Start Your Novel Boot Camp for PR Pros

 Are you a public relations or communications professional who always dreamed of writing a novel?

Did you shelve your own creative pursuits for a more practical job that showcased your writing skills?

Are you unsure if your novel idea is “good enough” or where to even start?

Is your bookshelf groaning under the weight of craft books with conflicting advice?

Or does it all seem too hard or too time consuming to even contemplate writing a book while balancing your day job and personal life?  

I have been there!! 

I wanted to be a writer since I understood the names on the front of the books I inhaled like oxygen were real people whose job was to write them.

But somewhere in high school, after working on the literary magazine and before college applications, I began to put creative writing in a separate place in my mind. A frivolous place. A place for childhood dreams.

I replaced my dreams with practicality. I started college and bumped around the English department a bit while somehow avoiding the creative writing department as something too indulgent. I landed in the journalism school eventually navigating to the public relations track and found something that seemed to marry my writing skills with communication theory. It seemed too good to be true: Writing and employment opportunity.

And it was great. Until it wasn’t. I still wanted to write. Needed to write. I realized that if I didn’t try to write a novel, I would always regret it.

So I wrote a novel.

Slowly. Poorly. I loved and hated it the process in equal measure. I learned as I went. I felt alone a lot of the time. I made a whole lot of mistakes. And then, I finished it. I pitched it. I wrote another. I joined WFWA and found a group of writing colleagues to learn from. I took classes.

And in the writing (and rewriting) of the second book, I realized all I didn’t know the first time around.

Since then, I’ve written a third novel (currently querying) and became a book coach.

I felt so stuck so many times in my journey to becoming a writer that I wanted to help other writers avoid the same mistakes I made. I love the feeling of helping a writer free themselves from what’s holding them back and break through to the solutions that allow them to tell the story they wish to tell.

During the course of my book coaching, I realized several of my clients were also in the public relations field. Seems I wasn’t the only one who put aside creative dreams for practical purposes only to be lured back to the page eventually.

And it got me to thinking: How many of us are out there? How many are afraid to start because they aren’t sure where to begin? How many stop because they are slowly making their way through the same learn as you go process I went through but might keep going if they had a little guidance and help?

If you are a PR pro and have ever wanted to write a novel but aren’t sure where to start, I am so excited to announce that I have created the Start Your Novel Boot Camp specifically for you! 

The Start Your Novel Boot Camp is a three-week program that will include a live presentation, tools to clarify your story idea, individual feedback from a trained book coach (that’s me!) to give you the confidence to write forward with this idea, an opportunity for live Q&A with me to get your writing and publishing questions answered, and a private online community where you can connect with other PR pros who want to write a novel. 

Writing as a professional to communicate is telling a story but not exactly the same as writing a novel. When you finish the three-week program, you will have the foundation you need to write your novel as well as a community of support that understands your unique struggles.

If you are in PR or communications and have always dreamt of writing a novel, I invite you to join us this August. You can see the schedule and more information here.

Not ready to sign up yet but want to be kept up to date on the program? Sign up for updates here. Registration will close on July 30th.