Tampa Bay Area Writing Project
Teachers Teaching Teachers
The schedule for this course is ambitious. But, if you’re familiar with NaNoWriMo, you may know that programs with a break-neck pace can lead writers to great success. Here, we’re going to do more than just write a 50k first draft. The goal of WI.N.D. 2020 is to write three drafts this year.
We kick off January 26th and really want to embrace some newcomers. The stronger the community, the stronger our writing. Join us!
Email Eric at icewriters@gmail.com for more info.
W.I.N.D. (Writers In Need of Direction) is about to become a lot more than just a summer program. For the past three years, W.I.N.D. has met almost exclusively during June and July, with a few dedicated members gathering occasionally during the school year to pitch ideas and give and receive feedback. But this special year calls for a special program. W.I.N.D. 2.0. This year, we’re going to write books.
Book can mean anything: novel, memoir, short story collection, screenplay. The point is, the traditional college writing class or workshop (like W.I.N.D.) is not built for longer works. They’re designed for poetry or short stories and novelists are left sharing just pieces of their stories, if that’s even allowed. It’s no good to just get feedback on a little piece of what you’re writing, and it’s just as difficult for the rest of the writers in the group to critique an incomplete work.
But it’s time to stop putting off that novel or screenplay or collection. Every new year reminds us of possibilities and offers us a chance at new beginnings, but it can also remind us of that which we have not yet done. There’s no more time to delay. Let this be the year.
For our dedicated members or whether you’re joining us for the first time (and we hope that this does bring new blood into our writing group), this is a chance to do something extraordinary. To hold each other accountable, to support each other, and to help each other achieve our goals.
Join us, for W.I.N.D. 2020. Contact Eric at icewriters@gmail.com for more details.
Today Youth Programs Director Mr. Eric returned to talk to us about what to do with “finished” writing. We’d spent the last two weeks inspired to make new writing, sharing with our peers, getting and giving feedback, and hunkered down in the revision trenches. But what next? Apparently this is a problem for a lot of writers who learn how to write but never learn what to do next. So today we learned about publishing: editors, agents and more!
Then we took on those roles! The Older Group created their own literary agencies.
And the rest of us got our editor hats ready to help out friends in need. (No literally, we made paper hats and wrote “editor” on them so that we could wear them to indicate we were available to help our fellow writers.)
When we felt we were ready with our pieces, we walked ‘agency row’ and found someone who’s taste matched our writing.
Often times we got an R&R (that’s insider talk for “Revise and Resubmit”) and it was back to working with our editor friends, trying to make our writing the best it could be. Eventually, an agent would take our work and represent us to a publisher (one of the facilitators), but it wasn’t over yet! They had to sell the work. They had to make the facilitator want to read it.
And maybe that would result in more R&Rs but eventually, finally, at some point… success!
I.C.E. Writers is a place to learn and grow as a community. So much of that involves building trust, learning to have fun and share with each other. But today, we took that even further. Our writing is not a solitary task, but a collaborative one. We are proud of the work going into this year’s anthology because we know it’s the best. It’s not just that our writing went through peer review, but it had to be taken on by a peer willing to fight for it and a facilitator willing to spend their time submitting it to the E.AR.T.H. Publication camp.
Though at times we wore different hats, today, everyone was a writer and part of a larger, deeply interconnected writing community. And at the end of the day, everyone got a writer’s dream… an acceptance letter.
Lesson Learned: “A writer needs an editor, agent and publisher.” Aubrey
Quote of the Day: “I’ve got my fidget spinner and Mr. Eric will share memes – You have my attention till lunch.” -David, submitted by Jasmine
So what do we do with all these CYOA stories?
We’ve come to the point in camp where we need to PUBLISH! Writing Project camps always emphasize this because it’s not enough to simply write and keep one’s thoughts in a notebook. We revise for real audiences and edit to polish completed products. We must share. We must publish!
So using a web app called Squiffy on textadventures.co.uk, they started typing their stories and formatting the text links to make truly interactive stories. Final products coming soon!
Quote of the Day: “We need to get used to hearing out of our ears again.” -Sophia
Lesson Learned: We learned basic coding. Whoa.
The day began with our intrepid campers rewriting classic fairy tales in the style of a CYOA. We had Little Red Riding Hood beating the wolf to the grandmother’s house, Cinderella hiring a maid and the wolf who tormented the three little pigs becoming a vegetarian.
Then we talked about beats in screenwriting before we set out to capture specific plot moments in our CYOA stories and KEEP THE PLOT MOVING!
After lunch and a game of Munchkin, we took a stroll around the gorgeous USF campus.
Then it was a visit from Dr. Pat and Dr. Mike, TBAWP’s Directors, who came to give us feedback. But first we made a list of how we wanted to be talked to as writers and not students, how we wanted feedback.
At only $300 we are the most affordable publication experience this summer. While other programs are far away, cost more and/or meet for less time, E.A.R.T.H. has the unique experience of meeting once a week, ALL summer long for a low low price. It’s okay if you can’t make every meeting, we all go on vacations, but you will get more for your money with E.A.R.T.H.
We have a growing list of guest speakers that will include professionals in a variety of related fields from around our community. Expect to learn from and mingle with journalists, business owners, photographers, publishers, and designers.
We will actually produce a publication in just two months! That’s right, drawing on the wealth of writing produced at our I.C.E., F.I.R.E., and W.A.T.E.R. camps, attendees will craft an anthology publication unlike any other drawing on their experience with newspaper, yearbook and literary magazine.
All participants have that opportunity to go to our other camps to interview young writers, take pictures and help campers with revising and editing to earn potentially A LOT of community service.
What’s better than getting to meet new people like yourself, like-minded and passionate about publication? So many of us think of our publication staffs as a second family, and that’s definitely what’s going to happen here!
From our classic two week camps like I.C.E. and F.I.R.E. to newbies like E.A.R.T.H. and W.A.T.E.R., we’ve got all kinds of amazing programs coming this summer!
As Youth Programs Director, I couldn’t be more excited about the line-up of 9 camps (a TBAWP record) that we’re providing to the Tampa Bay Area in 2019. As a High School Writing Teacher myself, it has always been my goal (and passion) to expand our programs to better fit the High School and beyond demographic. That’s why I started W.I.N.D. (Writers In Need of Direction), which will be back for its third year this summer. And it’s why I’m pushing so hard with the help of my TBAWP colleagues to get W.A.T.E.R. and E.A.R.T.H. off the ground. (Is that a pun?)
E.A.R.T.H. (Elevating Anthologies to Reach Today’s High-standards) will be headed by
Steinbrenner High School’s yearbook advisor, Courtney Nickel. Meeting every Wednesday night this summer, we’re hoping to draw a journalist super group together. Can you imagine the best students from Newspaper, Lit Mag, and Yearbook programs around the Bay Area coming together to collaborate on a single project? We can! That’s our vision: to give publication students a chance to collaborate, not just meet and compete like they do at FSPA. With a program packed with guest speakers, the opportunity for service hours and the chance to share ideas and techniques, this could be something to take publications in our community to the next level.
We plan to take our day camps to the next level with W.A.T.E.R. (Writers And Teachers Engaged in Revision). If middle and high school students are looking for a chance to hone their writing in specific and currently popular areas, this is the place for them! Our two programs include a week on writing a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style story and a week on World Building (inspired by YA author Kelly Coon‘s workshop at last fall’s Youth Writing Conference).
TBAWP’s Youth Programs are growing and we’re excited to see what our biggest summer yet holds in store. And beyond because, you know, everyone who comes to a summer program gets into our 2nd Annual Youth Writer’s Conference for free…
