When something unexpected happens in any story of mine, my initial response in dialogue is always "WHAT THE—."



This will not sustain me as a novelist.

As you may have noticed from my recent posts, I've been spending some hours with Margaret Atwood in her MasterClass. I watched the last lesson today, and I'm happy to report that I greatly enjoyed our time together.

Her class is especially helpful for writers who have yet to endure the experience of seeing a novel all the way through, from concept to bookstore shelf. She offers up many essential craft basics, as well as examples from her own writing and that of others to illustrate her points. She truly knows her stuff (obviously) and her delivery is full of encouragement. She's also funny and charming, so the entertainment value is high; even though her tips weren't often new to me, I was never bored.

Personally, even though I was familiar with much of the content already, it was helpful to get "big-picture" reminders from her -- a writer I deeply respect and admire -- specifically the screenshots I featured on this blog. These reminders have proved quite useful as I finish up the final stages of writing my second manuscript.

MasterClass isn't cheap, but if you stumble across it at half price like I did (thanks Mariska!), and you're dying to write a novel but you haven't a clue about what that entails, or you're a huge fan of Atwood's, or you're a more experienced writer who needs a boost, I recommend it.

Guess who got 50% off Masterclass and is going to flood this blog with writing advice screenshots for the next week or so?