Monday, November 20, 2017

Education

     I took another class at the Indiana Writers Center Saturday: "Finishing Your First Novel (and your second)."  Pretty good stuff, with due attention to plotting and structure.  I am hoping it will help get me off top dead center with Dropping In.  Presently warming up with a top-to-bottom rewrite of The Veteran, intended to move it from a detailed character sketch to more of an actual story.

     Time, as they say, will tell.  Plenty of people would like to write; some of them do write; some write pretty well.

     The same instructor taught a course on self-publishing, in the general Kindle Direct Publishing model.  He's making fair money at it, which is as good a recommendation as can be had.  The class will likely return next year and I'll be looking for it.

     The Writer's Center itself is moving, or at least its main classroom space (etc.) is moving.  While the occasional class sets up at charming Marian University, IWC has mostly been renting space at the Indianapolis Art Center, a 1934 WPA survival that outlasted its Federal funding by pluck, luck and the contributions of members to become a charitable foundation with its own splendid classrooms and gallery space...and is now so busy with its own work and so sought-after as an event venue that rents have gone up.  The new IWC location will be in a new artist's workspace opening up on downtown's Massachusetts Avenue, the Circle City Industrial Complex.  Seems to have a brewpub, which means there's a good chance of at least soft drinks and munchables -- possibly even coffee, which is sadly lacking at the present space, a smallish classroom/office building on the Art Center campus.  Alas, no longer a quick bicycle ride for me, but it will be well within motor-scooter distance.

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