creative writing

Keithmoon Drumbeat teaches an online creative writing workshop at UBC in Second Life

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Keithmoon Drumbeat leads a UBC creative writing workshop on Second LifeI just had an awesome experience today having my story critiqued in a workshop.  But this workshop is not in the real world but on Second Life, the online alternate world.  For those who are unfamiliar with Second Life, people choose an avatar and enter the world, run around, meet people, shop, make money, and in some cases, go to class.  This class, sponsored by the University of British Columbia and taught by Canadian writer, Kevin Chong, was an undergraduate creative writing workshop completely on Second Life.

The class members don’t have to be in the same place at all.  They just work it like an online class, each at their own computer, but the Second Life twist is that they can appear all in the same room together, chatting.  Everyone chooses a cool name.  On Second Life, you can belong to families—so they give you surnames to choose from, and then you pick your first name.  On Second Life, I am Bison Steampunk.

Next you choose an avatar, and Second Life has probably the best avatar creator on the web.  Even World of Warcraft is limited to the six or seven creatures to pick from….  but on Second Life, you can literally be anything: a toaster, a zombie, an animated foot, a stuffed animal.  One day I am going to get the Minotaur with the Battle Axe.  Hehe.  But for now, I stuck with the free avatar and shaped him myself.   I also picked up some free body parts, skins, and adaptations for my avatar at a Men’s retreat center online called Thor’s Den.  I’ll admit, I went a little crazy on the avatar and he’s easy on the eyes.  So he’s not a perfect rendition of me.  But that’s the joy of Second Life.  You can be anything and anyone you want to be.

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CRWR 244: Intro to Novel Writing begins Monday

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Jumping into the New Dimension by Fadzly Mubin, all rights reserved

Take the Plunge!

“I just need a kick in the pants!” —You might have said that about writing a novel. You have one in you, but you never had the time or the direction to push it out. Now you do.

If you’re thinking about signing up for the Novel Writing course–then sign up soon! It’s the first time a novel writing course has been offered at Yukon College. It all begins on Monday night, Sept 8, 7-10pm.

Writing can be a lonely business, and novel writing can be daunting–but this course aims to keep you encouraged through a group of people all writing their own novels. Read more about the class on the “Writing Classes” page, and through my posts, “The First Draft is the Hardest.” Write me if you have any questions at jstueart@yahoo.com

There are no prerequisites to the class and Andrew Richardson has agreed to sign off on any students who are interested. You just need to want to write and push out a novel–but with 15 people–it will be enjoyable and we will go through all the roadblocks to writing together! We need 15 people to make the class work at optimum level–there are 7 spaces left.

*All genres of writing are welcome–however, we have a separate class for Science fiction and Fantasy writers on Tuesday nights through the City of Whitehorse, called WorldBuilders, if you want to work with other SFF writers!

Come to Yukon College and take the plunge into a novel!