Guest blogger Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of The Bowl Is Already Broken and The Frequency of Souls, challenges us to keep up the pace. We are accepting her challenge. Will you?
School doesn't even start until next Wednesday, and my left eyelid is already twitching. That's because, in addition to teaching "Writing a Short Novel" to grad students at George Mason University, I pledged I would subject myself to the deadlines imposed on them. We're all doing 40K words, from scratch, in one semester. Chris Baty has his well-publicized National Novel Writers Month, and he would deem our pace luxurious, even glacial. But it took me 9 years to finish my second novel, The Bowl Is Already Broken. Please join our quest, or watch from a safe distance. I'll post the syllabus and updates on my web site. Maybe I'll even figure out how to include people's feedback— would that make me a blogger?
Mary Kay, I wish I could sign up for your workshop, but I'm in the (I hope) last three months of writing a novel that's taken me years... Chiming in here: Mary Kay recommended the book No Plot, No Problem, by Chris Baty, founder of NANOWRIMO. Write a novel in a month? And I'd just spent ages trying to figure out plotting! I never would have picked this book up if not for MKZ's sugust recommendation. Well, it's a ripping read, and fantastically inspiring. Mary Kay, you rock.
Posted by: C.M. Mayo | August 30, 2006 at 12:40 AM