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Tis the Season to Learn Writing Skills
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REACH YOUR APEX
End-of-Year Updates and Gift
Happy holidays everyone! We hope your 2023 year was filled with writing success and personal accomplishments. Whether your goal was to make a first sale, write that first story, or hit the bestseller lists, take a moment to give yourself some credit for your hard work to reach those goals!
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To that end, Reach Your Apex wanted to thank you for being a part of our first year. We're giving you a discount code to download one of our on demand workshops for free. Enter HOLIDAYS2023 on checkout and you'll see the discount applied to your cart.
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The gift is only for our mailing list subscribers and is available ONLY until December 31st, 2023.
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WISE WORDS
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RYA asks Eugen Bacon "What advice do you have for writers just beginning their career?"
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“If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”—RuPaul
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What RuPaul says about love… yup, the same about your writing. Believe in yourself. You’re your work’s first reader. If you can’t love it, how the hell d’you expect someone else to do it? Put yourself in the best spot for you and everyone else to love it—here are four tips:
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EDIT, EDIT, EDIT.
In an Atlantic interview Stephen King said: It's what you hear in your head, but it's never right the first time. So you have to rewrite it and revise it. My rule of thumb is that a short story of 3,000 words should be rewritten down to 2,500. It's not always true, but mostly it is. You need to take out the stuff that's just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meet, no filler!
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GET A WISE READER.
A peer, an editor or a writer’s circle can be your ‘wise reader’. A wise reader is the ‘right’ reader, where ‘right’ doesn’t mean the one who likes your work, but one who studies your work seriously. To be published, you must give others entry to your precious world. A wise reader is an open-minded critic who’s not seeking your death as an author but rather who wishes to view your writing in its best light. They will help you bring it to the best version of itself. A repressive reader is dangerous: they gnarl your creative energy, demean you, lead to unproductive outcomes. Know them, stay away from them.
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Ray Bradbury did not mince words about peers and friends who make fun of you and don’t believe in you. Get rid of them, he said. Go make a phone call and fire them. Anyone who doesn’t believe in you or your future, to hell with them, he said.
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EVENTS AND CONFERENCES.
For writers and artists, they are ace. They put you in the same space with others in your community of practice. Be in a panel. You get the chance to yabber at people about you and your work. That’s how people start to know you, maybe even read you. You might meet your future publisher there, get an impromptu op to chuck them a quick elevator pitch, so when you send in that sub, it doesn’t go straight to spam because they bloody already know your name. Make time for the right events even if you’re flat out or are petrified of crowds—don’t be a wuss… Dip your toe in, you can do it.
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REJECTIONS.
They are not personal, but sometimes they feel like it. If a rejection shoots back on a story you’re still thinking to write, it’s not on your screen and you haven’t submitted it yet, yeah, mate, that’s kinda personal. But don’t keep a shrine of rejections. A story comes back: review it, refine it, submit it—all it needs is to find the right damn home.
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Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and collections. She’s a British Fantasy Award winner, a Foreword Indies Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in other awards. Eugen was announced in the honor list of the Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Eugen’s creative work has appeared worldwide, including in Apex Magazine, Award Winning Australian Writing, Fantasy, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.
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Getting into Character
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Arley Sorg is the former editor of Fantasy Magazine and a literary agent.
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$30.00
Note: This workshop was rescheduled to the 21st.
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Characters. Who needs ‘em? Well, many of your stories probably do! How do you write interesting characters? How do you make them feel real? How can characters be an engaging and compelling part of the narrative?
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Publishing Your Poetry Collection
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Do we have any poets on the list?
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$35.00
Instructor: Katerina Stoykova
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Are you ready to turn your collection of poems into a published book? Join us for an inspiring workshop led by renowned poet and publishing expert, Katerina Stoykova. In this interactive session, Katerina will guide you through the exhilarating journey of bringing your poetry book to life.
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Writing the SF Short Story
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Genre short fiction tips from one of the most prolific authors in the business!
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$35.00
January 14th, 1PM ET
Instructor: Lavie Tidhar
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Are you fascinated by the world of science fiction and want to dive into writing your own short stories? Look no further! Join us for an immersive masterclass in the art of crafting captivating SF short stories, led by renowned author and instructor, Lavie Tidhar.
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Wait, there's more!
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From the Blog: Writing Resources on the Web
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Technology and communities (like Reach Your Apex) are high-quality writing resources available to a wider scope of people at varying stages of their writing journey. These are five of our favorite.
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