We had an amazing Saturday morning at the studio as our regular Creative Writing I students filed in and fought their way to the coffee pot. They’re a friendly group who like to hang out in the lounge and I had to corral them into class at 10am. And then the buzzer started and for the next half hour, thirty more people came to the studio to hear literary agent Sara Wolski share her Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing.

The classroom was packed and every time I peeked in, folks were taking copious notes and asking great questions. Sara was generous with her time and knowledge and I know she now has a lot of fans!

If you missed this seminar, don’t miss the next one with Sara on Saturday, March 13: The Art & Craft of the Book Pitch. She’ll talk about what makes a good pitch and then you’ll have the opportunity to practice yours with some brief individual feedback from Sara. But as you can see, there is limited space so if you’re ready--or close to being ready--to sell that fiction or non-fiction book, sign up now.

Do you have cabin fever yet? I’m definitely starting to feel its familiar fingers pulling at my sleeves. “Don’t you miss the outside world?” it whispers. “Shouldn’t you get out of the house? Aren’t you getting a little stir crazy?”

Why yes, Cabin Fever, yes I am. Thanks for pointing it out.

I don’t know about you, but my surefire techniques for fighting Cabin Fever are pretty simple:

• get out of the house
  
• spend time with interesting people
  
• get some work done
  
• run away to somewhere sunny and warm

Luckily, StoryStudio has a bunch of events coming up in the next few weeks to help us with the first three (the last one you’re on your own… but if you find cheap tickets to Mexico, LET ME KNOW).


Get out of the house? Easy. Come to a class or presentation like Agent Sara Wolski’s Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing this Saturday, or the Writing for Children & Young Adults class beginning next Tuesday, Lifewriting beginning March 1, or the always popular Food and Travel Writing class starting in March. (If you can’t get out of town, at least you can WRITE about it!)

Spend time with interesting people? We’ve got you covered! Come out to our Beaux Arts party on Friday, February 26, and mingle with writers, artists, musicians, and other clever, creative folks. We’ll have art, readings, and music by The Sometimes Family! 

Get some work done? Our next Write-a-Thon is Saturday, February 20th from 9am to 9pm. As always, you get access to the studio, food, drinks, wifi, and good writing juju all day!

So brave the snow, shovel your way out of the house, and join us here for enough writerly warmth to kick Cabin Fever out for good!

I started my writing career as a gun for hire. I was paid to write news stories and newsletters, proposals and presentations, even employee benefits manuals.

At first, I was terrified, worried that my style--my writing voice--would be ridiculed. After all, I wasn’t being paid to write like F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was supposed to persuade a prospect to buy a product or help an employee choose a health plan. it soon became clear that this type of writing was a collaborative process and I began to enjoy being the one to put that first draft together, to shape its structure. I also enjoyed that I was usually the last person to edit the piece, putting a final sheen on the words. It was a challenge, but one that became easier the more I wrote.

The lightbulb really went on for me years later when I began to study fiction and realized that while I was writing marketing materials for corporations, I was also telling a story, providing a “narrative” and a “call to action” for the reader.

When StoryStudio came along, it seemed natural that we would help business writers tell their stories better too. Some of the same techniques that we use to teach fiction and creative non-fiction help our business writing students be more confident and creative with the words they have to write for work.

In our upcoming one-day class, Business Writing Fundamentals, we start the day with some creative writing to loosen up our muscles. Then we work on strategies for efficiency and tools to make us more persuasive in our writing.

It’s a pretty fun class and it does a great job of slaying the demons that haunt us when we write at work.

Business Writing Fundamentals is on Monday, February 22. Oh, and did I mention we do lunch!

We’ve just finished our first Story Workout session and I’m as pumped up as you get can. The Workout class is supposed to be about writing prompts and practice. But I couldn’t help myself and I made the class read aloud the first paragraph from an Edward P. Jones short story called “The First Day.” It’s one I’ve read literally about fifty times and yet, each time I consider those words, I see something new, something brilliant in what this author has constructed. And I have to sit for a few minutes in awe.

But then I’m off and running and asking a million questions.

Most readers would focus on questions of theme and character and plausibility. And I’m interested in those things too. But as a writer, I am fascinated by the writing process itself, the sheer courage it
takes to follow a discovery of character, to enter into an imaginary world with no training wheels to guide you.

Was it hard to write from a young girl’s perspective? How much did he know about her family or what was going to happen on this day before he wrote the opening? What did his first draft look like and how did he know what to cut? Was this an idea for a novel but ended up as a short story?

These are the questions we’ll ask in the upcoming Reading as a Writer class. If you’ve been looking for the perfect match of Book Club and Writing Class, Reading as a Writer is it! We meet every other week (starting on February 3) for three sessions and we’ll be devouring a collection of some of my favorite short fiction, along with some stories I’ve always wanted to read.

One of the first pieces we read together will be--you guessed it--"The First Day.”

What books made you want to write?

Traditionally, this time of year is something of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I often find myself worn out from the relentless demands of the holidays—and from feeling turned out in a way that, while useful in getting a five-year-old boy through security at Midway on December 23 without losing your freaking mind, isn’t necessarily conducive to getting creative work done. Plus, it’s really cold outside.

On the other hand (the happy, well adjusted hand), a new year means new projects and goals, or perhaps a renewed dedication to old projects and goals.

I will admit (and hope that I’m not jinxing myself): I am off to a terrific start in 2010. I have rekindled an ongoing love affair with two of my favorite writers, Flannery O’Connor and Kurt Vonnegut; and I am working hard (and happily) each day, on my own fiction. It is, as any writer knows, always good to be working. So very, very good. Recently, I came across a sweet little article in the Wall Street Journal about how some authors are able to settle down and get to work.

As some of you already know, I am teaching Writing the Novel at StoryStudio Chicago for the spring term. The class begins on Tuesday, January 19, at 6:30. Jill and Molly always have a pot of fresh coffee brewing and I will have a fresh, new course packet with readings and topics that have captured my fancy in recent months. (So even if you’ve taken the class before, it will be new material.)

I can think of few ways I’d rather pass some of these cold winter nights than by gathering with friends and colleagues to share our collective wisdom and advice about each others’ work. I can think of no better way to keep the momentum going than by reading excerpts from great literature. And I can hardly wait to offer, and receive, the sort of encouragement and succor that a really good workshop offers. There are still some spaces available, so if you’ve been thinking about signing up for a class at Story Studio I hope you will consider my novel writing class.

As always, I promise to meet you where you are—at any stage of your writing process.

Here’s wishing you and yours a most happy and productive 2010. Or as I like to say to my dearest friends: “Happy New Year! (Fingers crossed!)”

Best wishes, Beth Wetmore

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