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San Gabriel Valley Women Writers Meeting

  • Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse 1010 Foothill Boulevard La Cañada Flintridge (map)

A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN-IDENTIFIED AND GENDER NON-BINARY WRITERS

SGVWW Sept. Meeting: Plot Your Novel w/ the BS2 & Win NaNoWriMo!

https://www.facebook.com/events/892030541170714/

Join us for our September SGVWW meeting, which will feature TWO topics for the price of ONE! (And that price, as always, is FREE!) :)

Have you ever been curious about NaNoWriMo? Are you an experienced NaNoWriMo-er who plans to do it again? Do you have no idea what NaNoWriMo is? Whatever your situation, this meeting will help you out.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an annual writing project in which participants write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (usually during November). I (Renée Camus) did it for the first time last year— really my first time writing fiction at all—and I “won,” meaning I successfully completed the first draft of a novel! In fact, I continued working into January, because my story wasn’t finished yet, and my novel turned out to be about 80,000 words! 

For this meeting, I’ll share what I learned from the experience in the hopes that you all could “win” NaNoWriMo too! That includes my biggest piece of advice: Start early—hence my doing this workshop in September. ;)

I'll also talk about the BS2, or Blake Snyder Beat Sheet, which is a useful way to plot out your story, hitting all the necessary beats for a successful, coherent narrative, as described in Snyder’s "Save the Cat!" books (you may have heard me mention these books at previous meetings). 

I’ll describe the techniques in Snyder’s books that will help your novel come together, including genre, plot points, and story structure, discussing the various moments in the BS2. We’ll discuss how you can plan and schedule the prep for your novel, and the draft itself. We’ll finish by sharing some strategies, hints, and advice that will help you WIN NaNoWriMo.

As you can see, there’s a lot to discuss in this meeting, so please come early so you can get breakfast and we can start on time. Please RSVP so we know to expect you! (If you respond Yes, please make every effort to attend. Thanks!) 

See you on September 21! 

San Gabriel Valley Women Writers (SGVWW) is a supportive and knowledgable community of women-identified and gender non-binary writers focused on helping each other further our writing goals. We meet in-person monthly, usually on the third Saturdays, to network and learn about a different topic related to writing and publishing. Our monthly talks are hosted by a variety of professionals and cover everything from tax laws to building a writer's website, from finding an agent and pitching publications to creating compelling characters and writing strong dialogue. Writers of all types are welcome: journalists, fiction and non-fiction authors, novelists, poets, bloggers, professional and amateur, etc. We also meet online in our Facebook group. Join us! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1408189886175659/    

Earlier Event: September 15
Moonday Poetry Series
Later Event: September 21
Peter Seth, "When I Got Out"