Another thank-you

Last week, I wrote about why I am self-publishing my writing and listed a few sources of inspiration.

Weirdly, I forgot to mention the conversation I had that actually inspired me to take this leap; that conversation was with Scott William Carter.

Scott and I work at the same college--he performs daily miracles with educational technology, and I teach writing and literature to freshmen, mostly online. Eventually, I realized he was a writer an took him out to lunch to pick his brain. He gave me great advice, including attenting Dean Wesley Smith's class on the Oregon coast.

Earlier this summer, I went to a BBQ at Scott's place. He, my computer-programmer husband and I had a conversation about online/self-publishing. Scott and Dean Wesley Smith are going to teach a class on how to publish stuff online in October 2011.

As I listened to Scott describe the class, I kept thinking, "I can do that. I can do that. I can even do that!" This culminated in the realization: "Wait--I can DO that!"

So, I need to send a great bit, belated "Thank you!" to Scott William Carter making me realize that, yes, I can do this.

I promise I won't even blame him if I end up going down in spectacular flames.

Perhaps he'll bring the marshmallows to the roast.

:)
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NaNoWriMo Class a Go!

I don't have all the details, but the NaNoWriMo class is a go! Once a week for seven weeks, I'll meet with students who want to write 50K words in 30 days for NaNo.

• The first two weeks are going to be focused on getting ready for NaNo: finding a story, getting into the writing habit, making sure the friends and family know what people are up to so they aren't offended when they are put off by the writers.
• The month of November will be devoted to writing in class and supporting each other including helping people write themselves out of tight spots, etc.
• The last night will be a post-mortem of NaNo and Scott Carter is going to give a talk on what to do once you've written a book.

This class is NOT going to be a traditional writing workshop where we critique each other's work. The idea is to get a first draft of a book out there. And it's allowed to SUCK. In fact, if it doesn't suck, you probably weren't doing NaNo right.

The whole idea is to use the impetus to get a first draft out because you can't have a second draft if you don't have a first draft. To that end, writers are not allowed to go back and revise anything. If it sucks, you'll go fix it later. It's all about moving forward until you get to the end of the book.

So, once I get specific information, I'll post it here and broadcast it to the world. It ought to be a wild ride.

Oh, yeah. We decided the class is going to be called "Write Your First Novel in Thirty Days." Catchy, huh?

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