Saturday, May 9, 2020
Online Novel-Writing Workshop through the CT Literary Festival
I hope this post finds everyone safe and well. As you may know, the Yale Writers' Workshop, where I usually teach in June, won't run this year. But I'm happy to be able to offer a seven-week novel writing workshop on Zoom in May and June through the Connecticut Literary Festival.
With a small class size, chances to share up to 9,000 words of your novel-in-progress, and opportunities to revise and generate new material, this course promises to be intense and fun.
That said, there is no expectation that the material you share has to be "done," "polished," or even "good"! The atmosphere will be supportive and exploratory. Bring your work, but also your challenges, frustrations, thoughts and questions about the writing process--and let us work on them together as a group. The aim is to leave you inspired and energized as you close in on the home stretch of finishing your novel.
Please feel free to ask me for more details about the course (use the "contact me" form to the right) or sign up here. Starts May 19.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Online Class - Starts Saturday March 14
Most of us will spend more time at home in the coming weeks. Here's something you can do for yourself-- a six-week online fiction writing course to add a sense of community, support, and continuity for your writing.
The Scene in Fiction
Six-Week Online Class
March 14 through April 18
Saturdays 2 to 4 Eastern Standard Time
Price: $275
Sign up: Use CONTACT ME form on the right
We'll use the popular platform Zoom, which allows easy online meeting with video. It's simple and intuitive to use, either from your browser or the free app. We'll spend a few minutes getting comfortable at the start of the first class.
The focus of this writing class will be the scene. What is a scene in fiction? What are the elements of a good one? What different forms can scenes take? We'll read and discuss excerpts from stories and novels.
Each week, you'll send us, and read aloud via video, 1,500 words from your current work for discussion by the class. There will be an optional focus (e.g., opening scenes), but if you're moved to send something different, that's always fine too. The core of the class is sharing your work and listening and responding to others'.
Open to all levels. Your writing each week can be from a single work-in-progress, more than one, or from project/s you come up with during the course period.
Feel free to write to me with questions! Use the CONTACT ME form on the right
--
Note: All Hudson Valley Writers' Center courses have gone online for the near future, and I'll continue to offer my regular HVWC Year of Your Book classes via Zoom until they resume meeting in person. Check here for upcoming HVWC classes: Advanced Year of Your Book Session III starting 4/20 and Year of Your Book Session III starting 4/22.
I'm also available for private consultation or to edit your manuscript or work-in-progress. Write to me for more information!
Saturday, February 8, 2020
The Tarot Card Exercise
The "Tarot Card" Exercise
I developed this exercise at the Yale Writers' Workshop around 2015. It contains no actual tarot cards, but it does use physical cards when I do it in class, and, like a tarot spread, it encourages you to make connections among elements that are not obviously related. To do that, you have to engage your subconscious, your intuition-- the part of your mind that writes stories, which is the same part that gives you hunches, dreams, and visions.
The Exercise
Get three random numbers between one and sixty. Go to the list below and write down the words or phrases associated with your numbers.
Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping. Write whatever comes to mind. The only rules are: The first word or phrase must go in your first sentence. The second word or phrase comes anywhere after that. The third must be included in your last sentence.
If it feels strange or difficult, don't worry, just keep your pen moving. The end result does not have to be "good" writing or even to make any sense at all. Just follow the rules and see what emerges.
1. a premonition
2. torrential rain
3. a very hot night
4. mysterious lights at night
5. a stain that won't come out
6. eggs
7. an unexpected inheritance
8. inappropriate laughter
9. crickets
10. an angry outburst
11. the taste of salt
12. stairs
13. a stranger
14. a foul odor
15. a ship
16. something buried in the earth
17. sweat
18. an ancient custom
19. a castle
20. a drunken argument
21. something sticky
22. a curse
23. a small door
24. a woman's arm
25. a sudden realization
26. something sharp in the dark
27. a death
28. a cellar
29. a man's leg
30. a reunion
31. sand
32. a windowless room
33. a fan
34. the wrong body
35. feathers
36. children singing
37. sparks
38. a repetitive noise
39. a weapon
40. very, very sweet
41. a bout of dizziness
42. echoes
43. claws
44. stars
45. the smell of smoke
46. cold water
47. startled awake
48. a small animal
49. glittery
50. shivers
51. something burning
52. ticking
53. the scent of gardenias
54. whispering
55. the sound of someone crying
56. utter darkness
57. the smell of winter
58. a swarm of beetles
59. an empty theater
60. artificial snow
I developed this exercise at the Yale Writers' Workshop around 2015. It contains no actual tarot cards, but it does use physical cards when I do it in class, and, like a tarot spread, it encourages you to make connections among elements that are not obviously related. To do that, you have to engage your subconscious, your intuition-- the part of your mind that writes stories, which is the same part that gives you hunches, dreams, and visions.
The Exercise
Get three random numbers between one and sixty. Go to the list below and write down the words or phrases associated with your numbers.
Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping. Write whatever comes to mind. The only rules are: The first word or phrase must go in your first sentence. The second word or phrase comes anywhere after that. The third must be included in your last sentence.
If it feels strange or difficult, don't worry, just keep your pen moving. The end result does not have to be "good" writing or even to make any sense at all. Just follow the rules and see what emerges.
1. a premonition
2. torrential rain
3. a very hot night
4. mysterious lights at night
5. a stain that won't come out
6. eggs
7. an unexpected inheritance
8. inappropriate laughter
9. crickets
10. an angry outburst
11. the taste of salt
12. stairs
13. a stranger
14. a foul odor
15. a ship
16. something buried in the earth
17. sweat
18. an ancient custom
19. a castle
20. a drunken argument
21. something sticky
22. a curse
23. a small door
24. a woman's arm
25. a sudden realization
26. something sharp in the dark
27. a death
28. a cellar
29. a man's leg
30. a reunion
31. sand
32. a windowless room
33. a fan
34. the wrong body
35. feathers
36. children singing
37. sparks
38. a repetitive noise
39. a weapon
40. very, very sweet
41. a bout of dizziness
42. echoes
43. claws
44. stars
45. the smell of smoke
46. cold water
47. startled awake
48. a small animal
49. glittery
50. shivers
51. something burning
52. ticking
53. the scent of gardenias
54. whispering
55. the sound of someone crying
56. utter darkness
57. the smell of winter
58. a swarm of beetles
59. an empty theater
60. artificial snow
Sunday, January 5, 2020
2020 Classes!
Yale Writers' Workshop 2020
Monday January 6 is the last day to apply for my Alumni Fiction Intensive in June 2020. Must be an alum for YWW. Click here for an application.
If you're not an alum and would like to check out the program (highly recommended!), click here for info. General applications open January 20, 2020.
Classes at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center
for the current winter session:
Year of Your Book: Fiction
Wednesdays 10:15 to 12:15, January 15 through February 19
This course runs through the year in six-week sessions. Sign up for the year if you can; or, join when you're able. This course is for anyone who is in the process of drafting a novel, anywhere from the planning stage, to having a partial draft. Click class title to register.
+
Year of Your Book: Fiction | Deep Revision
Mondays 10:15 to 12:15, January 13 through February 24
(Optional "soft opening" generative/fun class meeting 1/6)
This course runs through the year in six-week sessions. Sign up for the year if you can; or, join when you're able. This advanced course is for anyone who has a complete draft, or most of a draft, of a novel and is ready to revise. Please contact the office to inquire about this class which requires an application.
+
"I Am [Not] a Real Writer"
Saturdays 10:00 to 12:00, January 11 through February 22
Runs through the year in six-week sessions. This course is for anyone who's ever wanted to try a writing class but worried that they're "not a real writer." The atmosphere is supportive, generative, experimental. Join us! Click class title to register.
+
One-day intensive: January 25, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.
In this popular one-day class we'll explore the mechanics of plot and apply the ideas to your current project. Whether your novel is in the planning stage or fully drafted, this class will help you think about how to strengthen plot and structure your narrative. Click class title to register.
Or schedule a private tutorial at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center anytime. (Call first to confirm availability and times).
Private Editing and Consulting in 2020
Happy new year!
Do you have writing goals for 2020? Do you want to make some?
In the coming year, I'll continue to be available for private consultation and editing. Our work together is tailored to your needs, and can range from my serving as a private editor for your completed novel draft, to helping you generate ideas and plans in weekly one-on-one meetings. There's no required level of experience or commitment -- my job is to meet you where you are, learn where you want to go, and help you get there.
I'm an award-winning novelist with over 25 years of experience as a fiction writing teacher and editor, including my current positions as instructor at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY, and resident faculty at the Yale Writers' Workshop in New Haven, CT.
My current rate is $100 an hour, or $100 per ten manuscript pages (double-spaced pages, or 250 words/page, whichever comes out less expensive for your ms).
To schedule an initial consult, contact the Writers' Center at 914 332-5953 | ask@writerscenter.org. Or use the CONTACT ME link on this page.
Make 2020 the year you set and reach your writing goals!
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
What We're Doing In Class: "I Am Not a Real Writer"
Today in "I Am Not a Real Writer," the class for people who don't think they're real writers--yet somehow always discover they are :)--one of the things we briefly discussed was "All Rivers" by Amos Oz.
Besides being a great story, "All Rivers" is structurally interesting in that it might appear to be all flashback, but if you really look, there is a clear present-time progression of action: the action is the narrator sitting at his desk, remembering. It's not him statically sitting there, and then the camera switches to a news report about events that occurred earlier, and then we come back to find him sitting in the same position. (Which is how people too often try to do flashback.) Rather, it's him at his desk actively engaging with the process of memory. This is an important thing to note for memoir too. It's nearly always about more than "what happened in the past;" it's also about the act of attempting to remember.
This touches on themes that come up often in class. What constitutes "action" vs "flashback?" Can a memory be written one way as flashback, another way as exposition, and another way as present action (as in the Oz story)? When writing memoir, what do you do with the fact that memory is imperfect--or rather, that it is its own living, personal thing, and not a recording device you can take back to a fixed past?
✨✨✨Things to think about.✨✨✨
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)