The Crystal Lake Academy presents The Author’s Journey! (Closed until next year)

Authors, the Crystal Lake Academy is launching this year, and the first step in that launch is our The Author’s Journey project.

Our team of editors (and the Crystal Lake Publishing founder & CEO, Joe Mynhardt) want to facilitate your writing journey for three months (from June 15th to September 15th), improving your craft and helping you get a short story or manuscript ready for submission.

This course, although not recommended to newbies, is for authors at any stage of their writing journey. We’ll pair you in groups of similarly experienced authors to guarantee growth. You can even purchase it for a friend!

When we’re done, we’ll personally consider each short story for possible publication, and we’ll offer a first-look option for those who worked on manuscripts, for possible publication by Crystal Lake Publishing.

Scroll down for more information on the course. If purchased, we’ll be in touch. Otherwise just email us at crystallakepub@gmail.com.

Description


What we offer:
Our editors aren’t there to make friends. They are here to develop writers who are serious about their craft. They’re being paid for a professional job and they will deliver critical insight and analysis of your work.
We’ll focus on areas of improvement and develop untapped skills. We’ll strengthen your foundation and build toward your career goals. We’ll offer honest, straightforward feedback in a safe environment. Critical feedback will be given.
You’ll end up with growth, improvement, encouragement, knowledge, and the skills you need to perfect your WIP and get it ready to submit. All while providing opportunities to network and work one-on-one with a publisher and an editor.
Editors will monitor all exchanges when group work is involved. We’ll help you grow a tough skin in a tough industry, and focus on what doesn’t work in your writing. What needs to improve? You can’t become better without changing something!
We’ll not only get your story or manuscript ready for submission, but improve your craft in the long run. Getting you to write better first drafts than ever before.

The Process:
Upon signing up, we’ll send you a questionnaire to determine where you’re at in your career, what your biggest perceived obstacles are, and what you’d most like to focus on over the next three months. Among other things.
Authors will then be placed in groups of 10, with every group having a dedicated editor in charge of the group. Your editor will pair you in smaller groups for certain exercises and facilitate the entire process. Weekly schedules have been set up, and everyone will take part in these predetermined exercises/lessons, sometimes working alone or together, learning from each other and your editor.
According to the feedback we receive from authors in the initial questionnaire, we’ll arrange live Zoom sessions with authors or industry professionals who’ll help all the authors/clients with the biggest topics that need to be addressed. There will also be one-on-one sessions with the publisher, where required.
Around the halfway point of this course we’ll send out another questionnaire to check if we’re on track or if any other needs have been identified.
Throughout the process you will get to meet and work with other authors, get your name in front of anthology editors, and perhaps even find an editor you feel comfortable working with. You might find the perfect beta-reader for your work going forward, and you’ll get to mingle with up-and-coming talent, especially if you can’t do it in person at conventions etc. We’ll all have fun with a brand new community and grow together.
This will all be done via email, a dedicated Facebook group (more on that later), several live Zoom sessions, and of course one-on-one sessions where needed. Even your editor will have smaller sessions with just his/her group.

Cost to you: Only $75 for the first 30 authors who sign up ($100 after that, so book now), and that’s for the entire three-month period. No strings attached. No extra payments. No up sell. All you have to do is take part and push yourself. Improvement can only be achieved through change. 😉

The Group dynamic:
Authors will be motivated to perform as a group, and we’ll even have a little friendly competition between the groups and editors. We’ll name each group, chosen by each team and preferably something from our genre or fiction in general.
Writing exercises and WIPs will be swapped from time to time, facilitated by your editor. Your editor will be CC’d into all emails to observe and comment on progress.

Our dedicated Facebook group:
In the Facebook group, all students will have the ability to post and pose questions to each other, the editors, and the publisher. We’ll all talk about our careers and goals, discuss problems facing authors today, and continue to learn in a more social environment. And hopefully make a few friends, as well. From our side, we’ll use this group to motivate and teach, as well as discuss books and trends.

At the end:
Once the three months ends, the Facebook group gets deleted, but we’ll do something special so we can always remember the Class of 2022! We’ll also choose a winning group (reward to be decided).

Our plan is to make this available every year.

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