The Workshop You’ve Been Waiting For… the Workshop You Can’t Afford to Miss

A Personal Invitation to the Ultimate Novel Intensive Workshop—a writing event that will change your life!

 

Learning to write a story, specifically a novel, is a lot like life. There is all manner of theory, approach and professed truth out there for the taking, with more than a few loud evangelists for each and every point of view.

Success in writing a novel, like success in living a life, depends on and eternally proves just a handful of universal principles, many of which can be spun in multiple ways toward the same outcome.  The Golden Rule, for example, is one of them.  Winners never quit, that’s usually true.  Success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. With all due respect to Mr. Einstein, that’s not often the case when it comes to writers and their stories.  Because history is littered with – and the hallowed halls of workshops venues are full of – writers who have been willing to work hard for years, even decades, in quest of the holy grail.

Which is… what, precisely? 

In spite of what the latest rash of self-publishing gurus will tell you, there is only one thing a writer has complete control over.  And that, my friends, is your story.  While there are many ways to reach the moment when you write “The End” and pop a beer, just as there are infinite ways to screw it up before you reach that milestone, what happens after that is the very antithesis of a sure thing, no matter what “proven marketing strategy” you sign up for.

So What Does Work?

The upside is this: you can put yourself into good fortune’s way when it comes to being successful as a writer. And the way of doing that is by being in complete control over what appears on your pages.

You need a story that soars. Mediocrity, even when it means you write every bit as well as the author who is signing at your nearest Barnes & Noble, or the piling on to a trend will never get you there.  Ask any breakout author if they were working on the idea that made them famous several years before a single reader heard about it.

What are you working on now . . . how will that play two years from now?  How can you even know if what you’re doing will be competitive, now or then?

From the moment you type “The End” onto a draft that in all likelihood will get rewritten several more times, much of what comes next is totally out of your control.  All the Facebook friends, tweets and blog tours or podcast interviews in the world will not make your book successful if the story itself doesn’t rise to deliver a reading experience that is rare and precious.

And that, dear writing peer, is the hardest thing of all to pull off.

How do you write a story that really works?

Most workshops talk about how to write a novel, which is a discussion that is as much about process as it is anything else. This workshop will teach you what a novel must look like, how it should read – the specific elements and essences and criteria that, when a story works, is there every time.

Writing well is merely a pre-requisite.

Good writing gets rejected every day, by the terabyte full.  But excellent storytelling, that’s a different thing altogether. Rare, yet learnable.  Quantifiable.  Blueprintable.  Repeatable.  Reliable.  And known to and practiced by only a small percentage of writers who, in the truest essence of the phrase, know what the hell they are doing.

I read an interview in last month’s Writer’s Digest Magazine about a bestselling author who says, almost proudly, that she begins each book with the cold fear that she has no idea what she’s doing, or how she did it before, and is certain she cannot do it again.  I read famous authors all the time who literally brag about not having a clue how their story will end as they start writing it, which is no different than a doctor saying they have no idea what an appendix is even as they cut you open to find one.

This is the state of much of the writing conversation out there.  It glorifies ignorance in the name of art, as if the blind grace of a higher power or the thinly guised hubris of being brilliant is the thing that has blessed their story with power and resonance.

Let’s Get Down To The Reality of It.

Are you ready to separate your self from the writing herd?  Then join me, and story planner, Jennifer Blanchard for this unprecedented workshop intensive, that will unmask the mystery of good story telling and set you on the road to being a successful novelist.  Here are the details:

Your Story On Steroids: A 4-Day Novel Development Intensive:

April 3^rd through April 7^th, at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon. You are guaranteed four days unlike anything you’ve ever attended, that will exceed your highest expectations. Jennifer is, like me, a novelist, a story coach and a blogger in the fiction space. She’s someone who found her writing life irrevocably changed when she first encountered the principles that we will share with you at this workshop.

It won’t be a lecture and it won’t be a yawn, either.  It will be a participative, interactive exercise with you, for you, and all about your current work in progress. I’ll be using real-life examples from known bestsellers and even real-life failures to shine a light upon what works, what doesn’t, and most importantly of all, why.

I rarely get to spend this amount of time teaching a workshop. Your Story on Steroids is going to be like getting a mini MFA, because craft has never been this accessible, this clear and this applicable.  You will walk out of the final session a different writer, an empowered writer, as someone who realizes they are on the other side of ignorance, confusion and blind hope.

This Is The Most Important Workshop You Will Ever Attend.

Are you ready to be the writer who now has a real shot at creating the most powerful thing a writer can claim – a story that really works? If artfully rendering a story in ways that lesser writers will never understand, and few writers ever command is your goal, then this is the workshop you have been waiting for! This is the new and glorious hope for your writing dreams.

One more thing.  Remember those principles of life that apply to writing, as well?  Here’s another one: you have to choose in.

Here’s how:  www.novelintensives.com is the sign-up site for this event.

It also offers more specific descriptions of what will be covered.

I hope I get to see you in Portland in April.

Here are a few more reasons to give this serious consideration:

When was the last time you attended a workshop that was truly interactive, allowing you to work 0n – not just listen to some instructor telling you how they did it – YOUR story, in real time, in direct response to prompts and criteria that will take your story to the next level?

When was the last time you attended a workshop that wasn’t just 90 minutes, but 3.5 full days of guided experience across the full spectrum of the story development process?

When was the last time someone explained the full body of thought on structure AND character, regardless of your process?

When was the last time you got to ask anything and everything you need to ask about storytelling, in the company of like-minded writers?

When was the last time you listened to instructors who won’t quit before you have fully and functionally assimilated the information being dispensed?

Go HERE to read more specific reasons you need to join us in Portland in early April.

This is an opportunity to change your writing life.  And that is a priceless outcome.