Hi friends,
This Sunday I am hosting a One Day Writing Retreat in downtown Chapel Hill and registration closes Thursday!
The One Day Writing Retreat is a great way to skip out on your life for a day and focus on your writing. The day is split between quiet writing sessions where you can plug away on your project (or sigh and stare out the window, which is also an important part of the writing practice!) and discussion sessions where we dig into craft.
This Sunday, we’ll have two meaty craft discussions. One will be about voice—we’ll look at some examples of voice in fiction and memoir, break down what is working (and not working!), and do some exercises to explore and deepen voice in our own work.
We’re also going to talk about how to diverge from chronological storytelling. Our early drafts are often “in order” — recounting events (fictional or not) in the chronological order they occurred. In this discussion, we’ll look at how to interrupt chronological storytelling and weave together events out of order to create more narrative cohesion and tension. In other words: how to tell a story not quite in order to make it more compelling and readable. This conversation will be applicable to both memoir and fiction.
Doesn’t that sound like fun? Wouldn’t it be nice to take a day off and dive into your writing?
I know what you’re thinking: This is the busiest time of the year. There’s way too much to do.
But I have to tell you a secret. There will ALWAYS be too much to do.
Another secret: It’s OK to put aside your to-do list and prioritize your creativity. It’ll make you a happier person, which, as it turns out, will make that list a little easier to tackle. But don’t do it for the list—do it for you.
Here’s the sign up page. Registration closes Thursday (2 days from now!) at 11:59pm. Financial aid is available—just hit reply to find out more.
All the nitty gritty details:
The retreat is THIS SUNDAY 12/3 is at the Junction, UNC’s co-working space in downtown Chapel Hill. There’s a parking deck right next door, and it’s free on Sundays.
We start at 10am and end at 5pm.
You bring your writing and your lunch. I bring the craft and the quiet.
Together we make magic.
Registration closes Thursday so sign up now!
