What’s in this Newsletter:

• A Novel Approach First Draft begins again for its 9th year – Will this be the year you write and/or finish that book? – Sue is teaching in Newmarket and Oshawa
• A Novel Approach Second Draft begins for it’s 5th year with James Dewar at Uplands.
• Sue is teaching Memoir in Lindsay this Fall for 6 weeks on Thursday afternoons.

Sue is also teaching at Blue Heron again this fall – two courses:

• • Recovering Creativity, Reclaiming Your Self – on Thursday Mornings for 6 weeks

and

• Back to the Page – Reconnecting with Yourself as a Writer on Tuesday nights for 6 weeks.

 

Time to commit to your writing again.

By the time we’ve been through the public education system for all our childhood and teenage years, we’re hardwired to think “Back to School!!” when the nights grow cool and the leaves start to fade.

In late August/early September I find myself longing for bright white, blank, journal pages with pale blue horizontal lines.  I haunt the pen aisles of Staples, and the journal section of my favourite bookstores.  I make myself promises about a more committed and productive schedule.  “This year will be different!” And I find ways to trick myself into writing more regularly.

CBC’s literary blog had a great article this summer by Dionne Codrington about exactly that issue – how writers can trick themselves into commitment to their projects. Codrington offered this quote from The Vinyl Cafe’s Stuart McLean:

“The most important thing if you want to be a writer is to find something to get you going. What usually works for me is a deadline. Sign up for a writers’ class, join a writers’ group, look into the Young Writers’ Group online, volunteer for a local paper — do whatever you have to do so that someone somewhere is expecting you to hand them something. Make it as good as you can make it, and then show it to someone and listen to what they have to say and then go at it again.”

For nine years now, A Novel Approach has been that deadline for writers who are having trouble committing to and producing their book-length projects.  In bite-sized chunks of approximately 12 pages every two weeks (less than 1 page a day!) not only your facilitator, but the other members of your group are waiting for you to produce and post your work. You get the feedback you need to encourage you to keep going, and the guidance you need to keep your book on track.  And in July you get to celebrate with all the other memoirists and novelists who have AT LAST produced that manuscript they’ve been frustrated with for so long.

This year the Second Draft class is in it’s 5th year – again, this course provides the structure writers need to rewrite and then either traditionally market their manuscripts or prepare for the adventure of self-publishing.

If you’re not ready for the serious commitment to a book length project but are longing to get back to that part of yourself that used to take pleasure and find joy in exploring your voice on the page, Sue is teaching three classes this autumn:  a memoir class in Lindsay, and 2 classes in Uxbridge at the Blue Heron Studio.  The first, on Thursday mornings, is called Recovering Creativity, Reclaiming Your Self, and the second is called Back to the Page.  Go to Inkslingers to find out more about these.

Sue will also be offering three SoulCollage workshops this fall – in Newmarket and Sharon. If you’re interested in being notified about these, please contact her directly at suereynolds@goforwords.com