How to Write Better

The Muse Online Writers' Conference

Practice makes perfect only if you know what and how to practice. That's where writing courses and conferences come in.

Writing itself is in the main a solitary occupation so meeting other writers working in similar genres, and often with similar strains and stresses on their time, is both inspiring and liberating.

Very few of us can afford time and cost of going to many if any of the great conferences around so The Muse Online Writers' Conference, now in its fifth year, is a writing lifeline for thousands.

The brainchild of Canadian author and editor extraordinaire--the great Lea Schizas--it hosts presenters for all genres, pitch sessions to publishing houses, week-long courses on all aspects of writing, publishing and marketing.

Attendees from all over the world pack freezers full of family friendly ready meals, shut themselves up with a computer for a week, and study to improve their manuscripts, start the book they always wanted to write and chat non-stop to like-minded cyberfriends.

It is an ideal annual venue for slow and steady writers who make lasting writing friends, rejoice in the successes achieved over the past year and commiserate on the inevitable rejections. Each year hundreds of us say, "It will be me pitching next year."

I am getting nearer--as back up moderator for pitches to Vivian Zabel of 4RV Publishing, Marlene Satter of Double Dragon, Caryn Wiseman of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, White Rose Publishing, the MacGregor Literary Agency, Sara Megibow from the Nelson Literary Agency, Lida Quillen of Twilight Times and Paladin Timeless.

My romantic suspense novel may be creeping through first draft but I am preparing for the day next year when I pitch my own work.

4RV Publishing
Double Dragon
Andrea Brown Agency
White Rose Publishing
MacGregor Literary Agency
Nelson Literary Agency
Twilight Times
Paladin Timeless
and of course
MuseItUpPublishing