Inkslinger - 99-Day Guided Writing Experience

 

Inkslinger is a well written, humorous, encouraging, and truly accessible guide with tips for solidifying ideas into written words, and editing them into a usable (possibly marketable) finished product. Released 5th Nov 2020 by Night River Press, it's a compact 150 pages and available in electronic format. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

Every year when NaNoWriMo rolls around, I intend to sit down and get words on paper. Every year until now it's turned into a somewhat stress filled NaNoWriNO-WAY for me personally. The author, Kimberly Cooper Griffin, gives me some hope that I can manage to get some words down and at least begin to understand the mechanics behind getting them into a readable form. After all, I've managed hundreds of thousands of words over my years on this blog (so how hard can it be, right? *haha*). 

The guided course is set up like a workshop (without the group therapy aspects) in a logical and progressive format. The introduction and preparatory sections provide an overview of the course: background information (including tips on genre, target audience, text elements and overviews for both fiction and non-fiction writing and moving through a realistic and (sorry) brutal examination of the self-editing and revision process).

The second part of the material includes the actual timeline calendar (99 days). The author has broken it down into four main sections: inspiration, perspiration, celebration, transformation. This is a very concise guide and well laid out. I never found myself searching fruitlessly for needed information. The voice is very positive and upbeat and full of humorous camaraderie - we're all in this together. 

The appendices include a good insider's overview of what happens after the newly born work is finished and edited - to publish (or not), how to publish (the options), and insightful no-nonsense info about the writerly life. This would be a good selection for a would-be writer, and I can also see it being a solid choice for a more formal writing class or writing instruction in a classroom setting. 

Whether or not I ever manage to get through NaNoWriMo with something approaching a book/story/WordyThing - this book certainly provided both inspiration and reflection. It's very good at what it does. Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.