Happy New Year, Get Studying

Happy New Year everyone! May your muse shine brightly this year.

Now to some business: for those of you who are interested in taking graduate-level courses, check out the following programs. Some of them are only a week long, but cram enough information to cover a year-long publishing internship/entry-level job. I suggest looking these over, especially if you’re thinking of self-publishing and doing it properly and well. Also, it looks great on your resume, and, I think, looks even better than saying you have a graduate degree in Creative Writing. The thing is, a creative writing degree is hard to sell unless you came from a prestigious school or had a well-known writer as your lecturer. Even so, having the degree only means you know the tricks–it says nothing about whether you can apply them or not. With a publishing degree, it shows you take the process of writing a book seriously. Your publishing house/agent/whomever knows that you understand the process and therefore know that even though they’re publishing the book, your marketing skills are absolutely key.

NYU Summer Publishing Institute: Provides lectures, workshops, simulations, site visits, special events, and career planning sessions to those interested in developing a publishing career. Explore key principles and practices in this thorough introduction to publishing, as well as the role of editing, marketing, design, new media, production, budgeting, advertising, circulation, publicity, and much more.

Columbia Publishing Course: Shortest graduate school in the country; would take you a year in an entry-level position in publishing to learn what you will learn in six-weeks here, and ten years to meet all the people you will meet. For almost sixty years, the course has been training young men and women for careers as editors, literary agents, publishers, designers, publicists, and more. Graduates can be found in every kind of job, at major magazines and publishing houses across the nation.

University of Denver Publishing Institute: An intensive, full-time, four-week, graduate-level course that devotes itself to all aspects of book publishing: editing, marketing, and production. During the final week, the Institute provides career counseling sessions to assist students in finding positions in publishing.

Emerson College MA in Publishing and Writing: Offers courses in book, magazine, and electronic publishing; in fiction and nonfiction writing; and in literature and criticism. Internship and apprenticeship opportunities are available, for credit, in Boston publishing and production firms and literary agencies.

Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing: Canada’s premier training ground for professional publishing, Simon Fraser University’s Master of Publishing (MPub) is a rigorous 16-month program of seminars, guest lectures, technology workshops and an internship.

Publishing Training: Learn publishing skills from the industry’s training provider. Classroom-based open courses cover everything from editorial skills to marketing and publicity. Can also study proofreading, editing, copywriting or picture research by distance learning.

Big News

I’ve won NaNoWriMo! How exciting. I hope everyone who participated is proud of however much they were able to produce, and that they have donated to the Young Writer’s cause. Even $10 does a lot, so please help! Look me up as worderella on NaNoWriMo for my profile and sample of the text I’ve been working on.

And now, back to studying for finals, writing two surprise essays (gotta love those English teachers…), a couple programs, you know…the usual. :)

C’est Finis!

94,811 / 94,811(100.0%)

And now to my favorite part. EDITING!! Seriously, I love this part. I can go back and mold my characters, twist their subplots, add the details I didn’t want to worry about the first time around. Double-spaced, my work is 334 pages at 12pt Times New Roman. That’s insane. Of course, each new chapter starts on its own page, so that might have something to do with it. but still. I’m so excited! The ending is sort of iffy, but that’s cool. A lot can change through editing. I’m just glad I finished the first draft. Took me three years (I keep taking time off for school, work, and research!), but I’ve done it and now the editing phase begins!

New Website Layout

Well, it’s official. I changed the name of this blog, and I added the domain name that will eventually be the official domain for my website: Worderella. Spent some time tonight playing with the layout and trying to make it professional, clean, and yet keeping that hint of something historical so readers don’t get confused.

So, say hello to Worderella. She welcomes your comments and suggestions.

By the way, Worderella is VERY excited to say the current novel is at 90,000+ words, and the sequel already has a pretty solid synopsis going.

Website Update/Writer’s Block

I changed the layout of my website (found here), edited some text, etc. Also changed the colors of this blog.

As you may have guessed, I’m going through writer’s block. I find that when I’m stuck, I need to start reading again. Or doing more research. Or, not think about writing at all, but work on my other projects (which include working on my comic, performing another T-shirt surgery, balancing my account, and, unfortunately, Facebook haha).

What do you do to combat the Writer’s Block?

New Layout

Working on a new layout, so bear with me while I try to get this all together. Apparently, my image map in IE doesn’t change the web address, so refreshing is sort of iffy. And the bookmark link doesn’t work in Firefox. Other than that, I hope you like the new streamlined look!

Layout Complete

New layout complete! I hope you all like the new, muted look. Work on the new novel is coming along pretty well, I’ve been doing a lot of research so actual formulation has slowed, but I’m sure it will pick up again. Happy holidays, everyone!

Novel Unveiled!

Catching the Rose is now available for purchasing! I screamed when I opened the box to see my beautiful book sitting there. And now it’s going out into the real world. Be kind!