Second Sundays in North Berkeley, September – June, 10 am – 1 pm (Scroll to bottom to see dates)

Book in a Year walks you through a structured process for envisioning, planning and executing a first or subsequent draft of a novel, memoir, narrative non-fiction or other work of extended prose. We’ll begin in September by capturing what’s important to you about this project, what you want to share with your readers. Then, we delve step-by-step into the heady mix of character and event that inspires your story. We’ll come to understand the deep structures of narrative and their particular application to your original tale. Our unique, encouraging workshops build on our understanding of how a common story structure underlies so many diverse and thrillingly unique voices.

During this year, you’ll:

• Develop a premise that crystallizes your vision and values
• Develop a logline that encapsulates your story
• “Do the math” to calendar out your writing (or revision) schedule to meet your goals
• Create a list of every scene in your book (and get personalized feedback on matching your scenes to your story vision)
• Workshop excerpts of the key scenes in your story to connect the learning about structure to the action and characters unfolding on the page
• Write (or revise) a draft moving from key scene to key scene according to your plan
• Finish a draft by June, with the summer to take it to the next level. We meet again in the fall for a celebratory reading and party.

Extras: In addition to class meetings, there are videos that introduce the key concepts in short, easy-to-understand explanations and assignments. These remain available to you throughout the year. The class also includes an online writing retreat day and a Sebastopol writing retreat day, as well as a “do the math” workshop to schedule your productivity according to a plan that fulfills your deepest sense of what you want to say and what drives your character toward life change–and that gets you to the page count you want to have in hand by June. Weekly check-ins with a small group and break down of your assignments, goals, and writing ambitions into weekly do-able chunks keep you powering along to a completed book!

Sign up for this class if you are ready to:

• Think deeply about your vision and your values.
• Commit to what’s important to you.
• Encourage yourself and others to dive into story, take risks, explore.
• Stop dreaming and start making your dreams come true.