic Syllabus and course materials. in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoHere’s the link to the syllabus. When we set up each unit/module, I can post the relevant excerpt there, but this is the whole thing, for reference.
https://wille.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WilleSyllabusDIYMA2019v1.1.pdf
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Athelstone joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
Bella joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
JaneShuff joined the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago -
Raine created the group
Andrew Wille’s DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago-
OK, I’ve set a group up, as my main wall post will disappear off the page shortly. But I’ve not thought any further than that about how to do things. Jump in with ideas/requirements/etc. 🙂
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I guess we should have a thread starting with the link to his course. Perhaps said thread to be used only to post relevant links to course material.
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Elle replied to the topic What's Past Is Epilogue (word count: 2532) in the forum Critiques 6 years, 8 months ago
Thanks Margaret for posting your story. Sorry I’m in a bit of a rush and cannot read the whole thing.
Not sure what kind of feedback you are after but I wanted to say that you write well and it sounds like an interesting story. It has potential but the first three paragraphs are too much tell and not enough show. Furthermore there are also heavy…[Read more]
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The JW self-edit course, Ath? Yes. I think even a writer as good as you would find it worthwhile. D’you want to check the syllabus first to make sure you don’t know it all already? I can supply basic details, assuming it hasn’t changed much in the past three years.
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Yes!! Even though you know what you’re doing, there are elements of it that are still useful. I think there will be lots you already know, but in reading others’ work and particularly seeing Debi and Emma’s comments (as well as fellow readers’) is like mini-critique course in itself.
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Ta to you both for saying some nice things…but I know I need some pushing and shoving and just straight educating. Here’s hoping the January course is a classic!
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Best l thing I got out of it was the friendship of a core of valuable fellow-attendees; we still regularly meet, though not as often as desired and have done since January 2014.
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YES! I think this course is so good that it will help almost anyone. I would do it again in a flash. And the one to one attention is worth the price alone!
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Definitely not as often as desired! But agreed – the course was great, but the group of friends is greaterer.
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Hell, yes – to all of that.
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All signed up.
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Good luck!! I kind of assumed you’d done it already! Is January the course @johnt3 is also signed up on (for his second time around)?
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No, I’ve just started. It’s a promising and very varied bunch of writers. Good luck, Athelstone, you’ll enjoy it. PS I’d forgotten how hard the first exercise is!
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Nope, never done it, although I’ve been on various workshops etc. that touch on some of the modules. I have a feeling it will be a very different thing to be engaged on my own work and working with a group. When I looked the Sept one was full, but I wanted another few months to write some more crap (as Julie C puts it) before starting anyway. All good.
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Yay! Starting when?
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21 January. Really looking forward to it
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Raine posted an update 6 years, 8 months ago
Anyone seen this? I wonder whether it would be possible to ‘run’ this informally here somehow…
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I’m in!
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Well, the Den has private groups so I’m sure it’s possible. We’re hardly over-using the site’s facilities at the moment.
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Also, it looks good doesn’t it. What a star Andrew is. Andrew, missed you at York this year!
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That’s @andrew 🙂
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Thanks! And thanks for sharing this – do put it into circulation with people who might be interested. And too there are plenty of ways to mix up and adapt what’s there.
And yes – I think the Den could be a great place to set up a critique space. What I’d like is to be able to recommend more places where writers can connect with like-minded…[Read more]
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Sorry @andrew, I forgot to tag you in. THanks for pointing people in our direction & hopefully we are/can be one of those safe critique spaces for writers. I think your syllabus + a supportive online group will make a brilliant combination. 🙂
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Me too.
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Certainly the first, writing part for me.
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Oh gosh. That looks really involved… I don’t know whether I’d be able to do all of that.
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what a good idea! I’d be keen.
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@squidge and @sandradavies I’m sure we can set it up so that people are free to participate in the units that interest them, and not the ones that dont. I think there are probably advantages to having a core group that go through the process together, building on what’s been covered. But I also don’t see the point in making it too ‘strict’, or…[Read more]
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Besides, it’s structured as a full MA (two years of work) so I think most of us would rather take it slow and be free to dip out when RL/other commitments get in the way.
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Completely agree with everything you say, @raine. Slow and gentle. Let’s have a go and discuss as we go along….
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Squidge posted an update 6 years, 8 months ago
So it turns out that Amazon can reformat your ebook when you upload it for Kindle. Who knew?
And I’d been blaming the publisher for all the extra line breaks, large text and blank pages…
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Amazon is a menace, but we seem to be stuck with them if we want to sell books
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I’m currently attempting to re-format my novels for publishing as ebooks – fiendishly tricky at times and not sure I’ve cracked it yet – sudden and random centering of paragraphs or indents, to say nothing of the change in fonts. A good reason to stick with print IMHO!
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There’s definitely a knack to formatting ebooks but it’s easy when you’ve got the hang of it. I recommend the Smashwords Style Guide to get yoy started (perma free in ebook). And I might be able to help point people in the right direction if anyone is really stuck?
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Some extra spaces end up turning into extra lines…apparently. SO glad it’s not up to me to do the formatting.
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Raine posted an update 6 years, 8 months ago
Agent did email me. Was very nice, gave me a couple of ideas. FYI the 1-1 was arranged through I Am In Print, who are lovely and gave me a sponsored session so if you are under-repped that’s worth asking for. They’ve a few more agents lined up over the next couple of months so might be worth checking out.
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Thanks, Raine, this looks interesting. And I’m so glad you got some ideas from the agent.
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Glad the ending was a happy one.
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Great that the experience ended up as a positive one, Raine.
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