Staring down a blank page can be more intimidating for new writers than facing a den of lions.
For those who have dreamt of writing a novel, but don’t know how to actually begin and need to find practical strategies for filling in all that white space, the Nelson library will be offering a workshop on Saturday, Nov. 2, 7-8:30 p.m., entitled Five Ways to Start: Writing a Novel.
The workshop will be taught by local author Deryn Collier and will feature five pragmatic ways a writer can move forward with their project after having an initial idea for a novel. Participants will leave the workshop with flexible tools they can apply to their own writing projects and plenty of ideas for how to move forward when they get stuck. The workshop is free and open to all levels of writers, including those who might be curious about the writing process.
“Writing a novel is rarely the straightforward process we might expect it to be," says Collier. "When procrastination and doubt creep in, it can be hard to know what to do next. I am excited to offer this workshop at the library and share some of the ways I’ve learned to keep the story moving forward.”
Collier had wanted to write mystery novels since reading her first Nancy Drew in the second grade. Her most recent work, A Real Somebody, is a novel of gentle suspense set in Montreal in 1947. She has written two previous novels, Confined Space, which was nominated for a Best First Novel award by the Crime Writers of Canada, and Open Secret.
The workshop kicks of National Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where there will write-ins happening in the library on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5-7 p.m. for the month of November.
