Announcing the Third Creative Wrtiing Workshop in Kota Kinabalu!

        As promised by the organizers at the second workshop in Kota Kinabalu in August '11:

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP 3

with ROBERT RAYMER

 www.borneoexpatwriter.com/

When:  Sat, 22 October	Time:  2.00-6.00pm	Cost:  RM120
Who:  16-90+ years old	Where:  7th Floor, Wisma Anglican, Karamunsing
Next:  Email or sms your name, contact phone number & email address to.................

Contact:         Jude Day – 014-3514298 / jude.day@gmail.com

                       

edit- improve - edit - improve - edit –IMprove

IMPORTANT DATES:

8 October – send a piece of your writing to jude.day@gmail.com for Robert

22 October – discussion of samples of writing:  what has been done well and how the piece can be improved. 

*You can come to the workshop even if you haven’t sent in a piece of writing!

Guidelines – for submitting your work: ·         A-4 paper ·         2-5 pages ·         Double spacing ·         1.25-1.5 margins on all sides ·         Times Roman 12 ·         Left justification only ·         Page numbers ·         Title and your name on each page ·         Centre the title and add your byline.  For example:  by Robert Raymer

Advice from Robert       Don’t give up       Trust your instincts       Write 3 or 4 drafts before submitting your writing       Proof your work before submitting it       Enjoy the process! Organised by the KK Theatre Group, SPArKS  www.sparks.org.my

NOTE:  You can attend this workshop – even if you missed the others!

*Here is the full writing guidelines and our reasons for allowing those who had missed the other two workshops to participate.

WRITING GUIDELINES FOR KK WORKSHOP

by

Robert Raymer

As was mentioned at the second workshop, choose one sample of your work only, either your first-person narrative from the workshop, or your “they found me” story (see Tina's sample), or if you wrote something else since the August workshop, or finished something that you started at the first workshop in April! The choice is yours.  Those who missed both workshops but are still keen to join and learn, then send in your best work.  If you still want to attend but opt not to submit your work and have it discussed (this is fine; it’s a personal decision), you can still learn from the process, from the mistakes or over­sights of others or from what they’re doing well.  I would recommend getting started on this right away so you’ll have adequate time to go through it and revise it without rushing to get it done at the last moment—remember school?

Please use A-4 (white) paper, 2-5 pages, double-line spacing, with 1.25-1.5 margins on both sides (and top and bottom) to allow plenty of room for corrections and comments.  Use Times Roman 12.  (No fancy fonts, which are hard to read and one side of the paper only!)  Either American or British spelling is acceptable—just be consistent.  And learn how to punctuate: one space after a comma, two spaces after a full stop (and only one exclamation mark no matter how exciting your point!).  Do not use full justification, which spreads out text unnaturally; use left justification only.  (These are standard guidelines for submissions to editors and for entering contests.)   Use page numbers and put your name/title on each page.  Center the title and add your byline (see above).  My Story, or My Narrative or They Found Me, by the way, are not titles; they're subjects!

Trust your instincts while you write and don’t give up so easily!  Ideally you should write three or four drafts before submitting it (I often print it out a couple of times to edit it again); each time you go over it, your writing will improve (and you’ll catch more typos and mistakes!).  Writing is a process, a skill you can use for the rest of your life.

Also proof your work, especially if someone else typed it for you.  Why be penal­ized for their careless mistakes?  Even if you already write well, take the time and effort to improve your writing by taking it to a higher level.  Apply the 12 Rules to Improve Your Writing Style handout that I passed out (there are plenty of other writing tips on the Internet or in bookstores).  Enjoy the process of writing and take what you write seriously (but not too seriously!); if you don’t, why should anyone else care?

Please sent this to me two weeks before the workshop (via Jude) so I’ll have adequate time to go through them all.  (Afterwards, do not send revised pages/copies, new versions or new stories because that will just make the process messy and troublesome for all.  Nor do I want to waste an hour going through the wrong version or the wrong story!)  So only send it when it is ready.  For this round, I will not be doing a full edit, just making general comments for the workshop (concentrating on the first two pages where narratives/stories often go wrong); still this is time consuming and often requires me to re-read your manuscript a couple of times and think about ways it can be improved!  Also bring an extra copy to the workshop for you to make comments on!  And extra paper for notes and reminders and ideas while we’re discussing the other work.  Since it’s far easier to spot mistakes in other people’s work than your own (even when you’re making similar mistakes), please offer your gut-level constructive suggestions.  Others will appreciate it.  You can also learn from these comments and then apply them to your own story.

After the next workshop, after you have had time to make any suggested changes, then I will be willing to do a full line edit with comments at a reasonable rate (based on double-space pages) for this and for any future work.  I have done this for years with students and even published authors.  This is also what I did when I first began to write—hired someone to help edit my work; we all have our blind sides when it comes to our own writing.  Again, this is optional, but highly recommended for those who really want to improve their writing.

Looking forward to reading your work and seeing you again in KK for our next workshop.

* Here's the link to the third workshop.

**Here's the link to the first workshop in KK

***If you know of other organizations or associations in Sabah/Sarawak/West Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei that would be interested in having me for workshop, please contact me.   Thank you!


******Announcement latest workshops:  Writing Your Life Stories Workshop—Kuching! 23 June 2012 (with links to other workshops and writing tips!) and also a workshop in KK on 17 June 2012!