I’m Teaching a NANOWRIMO Prep class

This October, I’ll be teaching a NANOWRIMO Prep class for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. In the past I’ve offered similar classes (alone and in conjunction with Aaron Allston) to get writers all organized for National Novel Writing Month. The task of writing a 50,000 word novel inside a month (a month complete with holidays), can be daunting. Organizing yourself ahead of time is critical to successfully starting and finishing a novel in a month.

Can you do it? Sure. I’ve written a bunch of novels inside thirty days, and most of the ones I’ve done come in at roughly 100,000 words. I, Jedi, by way of example, came in at 167,000 words and got written in thirty-one days. Granted, writing that novel was my day job at the time, and wasn’t the first novel I’d written, but based on that experience and more, I have a really good idea about how you get past obstacles and turn out a good novel in a short period of time.

The class description explains things in a nutshell. In short, the class will cover time management, plotting and characterization skills so you don’t run into that wall of wondering “what do I do now?” More importantly, because this class is in person, we’ll be able to discuss issues and answer questions, working each writer through their personal situations and showing them how to refrain from letting the work bog down.

I am really excited about this class. NANOWRIMO is a great experience for writers, and I’m really happy about helping writers attain the goal of producing their novel. If you are in the Phoenix area, please join me and your fellow writers for class that will push you even closer to writing a novel.