SUMMER 2011

Last call for Taos!

Quotation guru Terri Guillemets said, “If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don't remove it — I might be writing in my dreams.”

Why don’t you and your keyboard join us for writing your dreams? We’re not lying when we say this is one of the best things you can do for your writing life and yes, class size is limited for this six-day intensive writing program in Taos, New Mexico, July 12-17.

Sign up now. May 12 is the deadline for enrollment.

Here’s our twelve-step program and promise to you.

Step 1: Dedicated writing time that eludes you in your everyday life.
Step 2: Creative inspiration. It’s in the air that surrounds the campus located at a cool 7,000 feet, on edge of the Carson National Forest.
Step 3: No worries about when, where or what to eat. We’ll feed you healthy meals and snacks multiple times a day plus s’mores around the campfire. Adult beverages allowed.
Step 4: Professional critique and encouragement. In addition to the faculty you know and love from Dallas, we’re bringing in BK Loren, top notch writing instructor and author, to teach a master’s class and provide motivation for all students.
Step 5: An easy commute. Ride a bike to class (5 minutes). Walk the wooded trail across a stream (12 minutes, tops). It’s all free and leaves no carbon footprint.
Step 6: A comfortable place to stay. Casita-style accommodations that offer an undistracted place (yes, that means no TV) to live the writer’s life.
Step 7: A community of determined authors who like you want to be recognized for their efforts and critiqued for improvement.
Step 8: An opportunity to step out under the stars and actually see them.
Step 9: Readings by published authors at the renowned Taos Writer’s Conference. Readings by your fellow writers under the trees outside the campus dining hall.
Step 10: Morning stretch classes; the option to sleep in.
Step 11: Permission to shut off the smart phone. No, make that we insist you shut off your smart phone. No one (not your spouse, your boss or your whoever) needs to know the remote campus comes with a tech consultant.
Step 12: A resident ghost who is worthy of your best short story.
BONUS: A class for spouses, to help them understand you creatively and to let them explore creativity for themselves!

Ron Roy, CAPE alum and author

An alum of NY and a dedicated writing student, after fifteen years of effort Ron Roy has published his first book, Passing Time, with local small press Blue Cubicle. "I’ve learned that miracles do happen," Roy said.

In the fifteen-year process, two things held him up. "I didn’t have a good habit. It wasn’t steady work. My kids would visit in the summer – I wouldn’t work for three months." He found his publisher after searching on the web. It was a press that did chap books and magazines dedicated to work and workers. They had never done a book. Ron queried the publisher, who read the manuscript and said, "I've been looking for a novel for a long time. This is it."

In the editorial process, Roy changed the point of view from first person to third. "When I changed it to third, it became more immediate. After that, nothing important was changed. Of course, they dropped some of my faves, cut back prologue," he said. And Roy had cut the first 200 pages on his own. "(They) just had to go away."

Roy's experience has been "pretty exciting. Two months ago it was only ten people in the world who could discuss it." He said he returned to his alma mater in Vermont and all three literature professors were discussing the story. "Just to have people talk about it like it’s a book. The cover, title, ISBN are nice …but to talk to people about the book — I love the (promotional) appearances for that reason."

Roy had the added good fortune that the first case of novels landed on his front doorstep the same day he was meeting with a group of writers in Northern New Hampshire, where he now lives. It was an inaugural meeting, so the director of the state organization was there. "Everyone was as happy as I was. Perfect timing." This meeting led to Roy being invited to several local book workshops and festivals this summer.

The key to his writing, Roy said, is to start with autobiography and then ask: if I changed this here, what would have been different? Passing Time began as a story about his own experience working in the paper mill in his hometown. "It was almost a memoir. But I took it to a different level. I was a fly on the wall, just an observer. But I needed to have someone involved in the story." That's why his character Gene becomes so involved in the lives and adventures of his fellow millworkers.

Roy has written three manuscripts since he finished Passing Time. "Write in a notebook. Start early, revise in the computer. I put in what I wrote the day before and then start (that day's work). Things do progress. You can think about things … but only when you start to put on paper does it go. Every day have a problem, solve it and find another. Keep the momentum going."

The best lesson he got from the experience is to have a habit. "It is true: you have to work every day. Find your process." He also attributes grit to his success. "I have a certain stubbornness. I wanted to tell this story. Kept trying until I got it right. There's not a lot of blue collar stories. I just wouldn’t give up." He said everyone needs "something that’s yours. Literally, this is the only place I don’t care what someone thinks. It’s mine."

On a whirlwind book tour through Dallas, Roy revisited the people and places he called home for twenty-five years. A medical professional, he returned to the hospital where he worked, saw the people who'd known him as he was writing. And writing. "People really do like success. They said, ‘you got it done!’”

He got it done! Get it at www.bluecubiclepress.com

An excerpt from Passing Time:

Eugene (“Gene”) Wheeler always wanted to be an engineer, but after failing math, he drops out of college and takes a job in his hometown paper mill. He hopes the dead-end job will allow him to be a robot—go through the motions—as he considers his options for the future. From his first day on the job, however, he finds himself caught between two groups of men, each devoted to the job in their own way and determined to include him in their ranks. Gene discovers the job is not the smooth ride he envisioned and soon realizes there are no time outs in life.

Congratulations and thanks

Congratulations to Amanda Arista (NY '09) on her Nine Lives two e-book deal with Avon Impulse (a subsidiary of HarperCollins) Publication dates: June 27, 2011 and December 2011.

Congratulations to Kay Honeyman (NY '09) on her contract with Scholastic (Arthur Levine). Publication date: spring 2013.

Thanks to our web-savvy instructors and contacts! You can learn from them in and OUT of the classroom! Follow, follow!

Misa Ramirez
Facebook
Author page
Books on the House
Entangled Publishing (where I am marketing director)
The Naked Hero
Twitter: @misaramirez, @entangledpub, @booksonthehouse, @thenakedhero, @epubguide

Daniel J. Hale
Facebook
Twitter

Carmen Goldthwaite
Twitter
Website

Suzanne Frank
Twitter
Facebook
Blog

David Hale Smith (local agent)
Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Blip.FM (for any music fans out there)

Program Director’s Note

A writer remembers her (his) writer’s life as a series of pivotal moments.
 
I remember doing biographical research on one of my characters for my first book (literally, thumbing through books) while channel surfing and I looked up and he was THERE. Onscreen. In period dress. Moving, speaking, and fully Cheftu.
 
Later, on the same project, I’d been seized by a new character and was writing along madly, squished between the second-floor landing and a half-closed door, my laptop on my knees and this “mentor’ character said something -- my body broke into goosebumps: the character, in dialogue, had connected two pieces I’d put in the story, but hadn’t used. They dovetailed, (and answered a few major questions) perfectly.
 
Other books have had other moments and my publishing career has had its own set of pivots.

The only common factor I can see in them is: I was there. Present and willing. Open and eager.
 
While I wrote my first book, I was a birthparent liaison and the PR face for an adoption agency. I transported babies, tracked down FOBs (father-of-baby) and did educational inservices for everyone from DISD to the doc-in-the-box. I had a 45-minute commute each way. Every week I taught Sunday school to squirmy 3rd and 4th graders.

I totally did not have time to write a book; but I couldn’t NOT do it.

The passion for the story drove me. Being present helped me recognize and use pivotal moments.
 
Now, I had the great advantage of a journalism background, a voracious life-long reading habit and was one of the fastest typists you’ve ever seen.

But if I hadn’t been there, at my keyboard, or with my notebook, it wouldn’t have mattered. Those moments, those pivotal moments, are like double rainbows: glimpsed, then gone.
 
You’ve got the passion – or you wouldn’t be in our program – but are you putting yourself in the place to experience your pivotal moments?

Are you showing up?

Are you open?

Are you ready?
 
This program exists for one reason and one reason only: to help adults write books. We stretch to find teachers who not only know, but DO, to share with you their expertise and experience. Each teacher stretches personally – staying abreast of the market, of methods, always on the lookout for what should be added/subtracted so that you, our student, is helped to write your book.

Every anecdote shared in class has an end lesson. Every exercise has a purpose.

Summer is the final push for many of you to be ready for NY. We’re offering all our classes, at least once. We’re bringing in a paradigm-shifting instructor for our advanced/post-NY students – BK Loren.
 
Summer is either a break in the frenzy of your life, or an escalation. As you consider how you are spending this time, think on these things:

Am I passionate about this project?
Am I showing up?
Am I open?

Then decide where you are carving out the time to show up. Early in your day? Late?

Or do you need a time and space to fall in love with your story? Become reacquainted with it? Can you do that here, in our summer offerings of Story, Plot, Chapters, Revision? Should you escape to the beach? Should you join us in Taos?
 
Ultimately, you have three months. How are you going to help yourself show up and seize those pivotal moments? How are you going you help YOU write your book?

Suzanne