I believe that genuine writing community can be formed in affordable, accessible ways.
I believe that when we show up in the spirit of support and open-hearted learning, even once a month, we are sending a powerful message to our imaginations and all the drafts we yearn to write:. We are saying: I BELIEVE THIS STORY IS WORTH TELLING.
There is no other online community being offered like this one--whether offered by a university, a nonprofit arts institute, or another writing mentor like myself. Airstream Dispatches is utterly in its own category, and perhaps that's as it should be. This innovative opportunity for writers offers accountability, real craft learning, support, and email access to the instructor (that's me!)--without spending thousands of dollars or feeling guilty about time commitments.
Join this fast-growing, super friendly, network--from hobbyist writers to published authors--and you'll see why so many others love this pop-up circus as much as I do.
See you there!
Katey
PS Here's that link again: http://www.kateyschultz.com/airstream-dispatches/
After ten years in business as a writing teacher and author, the number one challenge I hear about is ACCOUNTABILITY. Whether your version of 'getting the job done' means setting word count goals, freewriting in a journal every day, participating in NaNoWriMo, or starting a writing group...chances are good that you've had to ask yourself what works and what doesn't, when it comes to achieving your goals.
My online classes provide transformative curricula that helps participants meet their goals and articulate their best work. One of the best ways to begin is by examining the craft techniques other authors use to impact their readers through powerful storytelling, as you saw in the How to Read Like a Writer, So You Can Write Like a Writer PDF I shared with you a few days ago.
If you're ready for low-pressure, high-return learning that's accessible and professional, it’s hard to beat $247 for access to a fast-growing network of writers and published authors who are all gathering with me once a month for Airstream Dispatches. Enroll in Airstream Dispatches and get in-depth, craft-based lessons and prompts for six months, plus the added benefit of community support and accountability. Participate as little or as much as you like, and show up for yourself and your imagination in ways that count. Click here for syllabus and registration details.
It's all the perks of a book club and writing group, from the comfort of your own home! I hope you'll join me.
~Katey
Hi and thanks again!
I hope you enjoyed the writing lesson, How to Read Like a Writer, So You Can Write Like a Writer.
Have you had a chance to apply the craft lesson to your own drafts? One reason I make myself accessible by email to all my subscribers and writing students is because I honestly care about the writing process. It seems like not so long ago, I was spending 31 out of 36 months on the road, hopping from writing gig to writing gig, wondering if I'd ever find a way to make a life doing what I love. Now, as a new mother and partner and homeowner (well, owner of a mortgage, as my husband likes to joke!)--I do believe that life is possible AND that it can look very different for each of us, even if we have the same goals: To WRITE. To LAUGH. To PUBLISH. To LOVE. To be GRATEFUL.
I believe writing is a solo sport, but I also believe no one does it alone. If you have time to send me a few of your thoughts about what you most enjoy in your writing, or where you're stuck, I'd welcome the conversation.
Katey
Thanks for signing up for my newsletter, Putting it Into Practice! You’ll hear from me about 6 times a year with updates or invitations, and you can opt-out at any time. I'm also going to send you a few more freebies this week, but then you won't hear from me for a while (unless you write back, like many do--and which I'd love!).
As promised, this message contains your free lesson on How to Read Like a Writer, So You Can Write Like a Writer. At the end of the lesson, you’ll find a PDF to download a sample of this craft technique at work
YOUR FREE CRAFT LESSON:
As a teacher and a writer, I’m a fan of imitating structure. In fact, I taught myself to transition from flash fiction to novel form by imitating the first 80 pages of the structure of Ursula Hegi’s novel, Children & Fire (Scribner, 1994). In order to imitate structure and free the mind to focus on the actual content and character development of your story, you have to be able to read like a writer.
Of course, the individual characters and worlds a writer invents are copyrighted material. But the actual structure of prose--the way a piece moves between backstory, exposition, narrative, and flashback, for example--isn’t copyrighted. Like employing simile or metaphor, using the structural components of prose in a particular arrangement to tell a story is tool of the trade, not a patented invention.
Which means that when Hegi’s Chapter 1 included a scene that transitioned into flashback, then returned to the main narrative and expanded into two pages of exposition--Chapter 1 of my novel draft did, too. I’d chosen Children & Fire because it takes place over the course of one day. My novel did, too--at least the first draft. By the second draft, the structure of my novel only very loosely looked like Hegi’s (and even then, only if you were looking for it). By the fourth draft? Not a trace of Hegi’s structure was evident and, in fact, the novel took place over four days and had multiple points of view.
In my experience, drafts that begin by imitating structure do eventually find their own, better, path through the story that’s trying to be told--and that’s the point. A Writer (and perhaps most especially, a beginning novelist) can only hold so many pieces of information in their heads at one time. Writers are perhaps as limited as they are ambitious, which is to say--we can never see all our own blind spots. Imitating structure helps tremendously, because it frees the mind to focus on the details of the story (and new material that might not have otherwise met the page). All writers, no matter how “famous” or skilled, are trying, learning, and letting time pass, in order help their best work meet the world.
...And time did pass as I worked on the novel. My drafts evolved into their own structure. The fifth draft was told from the perspective of five different characters, over the course of four days. Eventually, the sixth, seventh, and final draft of the manuscript found their truest form--that is, the structure best suited to the content I’d created--and I had a novel written in limited 3rd point of view, following 3 different characters across their intersecting lives for, four days of events. None of this resembled my first draft in any way, except for the heart and drive that brought the work into the world in the first place and that, too, is the point of this kind of long-haul exercise. We begin with imitation, and end with originality.
As I mentioned in the beginning of our lesson, in order to imitate structure and free the mind to focus on the actual content and character development of your story, you have to be able to read like a writer. You have to be able to identify the structural components of prose as readily as a radiologist can study an X-Ray and identify the bones.
But here’s the catch: when you read like a writer studying structure, you’re also reading for intent and impact. Why this scene, here and now? Why this flashback now, and where does it come back into play later? How is this character brought onto the stage and why is he brought on in that way? To what effect?
Click to download your free PDF displaying excerpts from my own imitation exercises in the early stages of my novel.
Sincerely,
Katey Schultz
PS Here's that link again for your PDF: How to Read Like a Writer, So You Can Write Like a Writer
