The LONG Project: The Finished Novel w/Miah Arnold

Wed Sept 30, Oct 14, Oct 28, Nov 11, Nov 25, (~Dec 9) & Jan 13 // 6:00-8:00 p.m.

The LONG Project is a 4-5 person class for writers who have completely or nearly finished a draft book or long project, and want the whole thing read for workshop.  Your peers will serve as beta readers, cheerleaders, and critics.

In the first hour we will discuss questions all the writers have, and we will have a writing prompt meant to help add scenes, ideas, and fill out a work. The second hour is reserved for workshopping.  We’ll have twenty minutes of breaks/snack/lunch so those skipping out on the workday don’t return hungry, and I’ll be available to chat with during that time. Every week we will have one workshop.

Workshops may help writers seriously face problems of structure, character arcs, and forward momentum. We help reconceptualize the story that may have come out in fits and starts, with an eye for the end. We will discuss plot holes, sags in the pacing, and problems with characters who may seem one thing in the writers eyes but seem something else to early readers. Again, we will talk out problems the writers face as they iron out the flaws and problems they identified in their earlier drafts.  This is a time for tightening, for writers to discover where readers find themselves most engaged, and when they lose interest or belief in the story and why. To see if the story they intended is the story that is received.

This class meets 6 or 7 times, depending on whether 4 or 5 people sign up. During the weeks of full novel workshopping, it focuses on one novel, every other week.  The last class involves turning in outlines and early revisions for a new draft, and during the first class we’ll discuss outside reading, how to give each other feedback, and we’ll make a schedule for our work.

Sept 27: 1.5 hours for schedule & introductions
Oct 11: 2.25 hours novel workshop
Oct 25: 2.25 hours novel workshop
Nov 8: 2.25 hours novel workshop
Nov 22: 2.25 hours novel workshop
Dec 6: (We will not have this class if we don’t have 5 students)
Jan 10:  2.25 hours (revision; possible last class, depending on number of students)

COSTS:
$800 if you have NOT taken a previous LONG Project Class for this novel
$700 if you HAVE taken a pervious LONG Project Class for this novel
PLUS .5 (half a cent) per word for novels LONGER than 95,000 words

2 WEEKS BEFORE CLASS:

1) READ Hyssop by Kevin McIlvoy. It is a short, beautiful, imperfect novel not everybody will like, but that has a lot of great moves everybody could learn from.

2) SEND a document that includes:

your title
the word count
what draft this is (first, third, seventh…don’t overthink it, just tell me what you think it is)
the book’s genre (Ie literary, adventure, romance, sci fi, coming of age, ya, etc, maybe a mix)
the book’s form (book of essays or short stories, memoir, novel, play, other…
the audience (who you expect will enjoy and buy the book

3) WRITE a book jacket summary of your work (like what people read in bookstores when they’re browsing books; try to hook us in in three paragraphs or less!)

Miah Arnold is the principal and founder of Grackle and Grackle. She has taught creative writing for over twenty years at nonprofits and she has also taught in universities including the University of Houston (where she received her Ph.D. in Creative Writing). Her essay “You Owe Me”, about teaching children at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was collected in Best American Essays in 2012. Her first novel, Sweet Land of Bigamy, was published in 2012. She is currently working on a book of essays and a book of poetry.


GRACKLE IMAGE by artist Phillip Wade.