We can do it!
My good friend Mandy and I are planning to start teaching novel-writing writing courses soon. Here in South Africa there's a dearth of courses aimed at writers (or aspiring writers) of commercial fiction. Here, if you're a poet or write literary fiction dripping in political angst, you've got it made. Write commercial fiction? Not so much. Another reason I see a huge need to pass on what I've learned over the last few years is that I really believe anyone can write a novel. (Can anyone publish? Well, that's a whole other blog post.) But I very strongly believe that anyone who wants to write a novel can - and should. We all started at that place where we said "I want to write a novel one day". Some of us did it because we had the discipline and focus to make ourselves sit down and write. Some of us needed a bit of a shove from friends or family. All of us discovered along the way that we had a helluva lot to learn. And hopefully, like me, most of us d...