Write Right? All Right!

This is a public confession: I am one of those "tortured writer" types.

You see, I tend to fall madly and idyllically in love with my Big Idea. When it first sparks to life the Big Idea's message churns in the background for a long time, grinding and polishing. What is it I'm trying to say? Then with glistening fragility, my Big Idea begins to crawl, then walk. I lay awake at night worrying about its future, what it will be when it grows up. Then, suddenly, it's asking to borrow the car and sneaking into the liquor cabinet. I endure hand-wringing nights by focusing on the things that made me fall in love in the first place. I have faith. Then, in the end, if I'm lucky, my Big Idea and I will ride off into the sunset of my artistic expression.

That's not easy, you know. But thanks to my beautiful and talented friend and mentor Melissa Lion, it can be easier. Or at least less angsty.

Melissa is a two-time Random House novelist, book reviewer, and popular blogger who lives in my beloved St. Johns neighborhood. In addition to co-running Back Fence PDX (which has a show tomorrow night at the Mission Theater) she just started Long Lunch PDX, a series of writing classes about creating words specifically for the Internet.

On Saturday Melissa will teach Write Right All Right, the first in a series of narrative crafting classes aimed at the Internet writer: the bloggers, the online journalists, the multimedia artists. In this three-hour class (in which lunch is included courtesy of Silicon Florist) Melissa will talk about technical aspects of writing for the Web, such as social media tools, and writing in general, such as grammatical errors and conceptualizing the Big Idea from start to finish. The emotional aspects of writing will also be discussed, such as confidence building and maintaining creativity flow.

Another public confession: I need help with all of that.

Think about it: three hours of a professional novelist's insight into prose for the Web, plus lunch, for 45 bucks. That's a bargain, folks. I've already got my ticket. Who wants to sit next to me in class? Get your tickets now!

Let's go steady!