Short answer: Yes. I had a lot of questions like this myself during my days trying to break in. Everyone told me it wasn’t possible to make a living as a writer–that, like an actor or a musician, I’d spend my life poor and obscure. One of the big turning-points…
Don’t stop trying. It can take time to get published. It took me eight years. Just keep at it, and remember that this job is like any other. You wouldn’t expect to become a medical doctor without first doing a lot of study, research, and practice. In the same way,…
So I’ve finally finished writing that novel, and I’m pretty proud of it. How do I get from there to a hardcover book in my hands? We’ve discussed this issue several times on our Writing Excusespodcast. For instance, here are a number of podcasts about publishing, finding editors and agents,…
Or is it better to just read a lot, study books on writing, form my own writing groups, and practice and keep submitting, while ignoring the massive pile of rejection letters from magazines? This is an excellent question, one I went through myself when deciding whether or not to go…
I actually never got to take a class from Orson Scott Card, though I have enjoyed his books quite a bit. From what I hear, he has excellent advice for writers, but he wasn’t teaching any classes at BYU when I was there. I did take a class from David…
If you can’s attend my creative writing class at Brigham Young University, then you can find the lectures for a few years recorded and posted online. The 2020 lectures are on this playlist on my YouTube channel, and it’s likely that I will post more there in the future. The…
As a policy, we don’t advertise things like this during the class. Even just making an announcement implies that we’re endorsing the venture, which without careful vetting we can’t do. We suggest posting on the various online writing forums to find suitable applicants. To explain further, we once got a request…
I teach creative writing so that I can continue to interact with other writers, particularly writers with fresh new perspectives. This helps me in my own writing to keep me from being stagnant. It is also, I believe, a service to the community since as an aspiring writer/a younger writer,…
If you’re looking for information about Brandon Sanderson’s BYU writing class, click here.
Can you give me some hints on how to get accepted to Brandon’s BYU English 490R Sec 003 class? Karen here. I’m one of Brandon’s assistants, and I judge the applications each year. There are a few ‘tricks’ to getting accepted, but mostly they’re just common sense. Treat this application…