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I started my little online writing school, the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, with the launch of Google Hangouts, which enabled me to host classes for people across the globe. Since then, Hangouts has declined, but the school continues strong, having hosted hundreds of students from around the world. Over a dozen of the best writers and teachers in the fantasy and science fiction field — with several new folks joining us in early 2019 — have led workshops on over three dozen topics.
Perhaps the most rewarding thing about the school has been the network of friends it’s helped me build, with students joining on to score Nebula and Hugo awards and multiple publications, many moving into the F&SF world as editors and publishers as well. Another is that I get to sit in on classes by some amazing folks, which enriches my writing.
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UPDATE: This went so well and everyone was so grateful that I went ahead and extended the sale through the end of the year. There are new links below to coupons that should let you access the classes at the $5 price. Let me know if there are any issues!
We are wrapping up the end of the year with a special promotion for THREE DAYS ONLY, December 24-26, by offering all Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers on-demand classes, including the ones from Ann Leckie, Rachel Swirsky, and Juliette Wade, for $5 or less.
Yep, that’s right. For less than $50Â you can, in fact, buy access to every class we currently offer. Did I mention it’s only through midnight of the 26th, aka three days (well, a little more since this is going out Sunday evening) only?
This is a let’s-close-out-2018-with-a-bang promotion and won’t be repeated again until next December (if we do). Here insert me talking in a Thunderdome announcer’s voice and repeating that vital phrase, THREE DAYS ONLY.
Seriously, though. If you want to pick up one (or many) of the classes, now’s the time, and you have lifetime (well, Teachable’s lifetime, which may or may not match mine or yours) access. And pass this offer along to as many people as you like, particularly your writing groups and friends. The more the merrier.
Want a live class? There’s still a few slots open in Stories That Change Our World as well as all the other live January classes, including opportunities with Seanan McGuire, Rachel Swirsky, and Fran Wilde.
And look for plenty of new Rambo Academy material there in the coming year, including on-demand versions of the Flash Fiction workshop, Punk U: How to Write -punk Fiction, Rachel Swirsky’s Speculative Poetry class, James Sutter’s High-Speed Worldbuilding, a class from Diane Morrison on time management and writing in odd moments “” and more.
Character Building Workshop for $5
Description and Delivering Information for Genre Writers for $5
Hex Engines & Spell-Slingers: Write Steampunk/Weird Western for $5
Literary Techniques for Genre Writers for $5
Moving from Idea to Finished Draft for $5
Old Stories Into New with Rachel Swirsky for $5
The Power of Words with Juliette Wade for $5
Reading to an Audience Workshop for $3
Rewriting, Revising, and Fine-Tuning Your Fiction for $5
To Space Opera and Beyond with Ann Leckie for $5
I’m continuing to update the listing of awards posts from F&SF publishing people every few days. Let me know if yours should be on there.I talked about the process behind the development of one of my favorite stories, “Rappacini’s Crow.”
I tried to consolidate a lot of useful resources for F&SF writers into this page, and am working on one for online writing workshops next. Suggestions for items to include on either page are welcome.
J.D. Moyer on Writer’s Workshops with Kim Stanley Robinson
Bitterballen ““Â Carleton Chinner Presents The Tastiest Snack You’ve Never Heard Of
Jennifer Lee Rossman talks about her new novel, Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freakshow
Edward M. Erdelac talks about his novel The Knight With Two Swords and The Women of Arthurian LoreÂ
Interested in doing a guest blog post? The guidelines are newly updated to include more possibilities.
This month I featured a charity for holiday giving each day on my Patreon page. You can find them all here, regardless of whether or not you’re a Patreon supporter. Other things supporters got included a Q&A with Taco, photos of the current craft project, recipes, writing tips and resources, market news, snippets, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord server. Check out the Patreon page to find out how you can join our community!
The December giveaway is a novel critique by Cat. Mail me at cat AT kittywumpus.net by midnight December 31 with the subject line “December 2018 Giveaway.”
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One of my projects this year has been fleshing out the on-demand version of the live class I teach, “Hex Engines & Spell-Slingers: Writing Steampunk and Weird Western.” I recently finished up the project and wanted to share some of the results.
Here’s the sections and the suggested reading lists.
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A student wrote in to let me know they’d made it into Odyssey, huzzah, and asked if I had any advice about attending a workshop. As a matter of fact I do. Like many things in life, you get more out of a workshop if you’re willing to invest a little effort beforehand, during, and afterward.
I went through a number of workshops in college at both the undergraduate and graduate level, but the place where I learned the most was Clarion West, a six week workshop in Seattle. My instructors were Octavia Butler, Andy Duncan, L. Timmel Duchamp, Connie Willis, Gordon van Gelder, and Michael Swanwick; my classmates included Ann Leckie, E.C.Myers, Rashida Smith, and Rachel Swirsky, among others. If you read a lot of F&SF, you may recognize many of those names and realize how incredibly privileged I was to be part of that year.
How I Prepared
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Cussin’ in Secondary Worlds
Saturday, June 10, 9:30-11:30 AM Pacific Time
Cursewords, expletives, and more – those things your characters say when nothing else will do – tells you more about the world (including issues of class, cultural taboos, and more) than you might imagine. How cussing and worldbuilding interrelate. AKA the class where we say F*ck a lot.
Join Norton Award winning author Fran Wilde, author of Updraft, Cloudbound, and The Jewel and Her Lapidary for a workshop that will leave you ready to swear magnificently.
Classes are taught online via Google hangouts and require reliable Internet connection, although in the past participants have logged on from coffee shops, cafes, and even an airplane; a webcam is suggested but not required.
To register for this class, mail me with the following details:
Upon receiving that, I will send you an invoice.
Important! Remember every class has at least one Plunkett scholarship for students who could not otherwise afford the cost. To apply for a Plunkett, mail me and tell me why you want to take the class in 100 words or less.
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Dear Cat Rambo,
Thank you so much for your donation to my classroom. Having copies of Persepolis: The Story Of A Childhood has had a dramatic impact on my students as they finish their eighth grade year.
When the students received copies of a book that they were actually interested in, they felt like they were the ones in charge of their learning experience. The decision to design a unit around Persepolis was student driven. Earlier this year I noticed that students were coming to class regularly asking questions about the Middle East and Islam. In student interest surveys, the class overwhelmingly expressed a desire to learn more about these topics. So when students got copies of Persepolis, they felt as if their voices were being heard. When I started the unit, I noticed a big increase in student engagement. “I felt lucky!” Eighth grader De’jean Williams said when the class received the books. “Adults hardly ever listen to us- it’s nice when they finally do.”
The Persepolis books have provided students with a window into life in the Middle East. Students are beginning to understand the complexity of the forces shaping the region. They are deeply engaging with questions about the role of government, culture and religion influencing a society. Middle school is the time when students are first beginning to shape their world-view. Reading Persepolis is helping students in this process. As the United States gets more and more involved in the region, I am so glad that my students understanding of the region is growing.
Thanks again for your generous donation! You are truly making a difference in the lives of young people!!
With gratitude,
Ms. Founds
Want to see students reading diverse, interesting, informative reading that features protagonists like them? Find programs doing just that and help them.
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Something I’m trying to do this year is pay things forward as much as possible. Recent technological upgrades means I can now fit more than 8-9 people in a class (can now handle up to twice that many, which is more suited to some classes than others), so I figured one way to do that is to make more class slots available to people who couldn’t otherwise afford the class.
So, each class now has three Plunkett scholarship slots, the third of which is specifically reserved for QUILTBAG and POC applicants. Everyone is encouraged to apply, but I want to make sure it’s getting to a diverse range. The only qualification for a Plunkett is this: you would not be able to afford the class otherwise. Just mail me with the name/date of the class and 1-3 sentences about why you want to take it.
I have had several classes lately with no Plunkett apps, so I want to stress this: please take advantage of them if you’re a writer working on your craft. You will be helping me by ensuring that I have interested people to teach to.
That said, here’s upcoming classes if you want to look them over:
Classes Offered April-June 2017
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…only to be proven wrong, of course. A week or so ago at the Surrey International Writers Conference I was absolutely delighted when an audience member hit me with a new one that I hadn’t considered at all.
When I teach the class, which focuses on how to take an idea and use it to finish a story, I talk a little bit about story structure and writing process, but most of the class relies on asking participants what the idea is that they’re working with. This time, a woman said, “My idea is a twinned story” and explained that she wanted to write two stories in parallel.
You might argue that it’s a particular manifestation of a frame story, which is something covered in the Devices section of the class, but she wanted it to be more than that: her story was about a couple discovering letters in their attic that tell the story of another couple’s marriage. So let’s look at this according to the structure I use in Moving from Idea to Finished Draft, looking at what it is, what it gives you, what considerations you should take into account while writing, possible pitfalls, next steps, and a few exercises designed to increase understanding of the idea.
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(after a little banter about muffins) I would ask you all if you’re having a good time but I know that you are. Because I’ve been so impressed by the enthusiasm, the professionalism, and the talent here, and amazed at how well the presenters are taken care of by the conference. Thank you for the chance to be here.
I figure you are all already stuffed full of writing advice, so I wanted to give you some things for after the conference.
First off, go home and sleep. Decompress. You’ve been working hard all weekend and you deserve it.
Then start to work. If you’re a notetaker, go back over your notes. I still go over mine from Clarion West in 2005 every once in a while. If you’re not, go look to see what other people have written up. I guarantee you’ll find some blog write-ups and other notes. Go find what you might have missed.
And use those notes and ideas to start to write. I try to write, every day, 2000 words, because that’s what Stephen King does and I think he’s a pretty good role model. Note that I say try, because I don’t always hit it. But you must write. Every day you write is a victory.
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It lets you post pictures, often with some sort of caption, and see what other people are posting. Unlike Facebook, it doesn’t play fast and loose with what you see, but gives you a stream composed of everyone you’re following.
Instagram features a number of filters as well as some basic editing tools that can be applied to uploaded photos. You can add extra filters with the 100 Cameras in 1 app or if you would like to edit the image extensively, try Pixlr-o-matic (http://pixlr.com/).
What do I post overall? Here’s a breakdown of the last 100 Instagram photos on my stream. Only five categories (event, books, and writing process photos) might be considered promotional; you’ll note those pictures occur roughly one in five times; even there, none of them directly sell a book, just mention it, and many are focused on other people and/or their work.
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Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(science fiction, story) This was the biggest suit she’d ever crawled into. It meant money, money dripping through the wires around her, money in the gleaming metal struts, money being made by every step it took, money her family needed, every step a week’s rent and food if they were careful with it.
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