Got novel? Looking to have it critiqued and sharing your insight by critiquing other beginning novelists? Well, there's a new workshop in town. Actually, it's in Western Michigan to be correct.
It's the inaugural year for the Hastings Point Writer's Workshop.Deadlines are coming up fast. February 28th to be precise, which means you'll need to have what you want critiqued mostly in hand. The event is May 14-17.
I know most of the people involved and they're hoopy froods, every single one of them. This is run by the same people who do the Feral Writer's Group, which I've been involved with for the past two years. I wish we could have such an event every quarter (more than that and I think I'd collapse from exhaustion).
The accommodations are top notch, the other writers excellent, intelligent, insightful and witty. The model they're using has been highly successful for some other authors you may have heard of. If you're in the area, have a novel ready for workshopping, and have the time I think you'd be a fool for not trying. If any one of the pieces I was working on was ready I would be trying my hardest to go. In fact, I would need to take an unpaid day off work and I would do it as well.
Yes I wanted to go to this. Mer has been planning this for years and it's going to be fabulous. I wish I had a novel close enough to finished to apply.
3 comments:
I wish I had a novel close enough to finished to apply.
Write quickly?
::runs and hides behind the sofa::
Damn, I wish I had something that would be done by then, but seeing as how I'm not going to start the actual rewrite until tonight or tomorrow, I don't think that's going to happen. Sounds like an awesome experience though.
Vince, I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too! Yeah, write faster. All I'd need to do is crank out 3000 words per day, every day this week, and have those words ready to go. Considering my output yesterday and it's quality, I'm not so hopeful. I really could get a partial ready, but until I know better I'm going to take Tobias' advice of never workshopping a partial manuscript before the whole thing is done (draft zero that is).
Matt, I'm sure it's going to be. My experience with Mer Haskell and her abilities just leaves me in awe of her. From what I hear about Blue Heaven (organized by CC Findlay) is that it's excellent. I think Mer is going to pull off a great workshop. I'd really like to take part in this one. Not only because I'll need the critiques (and I know they're going to be spot on, just like the Hamsters critiques), but because I think Mer and the people around her are excellent and I support what they're doing. Not only are they good at the writing thing, they're also very fun people to hang around with. Having eight or nine people in a cottage for an extended weekend, sitting around the dinning room table typing, playing games, making wry commentary, and in general being supportive may sound like a recipe for chaos, but Mer and all the others make it work. Even though I wasn't as productive as I wanted to be my last time there, I was still more productive than when I'm at home.
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