This is a course that takes you from your revised draft to a professional, finished manuscript, ready to go out into the world and become a published book. Sometimes this involves a final deep structural revision, sometimes careful polishing of each sentence, often both. We will go step-by-step through completing your book. A methodical approach can keep you grounded and focused.
Of equal importance, a generous and clear reader response to your work allows you to begin to see your book as something separate from yourself and to make your final choices about how to wrap it up and let it go! We will be forming (optional) reading groups in the Book Writing World for those who need great readers, and I will be personally teaching you how to be great editors and get great readings of your books.
The basics:
Each Monday, you will post your goals for the week in the Community Center forum and report on your progress over the past week. Be specific. In our Process and Goals week, you will figure out the most motivational way to frame your goals and get them done. Your goals widget will carry a visual representation of your progress. Be sure to keep it updated. On Thursdays, during the small group mentoring conference, we will check in about your goals as well. You will be amazed at how much faster you move toward your goals with these check-ins structured into your writing life.
Each week, you will listen to, watch or read that week’s “mini-lecture” and post your response to the assignment in the forum for that group. It will enrich your own learning if you take some time to check out others’ responses as well and make some encouraging comments.
In the small group mentoring conference, we will extend the lessons of the week further, share relevant exercises and answer your burning questions.
Have 9 chapters left to go and feeling like I’m on the home stretch. Now have all these activities invading my writing time. Feel like I can’t win but just have to keep plugging along, Car needs new tires, a birthday coming up, a gathering of friends I’ve committed to and a daughter and grand-daughter coming to visit. All good things.
Have to remember how much better I feel when I’m into my writing. It will all work out.
Bree
I think this could be so valuable for me. Like Bree, it’s learning to allow my writing to be my priority rather than the thousand other things and voices that crowd round.
Looking forward! Thank you.
I’ve been in a focused rewrite stage, and am finally done! One last read-through, just to make sure, which I’ll do this week and hope to have finished by next Monday’s coaching call. I can tell you all what it feels like and urge your forward. I had to write one new chapter this week, and I was dreading it. But…the chapter was a joy to write, it was exactly what I was missing, introduced two major characters earlier in the book, which really helps. I thought to myself, I wish I was starting right here, knowing my characters so well, and having my writing muscles really toned and strong. But I had to work to get to this point of relative ease and confidence. I don’t mean to sound egotistical. I’m not. I put SO MUCH into this book, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.
Once the final read-through is complete, I want to work on: 1) the pitch, and 2) putting my hand written timeline in better format.
go leslie rodd, go. very inspiring ot read your post.
still driving ahead like gangbusters. fear of death is my motivator. fear is my greatest motivator. except when it’s fear of failure. then i shut down. anywho. got 50 pages tight as i could. sent to reader. just have to get s/one to peek. very isolating at this point, oddly enough. in the beginning, first draft(s) stage; much more flying by the seat of the pants rush of creating. now, it’s like fitting together pieces of a puzzle. or juggling. keeping a lot of balls up in the air at once. an exhilirating feeling. afraid i’m in that zone this guy who spent 10 years doing a pencil drawing of Marily Monroe, down to the veins in her eye balls (you could see inside her pores); then the famous artist, Hockney, says “couldn’t you do a quick sketch next time?” Hockney thinks the guys work is a lot of attention to detail for a dead piece of art, no life. so, i’m worried. big surprise. but the good good news is i’m so on my goal path. 50 down (all cleaned up. yay!). going to clean up the next 50 (already drafted 3-5-7 times per chapter). then i’ll edit with comments from reader(s) taken into account; then to agent with the 100. then keep pushing to clean up last 200-300 pages of whole novel. I’ve written through to the end 3-5-7 times. but won’t know until i attach everything, so close now, if any of those original endings will really hold. amazing how much one learns about ones characters when you really truly commit to finishing the whole darn book. characters i let stall looking out the window, being silent, take on rolls that push the story toward the end. true goal, screw Hockney: just finish. i have other books to write. publishing isn’t the be all end all for a writer. just like having a painting hoisted up in the Met isn’t why painters paint.