Jumpstart Master Class 2010

Jumpstart Master Class: October 22 - 28, 2010

We are once again thrilled to bring you the highly successful JUMPSTART MASTER CLASS

, directly preceding the retreat weekend. In this exciting week, four best-selling, award-winning authors will lead beginner and intermediate workshops in all the important craft aspects of writing, which will allow you to give that first, second or third novel a real kickstart. Three workshops per day plus group manuscript critiquing in the evenings are included in this super intensive week.

2009 Jumpstart Masterclass Teachers

For bios, click here

Schedule

PLEASE NOTE: this is LAST year’s schedule. This year’s will be similar, but not identical. As soon as the teachers are finalized, the schedule for this years sessions will be posted.

Friday:
5:00pm Arrival and Check-in
6:30pm Welcome and Dinner

Saturday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
9:30 - 11:30am Introduction – How To Plot a Book – Diane Pershing
12:00 - 1:30pm Lunch
2:00 - 3:00pm Synopsis First Page Blitz – Tracy Montoya
3:30 - 4:30pm High Concept for Fiction – Alex Sokoloff
7:30pm Critiquing with Diane, Tracy, Alex and Nina

Sunday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
10:00 - 11:00am Creating 3-D, Stereotype-Free Characters – Tracy Montoya
12:00 - 1:30pm Lunch
2:00 - 3:00pm Mastering Story Structure part 1 – Alex Sokoloff
3:30 - 4:30pm Believable Romance Heroes? – Diane Pershing
7:30pm Critiquing with Diane, Tracy and Alex
-or- 7:30pm Extra help with the basics (structure, plot, POV, pacing, etc) - Nina Bruhns

Monday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
10:00 - 11:00am Mastering Story Structure part 2 – Alex Sokoloff
12:00 - 1:30pm Lunch
2:00 - 3:00pm The Art of Story Conflict – Tracy Montoya
3:30 - 4:30pm Layering the scene– Diane Pershing
7:30pm Critiquing with Diane, Tracy and Alex
-or- 7:30pm Extra help with the basics (structure, plot, POV, pacing, etc) - Nina Bruhns

Tuesday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
10:00 - 11:00am He Said/She Said: How Men and Women Talk – Tracy Montoya
12:00 - 1:30pm Lunch
2:00 - 3:00pm Mastering Story Structure part 3 – Alex Sokoloff
3:30 - 4:30pm Using Acting Techniques to Develop Characters – Diane Pershing
7:30pm Critiquing with Diane, Tracy and Alex
-or- 7:30pm Extra help with the basics (structure, plot, POV, pacing, etc) - Nina Bruhns

Wednesday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
10:00 - 11:00am Picking Up Your Pacing – Tracy Montoya
12:00 - 1:30pm Lunch
2:00 - 3:00pm Mastering Story Structure part 4 – Alex Sokoloff
3:30 - 4:30pm The Business of Writing: Contracts, etc – Diane Pershing and Nina Bruhns
7:30pm Critiquing with Diane, Tracy and Alex
-or- 7:30pm Extra help with the basics (structure, plot, POV, pacing, etc) - Nina Bruhns

Thursday:
8:00 - 9:00am Breakfast
10 am - Check-out for everyone not staying for the weekend Retreat

JOANNA WAYNE
Joanna Wayne began her professional writing career with the release of her first novel, DEEP IN THE BAYOU, in 1994. Now, forty published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and mainstream novels. She is known for the suspense and emotion she brings to the page, as she takes ordinary people and thrusts them into life-and-death situations. She has been on the Walden Bestselling List for romance and won many industry awards. She is a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.

She currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star state.
Joanna Wayne

ALEX SOKOLOFF
After graduating from UC Berkley, Alex moved to Los Angeles, where she has made an interesting living writing novel adaptations and original suspense and horror scripts for numerous Hollywood studios.

The Harrowing, her debut ghost story, was nominated for both a Bram Stoker award (horror) and an Anthony award (mystery), for Best First Novel. Her second novel of dark suspense, The Price, explores troubling questions of what people will do for love, or personal survival, in the eerie setting of a labyrinthine Boston hospital.

Her new supernatural thriller, The Unseen, centers on a team of psychology researchers who decide to replicate a long-buried poltergeist investigation, and is based on the real-life ESP experiments and poltergeist studies conducted in the Rhine parapsychology department at Duke University.
In her fourth supernatural thriller for St. Martin’s (June 2010), Book of Shadows, a Boston homicide detective teams up with a beautiful, myserious witch from Salem to solve a Satanic killing.

Alex is also currently writing a paranormal thriller for Harlequin Nocturne, part The Keepers trilogy with Heather Graham and Deborah LeBlanc, out in October, 2010.
Alex Sokoloff

SHERRY LEWIS
Sherry Lewis is an award-winning full-time writer with 30 (or so) published books under her belt. A long-time member of Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, Sherry writes traditional mystery, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and time travel romance. A frequent judge on the contest circuit and popular guest speaker, Sherry has taught writing workshops for more than 15 years. Her online workshops can be found at www.dancingoncoals.com. After a lifetime in the Rocky Mountains, Sherry recently moved to Northwest Florida where she’s been adjusting to a life around water and honing her potty training skills with the grandkids. She’s currently at work on a new mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime.
Sherry Lewis

NINA BRUHNS
Longtime organizer of the LRWA Beach Retreat events, bestselling romantic thriller writer Nina Bruhns has published over twenty novels to date, of which nearly two million copies have been sold, and been translated into a half dozen languages. Best known for her vivid settings, unique characters, and page-turning plot twists, Nina writes romantic thrillers for Berkley Publishing (Penguin/Putnam), and romantic suspense as well as paranormal romance for Silhouette Books. She also pens erotic romance for Berkley Heat under the pseudonym Nikita Black.

By profession an archaeologist with a specialty in Egyptology, Ms. Bruhns has lived all over the USA and spent six years in Sweden, as well as doing archeological field work in The Sudan, Egypt, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. She now makes her home in Charleston, SC.

Ms. Bruhns is the recipient of numerous awards for her books, including three prestigious Daphne du Maurier Awards of Excellence for Overall Best Mystery/Suspense Novel of the Year, five Dorothy Parker Awards, and a National Readers Choice Award, along with two Rita nominations, just to name a few.
Nina Bruhns

Jumpstart Master Class Fee*:

Full Board:      
$500,   LRWA: $50 discount
Includes workshops, shared room with own bed, sofa-bed or fouton (two shared king beds), breakfasts and lunches

Daytrippers:
$250,   LRWA: $50 discount
Includes workshops and lunches
email for nearby hotel recommendations

* The fine print: Deposit required. Full payment is required by July 31. Refunds will be given for written cancellations (minus a $50 handling fee) received on or before July 31, 2010. After July 31, 2010, refunds will be given (minus the $50 handling fee) ONLY if you or LRWA are able to fill your reserved spot with a paying attendee. NO EXCEPTIONS for any reason whatsoever.

The beachfront mansion is within a few blocks of a grocery store, several great restaurants, and a quaint island shopping area. Historic downtown Charleston is a short 15 minute drive. Charleston International Airport is just 25 minutes away.

ALL reservations will be taken on a first-come-first-served basis.

Please click here for lots of pictures of this incredible beach-front mansion, including the individual bedrooms.

Questions?