Going Back to School

by Marsha Ward @MarshaWard

It's one of those days when I don't know what to write about. I started the day with a brilliant idea for a blog post, but by the time I actually came to the blog to write it, I'd forgotten what I had in mind.

Sheesh!

It has been a crazy day. I have a list of things I must accomplish today. It started with seven entries, but now it's up to nine--ten, including one more thing I just thought of. I've only done three of them, but those were time-sensitive, so I guess that's a good start. I'm working on number four here. I have yet to renew my library books or pay my property taxes--which is a crazy story all its own about missing a deadline. Or do my school assignment, which, oh yeah, was what I was going to write about for my post!

Okay, having remembered the topic, I'll spill the beans:

I've gone back to school, sort of. I decided that I needed to learn some stuff about writing that I wasn't sure I had covered. Or mastered. So I'm taking a six-week online course called "Depth in Writing," aka "Writing with Depth," or just "Depth," for short.

It's a video course featuring Dean Wesley Smith, who is a hoot. I enjoy his style of teaching.

The course is one of many offered through WMG Publishing, which is a company out of Oregon run by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, two of my favorite writing mentors. Among Dean's non-fiction books on my shelf are Think Like a Publisher, How to Write Fiction Sales Copy, and my all-time favorite, Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel Without an Outline. I have several more of his books on my tablet as ebooks.

Kris Rusch just did a long and intense series on her popular blog about contracts, agents, publishers, and dealbreakers. That has resulted in her new book, Closing the Deal...On Your Terms: Agents, Contracts, and Other Considerations. It's currently available in Kindle. I hope it will come out in paperback soon, as well.

But back to school, so to speak. I'm a proponent of life-long learning, and have been for many years. The course I'm taking teaches how to take readers deep into the mind and life of a character. There are assignments, just like a regular class. I'd better get to this week's homework. See you in two weeks.