Today we welcome fellow author Bridget Whelan to tell us about her new creative writing how-to book! Take it away, Bridget!
Following Michelle’s excellent example of shameless self-promotion, I jumped at her invitation to guest post about my new ebook BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL and how you can get hold of a free copy.
What’s it about?
It’s about finding ideas and developing them through a programme of 30 practical writing exercises that range from magic for grown ups to humour and horror writing. It’s about playing around with language and injecting a little rhythm into prose. There are lucky dip exercises that fling strange ideas together and formulas for creating characters that will walk off the page and start throwing their weight around. There are story prompts and poetry exercises for writers who do not want to write a poem, alongside exercises that will help you to start a memoir or look more closely at the world you live in.
All the exercises in the book have been tried and tested on real students. I’ve selected the most popular ones that offer an interesting challenge and have the potential to push you in new directions. And the ones that are fun. Writing is hard work: it doesn’t have to be punishment.
I’ve developed these ideas over nine years while I’ve been teaching creative non fiction at university, fiction in adult education and worked as Writer in Residence at a community centre serving the unwaged and low waged. In that period I’ve had one novel published by a mainstream publishing house and won $US4000 in an international short story competition, but no writer knows all the answers. Every time I am in a classroom I learn something new about creative writing. Every time I pick up a pen. Or read a book that grabs my imagination.
However, fair warning, this book will not tell you how to:
Bridget Whelan (author)
- write a bestseller next weekend
- win competitions
- become rich and famous as a novelist.
Nor is it a guide to finding an agent or selling a short story. There are other books – good books – that can help with all that (except about being rich and famous, never trust a how-to book on that subject) but BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL is about creating the material that could become a prizewinning short story or the novel you’ve always wanted to write.
And for 24 hours it is free.
Download it from midnight Sunday December 1st (tonight!) to midnight Monday December 2nd (Pacific time) from your most convenient Amazon.
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GJN576E
Amazon.uk
And come over and say hello on facebook. I’d love to see you! https://www.facebook.com/creativewritingschool
Unrelated link of the day:
The tone matrix! Make beautiful music with no musical experience whatsoever!
Michelle Proulx - Author 
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I bought the book for free on Amazon and started reading it right away and I am very impressed. It really is a creative writing class/course. Excellent.
Awesome! I’m slowly but surely reading through my own copy, and it’s looking really impressive so far 🙂
Sorry it’s taken me so long to come back and visit – thanks Karen and Michelle for your encouraging comments. And if you get a chance to post a review – no rush – I wouldn’t be the least bit offended! Seriously, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the giveaway but it quite exciting – the end result was about 1300 in 24 hours. I have nothing to compare that to but I was delighted and I bet a good many of the people who downloaded found out through your website Michelle – so, big thanks!
No problem 🙂 1300 is a fantastic number!!! Congrats!