Local author Greg Lilly is hosting a free workshop for aspiring writers this month based on his newest book, and he will sign copies of the book during the event.
“Test That Idea” is a workshop that will offer exercises and examples from Lilly’s new book “Sunsets & Semicolons – a Field Guide to the Writer’s Life.” The workshop and book signing will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 14, at the Barnes & Noble in New Town.
“This is one writer’s life from creativity to craft,” he says. “From staring at sunsets to sweating over semicolons. It’s a field guide to navigating the Writer’s Life.”
Lilly left the corporate technology world for a career in the written word; since then, he has worked as a magazine editor, fiction author and small press publisher. That journey led Lilly to develop and conduct several acclaimed workshops and seminars for aspiring writers.
One of the first steps in beginning a novel is to test an idea to see if it has the potential to sustain the writer for 300 pages, according to Lilly. His upcoming workshop uses several exercises help writers examine their ideas to see if they hold up to this principle. “Countless writers, including me, have started a novel only to have it fizzle out after 20 pages,” Lilly says. “That’s frustrating and discouraging.”
Over the years, Lilly has created worksheets and methods to help alleviate unproductive or underdeveloped story ideas. He has presented workshops and served on panels at the College of William & Mary’s Christopher Wren Association, the Virginia Festival of the Book, the Virginia Writers Club, the World Bank in Washington, D.C. , and the Sedona Arts Center in Sedona, Arizona. Th idea for the the book came from requests for his workshop handouts and notes.
His book shares Lilly’s experiences and techniques – things that worked, not in academia or in New York City, but in the real world of freelancing and query letters and book signings.
