What a boring title. But what an exciting class. After working so hard on my own with Humber last year, I’m kind of excited to get back into a classroom scenario this fall with my Novel Writing Master Class through the University of Toronto. It’s a shame that I can’t find enough inspiration to work on my own but find that the structure of a class really helps in terms of deadlines and actually getting things done.
(Case in point was this weekend where we spent all weekend lounged on the couch [with the exception of hospital visits and Thanksgiving turkey and a quick jaunt to the Farmer’s Market] watching movies, TV, and HBO-Showtime dramas).
Anyway, David Gilmour is our teacher, and judging from the first class, he’ll be using the same teaching techniques with us as he did with his own son. I was really impressed with the first class and was even inspired to write a truly terrible first draft of a short story (Gilmour has 4 rules; one of which is to allow yourself the latitude to write very badly) that I shared with a couple friends last week.
Even though I won’t get to workshop as much of the book as I did at Humber, but I’m really looking forward to getting a group’s feedback about the story.
It would make me so nervous to share my creative writing with others in the class – still I think its so great that you’re doing this!
Sounds wonderful! I hope it’s as good as you’re hoping for. And yes, writing badly is so important. I wrote the first draft of my novel that way, and was able to lay out an entire plot, and then go back and worry about it all not sucking. I am on draft 4 now, and use the backs of draft 1 for scrap paper around the house and don’t recognize most of it now– fortunately. But I’m indebted to the suck draft all the same. It got me here.