Workshops.

There simply aren't enough SF writing workshops available to those of us who live in Australia.

My American based friends and peers seem to have access to  many workshops with name writers and editors. I always see someone I know who's off to learn the finer points of writing at the feet of these masters. But here?

Clarion South has  been in hibernation for a few years. Writers Victoria offers SF specific courses every couple of years, while their general short story courses seem to run only during working hours. Even then they tend to be run by people I've never heard of, although I'm sure they are quality writers and teachers.

About 18 months ago I attended a once-a-month workshop with Jack Dann. It was pretty good and I learned a lot, although I would have preferred it to have been more of a masterclass rather than a beginner's course.

I've done a couple of online workshops, which I found extremely beneficial, but in many ways I'm an old fashioned learner, and like to have face-to-face contact and teaching.

Those American based workshops look great, but it's hard to justify for myself when I have to add airfares and accommodation and time off work and so on. Maybe we should just convince some of those guys to come out here and teach us.

Or convince some of our homegrown talent to run a few for us.

Retreat To Advance.

It's the last day of my writer's retreat. I'm down by the beach at Dromana with SuperNOVA, my writers' group.

Nine of us gathered, all like-minded individuals, and I feel fortunate to be sharing this time with such great writers, all more experienced and knowledgeable than I. Clarion graduates, professionally published writers and editors.

So far I've been very productive. I've completed the editorial changes on my story, That Which We Believe, due to be published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, as well as completed rewrites on two other stories. Both these stories will be sent out into the publishing wilderness this coming week.

But before that happens I have a few hours left to get to work on another story. And so it's back to radio silence as I head off to the dark side of the moon.

See you on the other side.

Workshop Shopping.

I recently completed the Jack Dann workshop, held at Writers Victoria. It consisted of five sessions, roughly a month apart. And while I found it very useful and valuable, it wasn't exactly what I'd thought it was going to be.

I guess I really wanted a masterclass.

There was an extremely diverse range of experiences among the participants - from a few who had never written a sentence before to a couple of us with a history of publications. As such, much of the critiquing was aimed at the beginners.

I read of writers in the U.S. that attend workshops held by Orson Scott Card, or Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, Mike Resnick, or other writing luminaries. You often need to audition, to submit a piece of writing to attend these workshops before the participants are selected.

I rarely see any SF workshops like that advertised here.

Earlier this year, I looked at an online course advertised by Tracy Hickman. It looked good, the price seemed reasonable but the time was wrong. I'd just signed up for the Jack Dann thing and was finishing up a university course. I decided I would wait until the second half of the year before applying.

I checked it out recently - credit card in hand, and was rather surprised to see that the course had been restructured to involve live online sessions and the price had increased dramatically. More than doubled, in fact.

I'll pass, for the moment. And I'm not disparaging Mr. Hickman. I'm sure his course is excellent. It's just that it's more than I'd planned to spend at that time.

Clarion in Australia is on indefinite hiatus and, even if it re-commenced, taking the six weeks required to attend would be far too costly. (And I think my wife would not be happy.)

If anyone knows of any great online workshops run by people who know their stuff and at a reasonable price, I'd love to hear about it.

I've found the biggest improvements I've made in my writing were immediately after the Jack Dann course, and the Paul Haines mentorship.

And I'm all for improving my writing.