The Barrens by Kurt Johnson
I enrolled in Peter Geye’s first Year-Long Novel Writing Project in the fall of 2016. I had previously written a draft of a memoir and a first novel, so I knew I had both the discipline and desire. My plan was to write third book written with the help of a seasoned professional and the feedback from like-minded people. I had a few chapters of the third book written along with an outline. By the end of 2017, I had a solid first draft along with detailed developmental edit from Peter.
Here’s a taste of each week’s class. One writer’s twenty pages or so is circulated among the dozen students. There’s no order to the process, but each student gives feedback to the pages with things they liked or thought needed work. The student is expected to keep their head down, take notes, and not become defensive. As the feedback comes in, certain themes circulate and gel—what character worked, what scene worked, where the narrative jumped the tracks. Peter weighs in. He's not pandering, nor is he brutal in any way.
What I personally got from Peter was honest feedback that helped move my writing in the right direction, and also encouragement—it’s a lonely job and all too easy to quit. With this structured course, I found the kind of worthwhile criticism that you won’t get from family or friends (assuming they’re willing to read your stuff in the first place) and a group of people who are supportive through an endeavor that’s deeply personal.
After the year-long class was over, I’ve kept in touch with Peter and many of the students. I’m now part of a writing workshop formed that includes those students and we continue with the writing and feedback exercises learned in the class. Though the book completed in that year was never published, I wrote a next novel, The Barrens, that will be published in May 2022. Peter was a first reader and provided the important feedback to get the novel to a place where agents found it compelling.
On additional aspect to the Novel Writing Project was the immersion in the publishing world itself. Peter brought in other writers, agents, and editors to discuss the business and provide an insight into the publishing process. We were able to write agent query letters and have real agents provide feedback, witness through Peter’s novels how the editing process works prior to publication, and hear from established writers how their journey through the publishing world began and evolved. All this became invaluable once I began searching for an agent and then a publisher for The Barrens.