Tag Archives: creative writing class

Slowly, the adrenaline is ebbing out of my body. I’ve just come back from the local high school, where I gave a pep talk to the Creative Writing class on NaNoWriMo – which, of course, is coming up in just ten days. The youngest Offspring happens to be a student in that class, and I know the teacher because she used to be the elementary school librarian before moving to the high school; I helped out running Scholastic Book Fairs a time or two (being a book addict, that’s like peddling dope to kids, trying to get them hooked – muahahahah!). I’d been telling her about my books – Happy Birthday, Seventh Son! – and offered to talk to the class about self-publishing, but as it turns out, she’d just had an author in, doing that very thing. However, she was interested in getting the kids into NaNoWriMo. So off I went, armed with a copy each of Seventh Son and Cat and Mouse to show them what can come out of participating in NaNoWriMo, and I gave them that talk.

My nerves are still jangling. They’re slowly settling down, but periodically I get a little jolt again – you know, like those cartoon characters being zapped by a live wire. [Bzzzzzzt! I sounded like a fool, didn’t I?] I don’t mind public speaking, not even in front of a class of high school students, if I know what I’m talking about [Bzzzzzt! I took far too long!], but it creates a massive adrenaline rush. [Bzzzzzt! I talked way too much about myself, and not nearly enough about NaNo!] And then my nerves have to settle down again afterwards. If it was suppertime, I’d just have a nice glass of wine [Bzzzzt! What’d I say that for?], that would do the trick, but seeing as it’s only 10:30 in the morning, an also-very-nice cup of tea will have to do (rooibos, not mintbrew, in this case). [Bzzzzt!]

Well, I hope I put the NaNo bug in some of the kids’ ears. If one or two of them go to the NaNo page to sign up, and it maybe gets a young novelist started on their path [Bzzzzzt! I never told them about last year’s grad who’d mentioned winning NaNo twice!], it’ll have been well worth the adrenaline zaps. Just think, how fitting that it took place during Seventh Son‘s birthday week!

And now my nerves are calming down, the zaps are getting fewer and farther apart [bzzt!], and it’s time to get on with the rest of my day. Incidentally, speaking of said Seventh Son‘s birthday week, you can still get the ebook on sale and enter the draw for a hardcopy. Go do that thing!

Life, the Universe, and [bzzt!] Adrenaline Zaps. Happy Birthday, Seventh Son!