For those who don’t know, my sister and I co-founded a website for writers called Rose’s Colored Glasses. From that site, we run a critique group, issue a quarterly writerly newsletter and provide workshops—some for free and some for pay. In January, we will be leading a month-long online plotting bootcamp. How’s our workshop different from every other one out there? We provide feedback and brainstorming every step of the way. We are so good at it that we have many authors return again and again for help with their new Works-in-Progress.

Here’s a description of the class. January is a great time to take on a new challenge and a new book. Join us if you can!

Your DIs (Drill Instructors): Elle James and Delilah Devlin

Dates: January 3—January 30, 2010

Cost: $35.00—cheap, considering everything you get!

What you can look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp?

Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Follow this link to sign up: Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp

Okay, that’s the end of my promo. The bootcamp is intense and fun. And you will learn something new or reinforce knowledge you already have! Guaranteed!

Our mom drew the picture for our site, morphing my sister and I into “Rose”.

No, I’m not back. I preposted this before I left! ~DD

For those who don’t know, my sister and I co-founded a website for writers called Rose’s Colored Glasses. From that site, we run a critique group and provide workshops—some free and some for pay (hey, teaching is work!). In January, we will be leading a month-long plotting bootcamp. How’s our workshop different from every other one out there? We provide feedback and brainstorming every step of the way. We are so good at it that we have many authors return again and again for help with their new Works-in-Progress.

Here’s a description of the class. January is a great time to take on a new challenge and a new book. Join us if you can!

Your DIs (Drill Instructors): Elle James and Delilah Devlin

Dates: January 4—January 30, 2010

Cost: $35.00—cheap, considering everything you get!

What you can look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp?

Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Follow this link to sign up: Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp

Okay, that’s the end of my promo. The bootcamp is intense and fun. And you will learn something new or reinforce knowledge you already have! Guaranteed!

Our mom drew the picture for our site, morphing my sister and I into “Rose”.

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 5…

I’m taking a break away from my personal blog to let any writers among you know about the Plotting Bootcamp that starts up next Monday. It’s something my sister and I have run very successfully for years.

What makes our class different from all the other plotting classes out there? We give you feedback every step of the way. You build your story from the ground up, and we help you through feedback on the exercises and through frequent live chats. We do this so well that we have many writers coming back again and again for help refining their latest work-in-progress.

Here’s the information about the class. I hope you’ll join us!

Online Plotting Boot Camp
Your DIs (Drill Instructors): Elle James and Delilah Devlin
September 7 – Oct 4

What you can look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp:

Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Click on this link to enroll!

Testimonials:

I would highly recommend this course to everyone who is even thinking about writing a book.
~Laurean

Thanks for all the insight. You taught me how to think as a novel writer after many years of banging out ad copy.
~Tim
Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who don’t know, I have interests other than writing my own stories. Years ago, my sister and I decided we wanted to do something to share what we’d learned about the writing biz because we’d bumped along the hard way without much support. The publishing industry is cruel enough. Why not offer writers a place where they can hone their skills before they enter the fray.

I came up with the name, Rose’s Colored Glasses. Rose was a morphing of my sister and I. She wore large rose-colored glasses, through which she saw the stories living inside her mind come to life. Our mother drew the cartoon character of Rose, we developed a website and invited some of our closest friends to join us.

We offer online courses, some of them for free, but all at very reasonable prices. We travel to writing groups and provide in-person plotting bootcamps.

Last month, I organized a critique group and a workgroup to plow through Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel—both are still open to join.

In August, we will lead our annual “Write 50 Books a Year” workshop. It’s free, it’s fun, and you will take away tools to improve your planning and productivity.

In September, we will start our next interactive Plotting Bootcamp—a month-long endeavor that is so popular, we have many writers return again and again.

So, if you haven’t checked us out, we have a brand new edition of our newsletter for to read, chock full of lessons learned by “The Roses”.

Okay, so this is strictly for writers—published and aspiring.

If you don’t already know, my sister and I teach a plotting bootcamp through Rose’s Colored Glasses.

We know there are a slew of plotting classes out there, but I’ll tell you how ours is different and why we have people who have taken the class multiple times.

Sure, we define theme, plot a story, and develop characters—all plotting classes do that. What we provide that is unique is feedback and critique throughout the process.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a week-long brush through the basics kind of course. The bootcamp stretches over a month with lessons posted on a Sunday, daily discussion via yahoo group, and live brainstorming chats two to three times a week. It’s up the student how much they want to participate and they can set their own pace, but like I said, we’ve had people so pleased with their results, they come back again and again.

So, the big news is that we’re conducting the next class starting January 5th. The class is limited to 25 people—any more than that and we wouldn’t be able to provide the one-on-one feedback. If you’re interested in signing up, here’s the link: Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp

(And FYI, my mom drew the picture!)

Progress on Texas Men

Another round of “Write 50 Books a Year” is getting underway at Rose’s Colored Glasses. If you’re a writer and haven’t checked it out yet, it’s something we do every year. If you’ve attended before, it’s a chance to retool your plan. If you’ve never given it a try, you may be surprised how much you learn—and not just from your savvy intructors (Elle James and myself!). I learn something new every time from the people who attend. So if you want to learn to be a more productive writer, get your butt over there and sign up! Did I mention that it’s free?!

I promised pictures from the mini-retreat I attended with friends in North Little Rock last week. Please enjoy, but remember we spent the day outside under a pagoda beside a pool. We never fully dried out between dips in the pool and writing at the little table. Wish I could figure out how to touch up photos (really how to shave fat off!), but y’all know me by now and everything hangs out.

Where the muse hung out all day long!

Shada Royce and Cynthia D’Alba, my sister writers!

Well, I couldn’t very well show their picture and not mine, but why didn’t I hide behind my laptop like Cyndi?!