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REACH YOUR APEX
Mid-September Updates
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In this newsletter, award-winning author Kameron Hurley shares some words of wisdom for writers and we bring you new workshops (including video on demand) and an essay by RYA instructor Marie Vibbert about the pitfalls of using jargon and labels in fiction.
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BUY NOW, PAY LATER
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RYA received feedback from several people that they were very interested in our Wonderbook series, but the $210 price put it out of reach. To help make our workshops more affordable, we are pleased to offer AfterPay as an additional payment method in our Reach Your Apex online shop.
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What is AfterPay? It is a buy now, pay later merchant service that allows buyers to separate their order (of $50 USD or greater) into four payments.
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Visit here to find out more about AfterPay.
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PAYING IT FORWARD: KAMERON HURLEY
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RYA asks Kameron Hurley "What advice do you have for writers just beginning in their career?"
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Write because you enjoy it; because you want to become a written storyteller. If you don’t love this, there are much easier ways to make money. You could work in marketing, or admin. Writing fiction isn’t a magical ATM. I spent twenty years getting decent enough at this to get published regularly, and that was unpaid apprenticeship work, me toiling away in the word mines the same way one might try and fail to grow a garden or learn to play the piano.
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I found it useful to have other hobbies besides writing. As you begin to sell your work, and sign contracts, the writing itself may start to feel like work (and it is!). Coming off one job to start another job eventually leads to burnout, and I’ve found it helpful to have hobbies like gardening and painting that aren’t monetized. Despite what capitalism tells us, we don’t have to monetize all of our heartbeats.
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Don’t rely on publishing to give you or your work validation; don’t allow others to define your success. The truth is that there’s a great deal we don’t control in this business, as in life. I had to define what success meant to me, and define it only by what I could control: the improvement of the work, the act of writing itself, the people I surround myself with, the way I talk about my work, and the act of finishing a piece of work.
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Our careers are as unpredictable as the weather, as impossible to predict as an earthquake. But the act itself is, for me, still a rich and rewarding one. I cannot control the storms, but I can control how I navigate my craft.
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Kameron Hurley is the author of The Stars Are Legion, The Light Brigade, and The Geek Feminist Revolution, as well as the God’s War Trilogy and the Worldbreaker Saga. Hurley has won the Hugo Award, Kitschy Award, BSFA Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. Visit her at kameronhurley.com.
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MID-SEPTEMBER WORKSHOPS
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Decoding the Submission Grinder
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$20.00
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This class will show you how to use The Submission Grinder—the donation-supported web app for writers—to enhance your submission process. Find new publishers for your work that meet your criteria, track your submissions, track your income and expenses, set reminders for yourself, and more. This course will help beginners and intermediate users get the most out of the tool to enhance their submission process. This course will be taught by David Steffen; co-founder, owner, data administrator, and developer of The Submission Grinder.
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$30.00
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Hyperfocus, no focus, uncontrollable focus, stolen focus—no matter what tries to keep you from your story, this class will develop flexible techniques, tools, and strategies for you to build a sustainable writing practice around your ADHD, as well as stay on top of the paperwork and communication required in publishing.
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$30.00
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Do you have three-quarters of a novel? Eighteen short stories without endings? A dozen half-poems? Like everything else, finishing projects is a skill that can be taught. We’ll cover common barriers to finishing, the joy of crappy first drafts, and provide each student with a roadmap to finish that thing they’ve been meaning to finish!
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INTRODUCING VIDEO ON DEMAND WORKSHOPS
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Learn at your pace for the right price!
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Outlining Your Novel - Video On Demand
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$15.00
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Don't like outlining? Feel like it stifles your excitement to create? Just want to build on or experiment with your current outlining practice? This class will have something for everyone, from pantsers to plotters, to create a transparent, flexible outlining system that works for you and your process and results in faster, more joyful writing.
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Exploring Our Monsters - Video On Demand
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$15.00
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Monsters have become a staple of the fiction we consume. Turn to any book, movie, or video game, and you’ll find some sort of monster. Oftentimes, this monster is a “recycled” version of one we’ve encountered before: a fresh kind of vampire, werewolf, witch, etc. Yet no matter how much time goes by, and how many monsters we meet, we seem to never get tired of them. Why is that? This course will explore the history of some of the most beloved monsters, track how they’ve changed and evolved over the years, look at examples in a variety of media, and wrap-up with a writing activity to explore your own monster.
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FOR WRITERS: Thoughtful Use of Jargon and Labels in Fiction
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When we use jargon, we think of it as a tool, a shorthand for larger concepts, so that we can move them around, let X stand for this equation, now we can add or subtract it. But in reality, jargon is most often used as a way of identifying in-group and out-group membership.
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