Independent Study: Preface

It is January 5th and Winter semester is ever so quickly approaching. Within a few days, I'll be watching my Winter break disappear into a cloud of drifting snow while I fight against the desire to sleep on a desk, which shouldn't be too difficult. That desire is only easy to fight because I know they don't clean the desks properly. A small, sticky ring of soda that remained on one of the tables for two weeks during my first semester of college attests to the truthfulness of that statement. Yuck. But desk cleanliness aside, I thought it was time to look back on the first post I wrote here.

In Ink Is Gold: A Blogging Adventure, I mentioned that I would be making posts on my Independent Study course. Since that class starts on Monday morning, I think it is time for the first of several posts revolving around this class.

What is this Independent Study class you speak of?
 
This semester, I get to take a class on novel writing... alone.

In 2009, I took an intro to creative writing course composed of two units: poetry and short story. I walked away with a great deal of knowledge. When the class was over, I tried to find a class that taught intro to novel writing, but the college (being a small campus) doesn't have a class like that.

After asking around a bit more, I found out that I could take an Independent Study course - something I had never heard of before - if I could find a professor willing to teach me. So I went back and talked to my wonderful creative writing professor, Carrie, and she said that she would be willing to work with me. Long story short: a lot of planning and paper work happened, the dean is currently looking everything over, and I'm in a class that may or may not be quite similar to a top secret operation.

What are you going to be studying?

• Plot
• Subplot
• Novel Beginnings
• Character
• Writing Voice & Style
• Details
• Editing, Revising, and Rewriting
  

What can we expect to see on here as a result of this class?

Well, for one thing, you'll be seeing more posts in the Writing Tips section.

But, as I will be writing bits and pieces of various novels during this semester, you will also be seeing posts about my writing progress, the class itself and the learning process, and maybe even a couple of excerpts. Plus - even though this is mostly just for me because it is motivating to watch progress like that - those little bars on the side of my blog detailing writing progress will start moving and possibly changing.


Anyway, that's about it for now. I don't know much more than that at this point, but if you have questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to get answers for you.

End Preface.