The 2008 Arkansas SCBWI Fall retreat focuses on a Writer’s Toolkit, with sessions on nonfiction, fiction and marketing.

When: September 19-21, 2008
Where: Mt. Magazine State Park, Arkansas

Meet Michelle Andelman, Literary Agent

Michelle Andelman, the east coast representative for the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, will be presenting sessions on the marketplace. Participants will have an opportunity to send in material before the conference for Andelman’s review. At the conference, she will meet privately with the authors to discuss where their work might fall in the marketplace.

Meet Carla McClafferty, Award-winning Nonfiction Writer

Something Out of Nothing, Marie Curie and Radium won the Intermediate Nonfiction Award from the International Reading Association and was an Honor Orbis Pictus Award winner. McClafferty will take participants from dry facts to juicy stories.

Meet Darcy Pattison

I will be providing sessions on Voice and Writing Scenes.

For more information, see the Arkansas SCBWI website or download the pdf brochure.

Space is limited — register early!

Life has been interesting this week!

I was in Nebraska teaching a Novel Revision retreat when the tornadoes hit Little Rock last week. Fortunately, no one I knew had major housing problems. Just lots of trees down. And the switch near our office blew; which blew modems in nearly every computer; even today, four days later, we are still struggling to get everything back up to speed.

The retreat was fabulous! Thanks to Nancy, Elaine and every one who attended–great fun!

Other life issues going on at the same time, with family and projects and taxes due next week!

But–I’m back and should be almot back to normal by tomorrow.

Online Class

Since I missed you in Nebraska this week at the Novel Revision retreat, I wanted to remind you that you can take the same retreat online now!

For eight years, I’ve taught the Novel Revision retreat across the nation. It was a hard decision to bring the course online because I wanted to make sure it had the same effectiveness. I found a software that I think will substitute for some of the face-to-face aspects of the retreat; for those who simply can’t travel to a retreat site, this is a great alternative.

ONLINE COURSE V. WEEKEND RETREAT

In contrast to the weekend retreat format, the online class offers these advantages:

• Working at your own pace
• more time to complete activities
• more time to think about activities
• Online forum
• more time to discuss concepts with Darcy and your group members
• Collaborative group project for each novel
• hard copy of critiques of your group members to help you target your revision efforts
• No travel required–Anyone, anywhere can take this course
• You just need internet access for the eight weeks of the course
• Easy to fit into your own schedule or circadian rhythms

What stays the same as the weekend retreat format:

Same workbook; same detailed, innovative activities.
Same group work. You work in groups of four, so you have three others who have read your entire manuscript and can comment on it in detail
Same goal: You will have a detailed revision plan for YOUR novel.

Read more about the Novel Revision Online Workshop.

If you know someone who would benefit from the retreat, please send them this posting throught the email link provided.

Schools, conferences, professional development for teachers–I have a little bit of everything planned for this year.

• March 17 Pine Ridge Elementary, Maumelle, AR
• April 1 Cathedral School, Little Rock, AR
• April 4-6 Act 2 of Novel Retreat in 3 Acts, Nebraska
• April 11-12 Arkansas Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators, Conway, AR
  http://members.aol.com/ddpattison/scbwi/spring.html
• April 21 Arkansas Association of Instructional Media, Little Rock, AR
• June 5 Delta Institute, Pine Bluff, AR
• June 6 Arkansas Writer’s Conference, Little Rock, AR
• June 16-17 Western Arkansas Education Service Cooperative, Branch, AR
• September 19-21 Arkansas SCBWI Fall Retreat, Mt. Magazine State Park, AR
• October 24-26 Act 3 of Novel Retreat in 3 Acts, Nebraska. Contact nlsharpwriter@yahoo.com to ask if any spaces remain in the retreat
• November 7-9 Western Washington SCBWI Retreat. Voice and Scenes. Contact joliestekly@msn.com

FSG and National Geographic editors to speak

Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference, April 11-12

If you’re anywhere close, you won’t want to miss the Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference.

Editors include Lisa Graff of FSG and Jennifer Emmett of National Geographic.

Here’s a current schedule of my speaking. It may change at any time, because I’m in discussion with a couple people about other events.

• February 4 Ft. Smith Public Library, Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Children’s program.
• February 5 Mountain Home Public Library, Mountain Home, Arkansas. Children’s Program with book signing and Adult Writer’s Workshop.
• Feb 9-10 Attend the NYC SCBWI conference.
• March 10 Holcomb Elementary, Fayetteville, AR
• March 17 Maumelle Elementary, Maumelle, AR
• March 20 The Cathedral School, Little Rock, AR
• April 4-6 Novel Retreat in 3 Acts, Nebraska. Contact nlsharpwriter@yahoo.com to ask if any spaces remain in the retreat.
• April 11-12 Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference, Conway, AR
• June 6 Arkansas Writer’s Conference, Little Rock, AR. Contact hmaustin@comcast.net
• July 23-24 Western Arkansas Education Service Cooperative. Professional development.
• September 19-21 Arkansas SCBWI Fall Retreat, Mt. Magazine State Park, AR
• October 24-26 Act 3 of Novel Retreat in 3 Acts, Nebraska. Contact nlsharpwriter@yahoo.com to ask if any spaces remain in the retreat.
• November 7-9 Western Washington SCBWI Retreat. Voice and Scenes. Contact joliestekly@msn.com

I’m always happy to consider speaking at a retreats, conferences, professional development classes, school visits, etc. If you want to host a Novel Revision Retreat in your area, email for more information: darcy at darcypattison.com

I’m working on a revision right now and after several false starts, I created a voice that I really like. It’s heavily dependent on a narrator and is pretty informal. It’s worked well for most of Act I.

But as I enter Act II, I’m finding it hard to judge whether I strayed from the voice or not. Part of the problem is that I’m trying to use what I can from the previous draft and not TOTALLY rewrite. Not sure that strategy is best. I may be losing the voice.

I’ll have to stop this morning and read aloud the first couple chapters and then the last one I did and either rewrite totally, or tweak. Here’s hoping that tweaking works!

I did some Grammatik analysis and the last chapter seems to be slightly more complicated, with reading level going from 3.6 to 5.3. Overall the story (so far) hits a 4.1 reading level. It’s not helpful in revising, but it does confirm the red flag that I need to pay attention here.

How do you make sure that the voice stays consistent over the course of a novel? Any strategies, ideas, tools besides reading aloud?

Wow! What a trip to Seattle!

I got to meet Mitsy, the Dragon who guards the entrance to the Mirrorstone Books office. And of course, I also met with Nina Hess, the Senior Editor Extraordinaire.

Then, I almost got swept off my feet with the windstorm that hit the city, sending fall leaves blowing. I had a great evening that included supper with author Susi Fowler from Juneau at the McCormick & Schmick seafood restaurant, along with a visit to the Seattle Art Museum.

Friday morning, before our hosts picked us up, I had breakfast with the fabulous Denise Fleming–what a woman! Her energy and passion for her art challenged me all weekend, as she taught the picturebook retreat that was parallel to my retreat. BTW, it hailed that morning.

Finally, I got to meet Jolie Steckly and Sara Easterly, Co-Regional Advisors for the Western Washington SCBWI, who set up this Novel Revision Retreat, and illustrator Jaime Temairik.

We drove up in the mountains to the Mt. River Lodge in Easton, WA, where it snowed on us! It was the earliest snowfall they’ve known, beating the record of October 31.

I finally met Meg Lippert, the efficeint retreat director, who had put all this together. And then, there were the writers. Twenty-four fantastic writers had worked hard to complete the homework assigned, including reading three other works-in-progress novels from their group members. We laughed, ate chocolate, talked, watched the Pirates of the Carribean movie, ate chocolate, and talked children’s literature and novel revision all weekend. Great people, great fun.

Rain, wind, hail, snow. Art, words, encouragement, inspiration. Thanks Washington for a great retreat!

Fall Schedule

• October 19-21 Novel Revision Retreat, Washington SCBWI, outside Seattle, WA at a retreat center.
• October 22 Arkansas Governor’s Arts Awards Luncheon. Rogers, AR. I will be the 2007 recipient of the Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for my work in children’s literature.
• November 2-3 Self-Editing Workshop, Hawaii SCBWI, Honolulu, HI
• November 15 IRA SW Regional Conference, Little Rock, AR.

Obviously, I’ll be traveling! I’ll post if I can from WA, but will take a break from blogging on November 1-11. Look for more postings on November 12. The best way to not miss anything is to sign up for my RSS feed. That way, your RSS reader will let you know when I’m back.

If you’re interested in hosting a Novel Revision Retreat in your area, please email me at darcy at darcypattison dot com. More information is available here.

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The Arkansas SCBWI will hold its fall retreat, Voice: The Writer as Ventriloquist on September28-30, 2007 at Mt. Magazine State Park. Speakers are author Kathi Appelt and Candlewick editor Hilary Breed Van Dusen. We’ve just had a cancellation, so there’s an open spot. If you’re anywhere close to Arkansas and want to join us, you can find full information here.

I hope YOU can make it!