VanderWorld Creative: Honest, Fun, Imaginative

I just got around to doing a partial rewrite of the Services section of this blog, updating it to include my wife, Ann, and a more complete list of what it is we do under the moniker of VanderWorld Creative--everything from creativity workshops to fan dancing. Okay, no dancing, but we've developed a pretty extensive resume when it comes to teaching, speaking engagements, and individual critiquing. Among other services. This is stuff we love to do, and we've gotten very good at it.Later this week, in fact, Ann will be doing a creativity workshop for World of Warcraft in Los Angeles, teaming up with Cat Rambo for that particular event. Next spring, with Victoria Blake, we'll host a Booklife conference on sustainable careers/creativity in Portland, Oregon, while Ann and I host a more secluded Booklife retreat in St. Augustine, Florida. (More information on both at Booklifenow, when it goes live.)The most important element of all of our speaking and teaching gigs? Well, there are three, actually. The first is: be honest and frank. The second is: leave your ego at the door. On this blog, I enjoy the heck out of every writing or editing triumph we have, but when you are teaching, it's not about you. The third is: try to add a little bit of humor or absurdism to the mix. And part of that is having fun with the imaginative part of things. Finding creative ways to be useful to people who may not even be writers or in the writing world is a wonderful an invigorating challenge.Soon, I'll begin updating the events calendar to include World Fantasy, and a host of readings/signings/workshops set for November and December. It's also more than likely that I'll do a Florida Booklife tour in February-March of next year. And it appears more foreign travel is in our future over next summer, but more on that later. In 2010, we'll have a dedicated website to our teaching, speaking, and critique services.