Through my alma mater, McNeese State University, I will be offering my four-week Writers Boot Camp!

What is Writers Boot Camp?

Do you have an idea for a story but are unsure where to go now that you have this idea? Then you need Writers Boot Camp! From idea to outline in 28 Days – all you need is a valid e-mail address and the desire to pen YOUR story! WBC is a four-week intensive ONLINE program in which writers will work one-on-one with the instructor to develop story ideas into novel outlines, thus preparing you to finally write a first draft.

Every Monday, students will receive, via e-mail, a weekly assignment that will help them build upon their ideas, culminating into a completed story outline. On Sunday, students will e-mail their assignment to be read and critiqued by instructor and returned.

Upon completion of the class, instructor will help students develop a writing schedule to assist in completing a first draft!

Dates: March 8, 15, 22, 29

Registration Deadline: February 22

Through the school, the price for the four-week Writers Boot Camp course is only $69!

There are four (three if you’re not in Lake Charles, LA) ways to register for the course; check out this [LINK]!

Look forward to getting literary with you!

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Didn’t think it would happen.

Waited ’til the last minute to even participate and had no real idea what I would write about, but after completing NaNoWriMo the last four years, I just felt the need to do it this year. Would feel like a failure if I didn’t.

The first week was like gangbusters. Wrote a little over 21,000 words that first week. The second week, cleared 30k. The third week, I peter out a bit as school and stress weighed heavily on me. Fourth week, came back and hit that last hurdle and cleared 50k. Total, 50,043 was hit tonight.

Is the story good? Hell, it’s not even a story any more. By week three my interest in the story peter out, so I began jumping into various sections and just writing, so right now, I have a mess, and I probably won’t even go back to it. But it did get me to writing even during the stressful first semester of my doctoral work, so that at least tells me that if I’m more structured I can write something good during this time.

I’m proud of myself. Now, to finish the semester and get into a new project!

Want to hear an excerpt of NaNoWriMo project, Educating Sophia? There’s a new excerpt below! You can check out the first two excerpts at Shon Bacon @ PodBean!

Excerpt Three of Educating Sophia

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Didn’t post yesterday. Got to 13,043 words on Day 4.

Today was my long day at school. I usually get onto campus about 8 a.m., and I don’t leave campus ’til about 8, 8:30. Was lucky enough to have a class canceled and managed to get in about 1,500 words, and then just before midnight, I knocked out close to 900 words.

SO, today’s total was 2,324 words. My overall total right now is 15,367.

Hope to get to 17,500 words tomorrow.

The cool thing right now is I came up with a rather exciting (for me anyway, lol) way to develop the story, so now there is no worrying about writing in order or fingering out the whole story. Right now, I’m writing pieces as they come.

Thinking about making the story interactive, so my creativity is “webbing out” right now, and whatever it links up to in reference to this story, I’m tagging it, writing it, and syncing up to the next thread of the story.

Exciting times, I say. Exciting times.

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Well, today, I wrote about 2,100 words, and my total NaNoWriMo word count is 10,050.

Proud of self. Have written and not let it get in the way of ALL the other things I have to get done.

In the midst of writing today, I got a bit stressed; this is why I need an outline, LOL

I didn’t think I would hit the 10k, but then I had a bit of inspiration, something to add to the story…and thus the beginning was changed, too.

Instead of just showing you some words on the screen, I decided to create a podcast of me reading the first pages of my NaNoWriMo ‘09 project, Educating Sophia.

I hope you enjoy it.

Leave comments!

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Well, I jumped into whatever it is that I’m writing. Still don’t have a firm grasp of plot or anything; I’m just going where the words take me.

On day one, I wrote about 5,200 words.

This morning, I woke up and went to Starbucks, got me a white chocolate mocha and a slice of pumpkin bread and wrote before doing anything else. Got about 2,800 words in.

Sitting at 8,015 words for the first two days.

My goal for myself is to get to at least 30,000 words during NaNo because with school and all, I’m not sure I can hit the 50k. If I can cross the 15k mark by Sunday evening, I will be happy.

And proud of myself,

How are you guys doing on NaNo thus far?

Hope to put up an excerpt soon!

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Death at the Double Inkwell is my debut solo project set to be released in June 2010 by Lady Leo Publishing, but of course, you can head to LLP and PRE-ORDER NOW for 15% off the $6.99 cover price!

Here’s the book descrip:

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From now until December, every podcast of the Once Upon a Time series will showcase the first five to ten pages of a novel I’ve written.

Up FIRST is To Catch a Cheat.

Cheater Investigator Carter Devlin, co-owner of F.A.C.E. (Finding All Cheaters Enterprises) lives by two rules: 1) all cheaters must be exposed and punished, and 2) never, ever fall in love. Playing patsy to her mother’s numerous infidelities as a child helps Carter keep #1 in check. Being assigned to Cheater Number 5302, Kenneth Stevenson, a man with George Clooney looks may lead Carter to break #2.

Carter finds herself falling in heat with Kenneth despite the facts that he’s a possible cheater and his wife, a vocal client during the investigation, happens to look eerily like her. When the investigation leads Carter to believe the wife is the actual cheater, she lets her inhibitions with Kenneth go, only to learn that her best friend and F.A.C.E. co-owner Vince Clark may be in love with her. As she battles her newfound heart over Vince and Kenneth, Carter has to keep one eye on Kenneth’s wife for as the saying goes, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Head to CLG-E’s podcast site now to enjoy a taste of Carter!

CLG Entertainment Podcast Site ~ [LINK]

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A few months ago, I learned my novel, Death at the Double Inkwell, would be published in 2010 by Lady Leo Publishing.  Today, was asked to submit some material like my bio and dedications and learned that I’ll begin edits in September.

This is my solo debut project, so I am STOKED,

More to come as I get more to share!

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Stanislavski asked his actors:  Are you in love with the art in yourself or yourself in the art?  You too must examine your motives for wanting to write the way you write.  What is your vision?  Each tale you create says to the audience:  “I believe life is like this.”  Every moment must be filled with your passionate conviction or we smell a phony – Robert McKee, STORY

In my time around, within the industry, I have seen so many writers opting to “write what sells.”  They have stories they are passionate about to write, but they see everybody selling in a particular genre and aim themselves to write that book and sell it.  Some sell it…some don’t.

Thing is trends, fads come and go.  A book that’s part of a trend now, in 2009, was probably bought a year, maybe two years ago.  It was hot in 2007, and the trend could be cooling down two years later…  Once everybody and his/her mama starts writing that same type of book, the industry becomes flooded with that genre and may start to back off from buying more…  If a writer is lucky enough (because sometimes publishing isn’t about talent but luck) to get published, his/her work might be likened to SO AND SO (add the top author of a genre) and the many other writers who have not created a unique voice but have simply added yet another book that reads like all the other books in that genre…  Most readers are quite intelligent; they can sense the passion it takes to write a good book, and if your book is just another like others, they will sense it, and it might hinder you from gaining a solid readership for future works.

Being true to your “true” writer self is important.  Yes, for many of us, publication is the platinum ring (I want better than the brass ring.)  However, we should not sell ourselves for it.  When we are true to developing our craft, to researching the industry (not mimicking it but being well-informed), to writing what is truly in our writer spirit to write; the right people will take notice, and literary dreams will come true.

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Update on Saying No to the Big O — I wrote 12 pages today, so I’m up to 87 pages!  4 days – 13 pages to go to make my 100 pages for Script Frenzy.  It’s all gravy now, LOL

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To PLOT means to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the correct path.  Plot is the writer’s choice of events and their design in time – Robert McKee, STORY

I began my pursuit of an MFA in creative writing in the fall of 2001.

In the summer of 2003, I received an e-mail from my fiction professor asking me if he ever really knew who Shon Bacon was.

“Why?” I asked.

Well, he was bored and had started the game of putting students’ names into Yahoo and seeing what came up.  When he typed in ‘Shonell Bacon’ and ‘Shon Bacon,’ he realized I was a published author, an editor, an online magazine publisher, an interviewer of successful novelists, etc.

“Why didn’t I know about this?” he asked.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were published?”

I brought him back to my first semester in the program, during a Form and Theory of Fiction class in which during a discussion on genre vs. literature, he likened genre to Hallmark…and of course, literature was more substantial than that.

I was in the process of having my second “genre” novel be released and an erotic short story be published in a highly successful anthology.  Being in a program that was solely dedicated to literary fiction and having my “field” be delegated to an aisle in an Hallmark store kept me from revealing all the wonderful things I had done.

Why am I sharing this?

Well, another thing we talked about in class was plot, and in differentiating genre from literary fiction came the notion that genre is more plot-based; whereas, literary fiction focuses more on character.

At its purest, simplest way, this is true.

In a more complex way, this is totally untrue, and McKee’s quote above illustrates that.

ANY story, genre or literature, worth its merit must have some form of plot in the story.  In a recent romance novel I read and loved – Sweet Deception by Patricia Sargeant – the main characters are placed in a series of events (designed by the writer) and for the story to complete itself successfully, these characters must make decisions to propel themselves into new events that eventually lead them to their story’s conclusion (again, all of this designed by the writer).

I can pull any work of literature off my shelf right now, and it doesn’t matter if it’s written in classical form, or if it bucks form altogether, or if it minimizes the classical form; it still will have a plot.  Even a stream-of-consciousness novel like Ulysses by James Joyce has plot because plot is not a formula in which a story is written; plot is the writer’s creation of events and design to move the events to some conclusion.

Any story can become a complete and utter mess by branching off into any and every possible scenario an event can take, but because of the writer and his or her care for that story, he/she will find the best routes to take to make the story he or she wishes to tell complete.

No matter the genre…

UPDATE ON SCREENPLAY—today, I wrote 15.5 pages of Saying No to the Big O, so I’m now up to 60.5 pages.  Have EIGHT DAYS to write 40 pages.  Can I do it?  Me thinks YES.

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