As I finish the last of the notes I took during this course, my one take away is…I finished an outline.  That is a first for me, so obviously this course helped.  I loved the way the information was presented via prerecorded videos on each topic.  James Patterson was so real and didn’t sugar coat anything, which made me laugh out several times.  It was just what I needed to get myself on track.

If anyone knows anything about me, they’d know that I’d been struggling to complete just one of my many works.  Just to be able to type “the end” and mean it would be a celebration for me, but that wasn’t how it was working out.  Call it being too hard on myself, call it poor method…whatever it was, I was drawn into my writing habit, the same one I’ve harbored for the last ten years, and there didn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel with what/how I was doing it.  So, I didn’t think a Master Class with a bestselling author would be the worst way to go about changing what I needed to in order to finally complete one damned story.

The end result?  I completed a coherent and believable outline-start to finish, no kidding!  Best thing I could have done for myself as a writer was push past the comfort zone of familiarity.  I mean I’ve always been a bit of a panster, and a bit of an outliner, but I’ve found with drafting a completed outline, that I still get to be both, it’s just that I have no reason to get stuck at 35K and not know where to lead my characters.

Also, if you haven’t heard, Mr. Patterson will be choosing one of his students to co-author a book with.  I believe the deadline is March 1st, but if you’re interested, you should probably check into it prior to that.

In the mean time, live well and write a lot.