The Red Wheelbarrow Writers and Village Books present a new six-month writing program, “Roadmap to Writing Your Book,” to be held at the Village Inn in Fairhaven once a month. In these monthly workshops, you’ll learn about creating “SMART” goals, benchmarks, and schedules for your writing that will help you get your writing done at last. Find out how to make sure your project goals are reachable and reasonable, and then learn how to organize your writing time so that you can get to work.

Through the months ahead, writers who enroll in this six month program will participate in classes and group coaching sessions each month, taught by Red Wheelbarrow faculty members Laura Kalpakian, Cami Ostman, Nancy Adair, and Deb Currier. Sessions will focus on building the skills and habits you need in order to be successful at making significant progress on your narrative project by the end of 2013 (both fiction writers and narrative nonfiction writers are welcome). Classes will take place the third Thursday of each month from 6-9pm in the conference room at the Fairhaven Village Inn, 1200 10th Street, Bellingham, WA 98225. Tuition is $399 and includes a copy of Priscilla Long’s book, The Writer’s Portable  Mentor. Registration is available at the main counter at Village Books, 1200 11th Street.

Class schedule:

May: How Do You Write?: Working with Your Myers/Briggs Profile to Create Optimal Work Habits and The Six Traits of Good Writing. This is a three-hour seminar which will start you off on the right foot. Content focuses on helping you know yourself as a writer and directing you to keep an eye on the general aspects of good writing while producing manuscript.

June: Narrative arc in book-length fiction and nonfiction. Instruction and group coaching.

July: Character development. Instruction and group coaching.

August: Writing effective dialogue. Instruction and group coaching.

September: Manuscript revision. A three-hour workshop with writing prompts that will teach you how to have an eye for structural revision.

October: Reading in public. Instruction and practice to help you get ready for your author reading.

November: Author reading at Village Books. Choose a portion of your work to read to an audience at Village Books.

For more information, contact Cami at clostman@live.com