Wulf Moon's SUPER SECRETS Workshop & Challenge!

Just wanted to say how much I loved @wulfmoon's Kill Your Darlings Master workshop at Fyrecon. My brain was completely fried at the end of it but I am already putting the skills you taught into practice.

If anyone here struggles with conciseness or is overly wordy like me, I highly recommend taking this class.

Thank you for passing on your wisdom and skills and always being so supportive!

I love Fyrecon and was excited to finally meet many of you online. I am looking forward to the day when I emerge from my Hobbit Hole to meet people in person.

I took two workshops "Nail You Openings and Hammer Your Ending" and "The Secrets of a Howling Good Plot"

I enjoyed both of them and I am revamping my Q1 Entry to take into account some of the tricks I learned. I recommend these course to any of us pantsters that like to drive around the story, because they provide the map we need to get there.

Would words written in blood on the wall of a cave be a form of alien petroglyphs?  Are werewolves actually alien entities here to sample earthly cuisine? The inquiring mind wants to know.

Posted by: @storysinger

Are werewolves actually alien entities here to sample earthly cuisine?

You make it sound like werewolves are real...

Posted by: @scribblesatdusk

You make it sound like werewolves are real...

Are they not? *side eye at the one I invited in for breakfast* 🤣 

Posted by: @craydimensional

I love Fyrecon and was excited to finally meet many of you online. I am looking forward to the day when I emerge from my Hobbit Hole to meet people in person.

I took two workshops "Nail You Openings and Hammer Your Ending" and "The Secrets of a Howling Good Plot"

I enjoyed both of them and I am revamping my Q1 Entry to take into account some of the tricks I learned. I recommend these course to any of us pantsters that like to drive around the story, because they provide the map we need to get there.

 

Glad they helped, Cray! Lovely to work with you, and thank you for your support! May the knowledge help you level up and help you craft your winner! Cheers!

Posted by: @nvhaskell

Just wanted to say how much I loved @wulfmoon's Kill Your Darlings Master workshop at Fyrecon. My brain was completely fried at the end of it but I am already putting the skills you taught into practice.

If anyone here struggles with conciseness or is overly wordy like me, I highly recommend taking this class.

Thank you for passing on your wisdom and skills and always being so supportive!

My pleasure, NVHaskell! It's wonderful to have finally met at last, and to fry your brain in the process!  

You can see why that workshop takes five hours. Learning the right way to do the phases of the KYD exercise is the only way you'll truly benefit from it. It was interesting to see one participant not get the purpose of KYD until the very last phase. LIGHT BULB. And that's the benefit of live instruction. You could see the scales fall from his eyes. So cool! 

Keep up the great work! Thank you for your support of the Super Secrets Workshops! See you soon at Superstars! Don't forget to join the Wulf Pack Club by emailing me! We have a hopping KYD post and crit area to test your results! You'll also get my sample worksheets.

Cheers!

We’re about to hit 750,000 views on the Super Secrets of Writing! Thank you to all that have read the posts, and to all the participants in the annual workshops. The results have truly been miraculous! Smart practice works! Well done!

Beastmaster Moon

@wulfmoon 750,010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Thank you again for all you do to to uplift and help the writing community!

A great achievement, Moon!

@wulfmoon It is always brilliant to see your contribution to the greater SFF community find its audience. You are such an encouraging and engaging teacher. This is wonderful! An astounding achievement! Congratulations! Well earned!

Posted by: @wulfmoon

Posted by: @ajzach

I would be open to helping someone from this year's workshop.

I still feel like I have a lot to learn, but I don't think that's ever going to change!

Wonderful! I’ve edited @danuta (Danuta Raine’s) work, and yours of course, and I believe you two would be compatible if she’s willing. Drop her a PM and let’s lift one another up through mentoring! Thanks for extending a hand, AJZach! We are all learning, btw, for the rest of our lives. But each of us have unique gifts that can be used to edify others.

You are a superhero! Congrats again on your first pro-rate sale to the anthology Things With Feathers: Stories of Hope. I look forward to reading it after Fyrecon ends! 

Cheers!

Beastmaster Moon

I am so sorry not to have responded sooner. I am still getting used to the site and hadn't noticed the PM. Of course I would love buddy up with AJZach. We can definitely make something work. 

@wulfmoon this is awesome!

Loved Fyrecon and Martin's talk on teaching inspired me. I think I want to have a go at teaching next year. (Takes a deep breath.) There. It's on the page and I can't take it back. Shudders.

Posted by: @jason

@wulfmoon 750,010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Thank you again for all you do to to uplift and help the writing community!

 

Thank you, Jason, and to all of you at Author Services, for your support of my work. Jason, you do so much behind the scenes that few hear about. You are an unsung hero, but I have always been grateful for what you—and your lovely wife Sarah do—to make the winners’ week run smoothly, from building the stage to setting up the look for the workshops to processing the thousands of photos taken, to helping winners keep up with the signings, to packing the awards and promo materials correctly in those suitcases, to take down and packing everything up and moving it out. You guys are always smiling, always positive and friendly, even when I see you lugging everything back to ASI. Thank you.

I don’t think people realize you troubleshoot everything as ASI’s tech guy, including all the glitches that occurred this year with transition of the Forum from the old to the new. I owe you special thanks for spending so much of your time reconnecting all of the Super Secrets hyperlinks that got lost in the transition. When I thanked you for doing that work, which was HUGE, you told me it was your pleasure, that the Super Secrets were an important resource in the Forum, and that it was obvious that they’ve helped many writers advance in their writing skills. Thank you for the kind recognition, and for the daily help in monitoring the Forum to keep it safe and upbuilding to create a safe haven for aspiring writers to gather in. You are greatly appreciated, and we all owe you many rounds of applause. Cheers!

Over 750,000 views! Wow! How far we’ve come in three years with this project. My thanks to all of you for your support, and for those within the workshop and without that have applied the principles and seen such marvelous results. You have proven that smart practice yields wonderful rewards. May all of you continue to grow on your writer journeys.

I founded the Super Secrets on one basic premise. It is summed up in a saying by Pablo Picasso, and I quote it to you now: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Warmth and sunshine,

Wulf Moon

FREE! The gift of an ebook to all my friends, one day only! This pro-pay anthology holds my Writers of the Future 24-hour story “Sophie’s Parisian Stationery and Parfumerie Magnifique.” I created it in 24-hours as part of the famous writing exercise at the Writers of the Future Workshop. Tim Powers pulls items from a hat to serve as your prompt--mine was a blank, unruled 3x5 index card! Then Tim led us to a library to do research. As I walked back to our hotel along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the story gelled. Sentient Hollywood buildings for the win! Sold first time out!

Tangent review: "[A] serious story about loneliness.” “[C]reated in twenty-four hours as part of a writing exercise. The fact that a fully professional story was the result is impressive..." Get yours TODAY before the offer expires tomorrow! And don't miss Super Secrets Workshop member Emily Dauvin's story in here as well. Her first sale, and in a pro-pay anthology! Cheers! https://bit.ly/MoonFeather

Posted by: @wulfmoon

you do so much behind the scenes that few hear about

You've always been super quick to respond and help with any concerns I may have had in regards to the forum. Can't ask any more than that!

Thanks, Jason.   

Hey, Super Secrets challenge beasties! I just saw that my 24-hour WotF workshop story in the Things With Feathers anthology is still free as of this morning! If you’d like to see how I tackled being handed a blank 3x5 index card by Tim Powers and was told to write a story on it, here’s your chance to get the ebook for nada! You may be doing this exercise yourself one day, and there’s some tricks in this story on how I tackled the challenge that might help you.

But you better hurry. This free offer was only for 24 hours. It will likely go down later today. Cheers!

  https://bit.ly/MoonFeather

I hope you enjoyed your time off and had good times with friends and family. And now it’s back to writing! Don’t forget, if you registered for this year’s Super Secrets Challenge, you must meet the requirements to stay in. Our Keeper of Records has his bloody quill raised, poised to ask if your blood oaths have held true. Stay the course, and keep writing fresh stories!

Your Monday prompt is: 

Have at it!

Beastmaster Moon

@wulfmoon 

Oooh, a visual prompt! I like this one!

(reminds me of I don't know how many games)

As to oaths and blood, here are my requirements for Nov:

- I wrote one new novel chapter (approx. 3350w)

- Did a KYD based on 'alien petroglyphs' prompt

- I haven't subbed to WOtF yet. Still polishing my Q1, but I'll definitely send it in next month.

- I've already met the 'send to respectable markets' part. I subbed another x3 stories this month, I believe.

It was actually pretty tight finishing these for this quarter, I must confess. Work crazy busy. It feels nice to say that I still got there!

Forgive an interloper, but I felt like this was the best place to put this. Super Secret 0, a properly formatted submission...it seems simple enough. Go to Shunn's and follow the example. I've been doing it for years. Or so I thought. Now I'm not so sure.

See, I saw some submission guidelines that asked for a properly formatted text. The guide even linked Shunn's formatting guide. But then they added one more thing. They asked that the writer not indent their paragraphs using Tab. They wanted indented paragraphs, but done in some other way than the Tab key. I went to Shunn's just to see if I had missed that key detail years ago or if there had been some update. Nope, nada, zilchorino.

A friend of mine who has edited anthologies was kind enough to explain this a but further. He even shared with me some videos on how to do it in Word. I said it all seemed like a bunch of brown M&Ms, but he said it would affect formatting to a small degree for the publisher. So, I'll pick out the brown M&Ms before I submit. But is not using Tab the norm? If we're not supposed to use the Tab key, can we replace it with an Em dash?

I'll leave you fine folks alone now. Sorry if this isn't the proper place for the inquiry. Write on, write on, write on.

@babooher  Don't use the Tab key, Babooher. Under Paragraph, Indentation, set Special to First Line, set your Indents there to .5 inch. And do not add extra spacing between paragraphs. 

Posted by: @wulfmoon

I hope you enjoyed your time off and had good times with friends and family. And now it’s back to writing! Don’t forget, if you registered for this year’s Super Secrets Challenge, you must meet the requirements to stay in. Our Keeper of Records has his bloody quill raised, poised to ask if your blood oaths have held true. Stay the course, and keep writing fresh stories!

Your Monday prompt is: 

Have at it!

Beastmaster Moon

This is a beautiful prompt. My commitment for November:

1. KYD -- Cursed Moon Rising prompt and Alien Petroglyphs prompt

2. Finished NaNoWriMo--included full outline of novel and about a fifteen chapters (Logged c. 50900 words for the month)

3. Working on my entry for WotF.

4. No subs to markets yet, but will do three in December. I have a couple of stories coming along, and so should have the WotF entry and three subs to reputable markets ready on time. Will be a slog, but am keen to see it done.

5. Got to have an excellent conversation with the lovely @ajzach.

I am going on family holiday until 7th. Definitely need the break. 😀

For November I completed 2 KYDs and finished a 3400 word story. I also submitted a piece to DreamForge. I outlined another story and will start writing on it in December. 

For November:

1. I wrote a fresh 7000 word story (planned for WoTF Q1 entry)
2. Did one KYD (City turned to Ashes prompt)
3. Subbed various stories and flash pieces to about 10-15 (lost count) pro-paying markets

I also had to edit 4 stories from previous months, attend FyreCon, study The Emotional Craft of Fiction etc etc.  

November: A KYD (alien petroglyphs), 4-5 submissions to pro-markets, a 3k story draft and started editing an old story for Q1!

For November:

• I submitted my Q3 story to Dreamforge after an edit job. (still have 2 to go.. so thinking this will happen in December).
• I did a KYD over the prompt: City turned to ash.
• I wrote a short story of ~3,000 words. Not my best, but it is a story.
• I incorporated comments on a chapter 1 of a book 2.
• I plan to submit a Q1 story by December 31. Not sure what the story will be, but I have a month to figure it out.
• I went to fyrecon (thanks to the magic of Zoom) and attended Moon's nail beginning/ hammer endings workshop.
• I've been keeping up with my 318R assignments (for the most part).

Side note. I'm glad November is coming to an end. It's been a lot of "no" and not much "vember". Looking forward to having more writing time in December.

@physa 

Agreed, Amy.

Looking forward to more 'vember in December. 

I too did what needed doing (my KYD was on the state mind bleach prompt). Question: we only need to submit to a non-wotf every quarter. Is that every 3 months?