Biff Mitchell's Blog: Writing Hurts Like Hell - Posts Tagged "writinginstruction"
How to Write a Novel
I've been teaching writing workshops for over a decade through the Maritime Writers Workshop, the UNB College of Extended Learning, the Foglit Literary Festival and others. One thing that crops up repeatedly is the angst about ever being able to write a novel or even get halfway through the process.
Only a handful of over a thousand of my students will ever write a novel, and some already have...and are published. The rest enjoyed the workshop and will likely use what they learned to better their writing skills in other areas, but not in the writing of a novel.
Unfortunately writing a novel takes a long time, requires extreme effort and sacrifice...and it may never be published. After writing this, I kind of don't want to write novels anymore, and I've already had several published.
One thing I realize is that the students who took my workshop and were eventually published would have written their novels and had them published whether or not they too my workshop.
They were willing to spend the time and effort and make the sacrifices. They were willing to accept that what they were doing might never go anywhere but on their computer desktops.
So, in light of this revelation, I put together a very short note on how to write a novel. It's all you really need...if you're willing to spend the time and effort and make the sacrifices.
You can download it here: https://tinyurl.com/yxe5rkv4
And when you've finished the first draft, check out this paper on how to revise it at biffmitchell.com. Click The Weekly Man in the navigation bar at the top right on the screen.
Only a handful of over a thousand of my students will ever write a novel, and some already have...and are published. The rest enjoyed the workshop and will likely use what they learned to better their writing skills in other areas, but not in the writing of a novel.
Unfortunately writing a novel takes a long time, requires extreme effort and sacrifice...and it may never be published. After writing this, I kind of don't want to write novels anymore, and I've already had several published.
One thing I realize is that the students who took my workshop and were eventually published would have written their novels and had them published whether or not they too my workshop.
They were willing to spend the time and effort and make the sacrifices. They were willing to accept that what they were doing might never go anywhere but on their computer desktops.
So, in light of this revelation, I put together a very short note on how to write a novel. It's all you really need...if you're willing to spend the time and effort and make the sacrifices.
You can download it here: https://tinyurl.com/yxe5rkv4
And when you've finished the first draft, check out this paper on how to revise it at biffmitchell.com. Click The Weekly Man in the navigation bar at the top right on the screen.
Writing Hurts Like Hell
Writing Hurts Like Hell is a workshop taught by Biff Mitchell for a decade through the University of New Brunswick's College of Extended Learning. Held mostly off-campus in coffee shops, bars, studios
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