Our intern, Shelby Weisburg, a graduate student in NC State’s MFA Fiction Writing program, recently interviewed Pat Morris, about his experiences in Redbud’s year-long 2024 Novel Intensive class. Read on to learn how the course helped Pat gain the skills, accountability, and motivation to complete a full draft of his novel!

Can you start by introducing yourself as a writer? What did you work on over the course of this class?

I just finished the year-long Novel Intensive class at Redbud. I took the Writing the Novel class a year and a half ago as well. Outside of writing, I'm an English instructor at Durham Tech Community College, and I've worked in education one way or another for the last 20 years. I've been writing consistently for about 12 years and until recently wrote short stories and humor pieces. I just finished the first draft of a novel, which is something I've been wanting to do for over 20 years. It's a young adult novel set in Columbus, Ohio about a Mexican-American rising freshman girl who impulsively decides to join her high school cross-country team despite having zero athletic ability and draws from many parts of my background as a runner, coach and teacher.

How did you hear about Redbud and what made you decide to take this class?

I'm sure I heard about Redbud through some teaching or writing friends. I was looking for a writing group that I could learn from and draw support from. I never had any formal training in creative writing, so I've always felt a little bit lost in terms of craft, not knowing what I was doing or what I was looking for. The first class I took seemed like an obvious and easy thing to do, and I really enjoyed the experience and the instructor. It was a great balance of accountability and craft.

So when the novel intensive came across my email, I hopped on the chance. I was hoping for more consistency in my writing practice and to have the accountability of a group invested in a year-long experience. And, of course, I was hoping to get some pointers about technique, but I think what I needed more was advice about motivating through the moments of self-doubt that come with finishing a novel. As someone who's only written short stories, I could envision the novel in my head but lacked momentum to finish the first draft. In other words, I got through that initial honeymoon phase of all my great ideas and then realized I still had a long way to go.

Can you talk a little bit about the course itself? How was it structured and what were your biggest takeaways?

I really enjoyed how this class was structured. It was equal parts support group, equal parts craft class, and equal parts learning from each other and giving feedback. I particularly loved our instructor Ben’s demeanor. He struck the right balance of being supportive and encouraging, while also giving us some very real pressure and deadlines to meet. I appreciated that we had some really fruitful lessons and activities along the way, but Ben always made sure to prioritize just finishing. That was our class’s mantra: just get it done. We talked about craft. We talked about character development and balancing dialogue and action and interiority and all these things, but Ben made sure that was always secondary to just getting it done.

That was my biggest takeaway: being able to turn this thing I love into a discipline that I can work at every day. I also have a much better roadmap for how to revise. Now, I have a plan when I sit down. I know how to reread and look at my scenes from another angle. This class definitely showed me what I need to make creative writing a lifelong pursuit. I definitely need community. And I need discipline. I need people that will read my writing and give me support and honesty. And I also need to make it a daily habit. Those are definitely the things I'll carry from this class through the next phase of my writer life.

What did you accomplish in this class that you’re the most proud of?

I’m proud that I finished the first draft of a novel. I've had many, many ideas that I've abandoned over the last two decades. Obviously, I'm going to try to revise and put my novel out there and see if I can get interest from an agent, but I'm old enough to just appreciate how difficult of a task that was and be satisfied with just finishing something that I'm happy to let people read.

The 2024 Novel Intensive Cohort being subject to Arshia’s photography skills

What is the community at Redbud Writing Project like? How did the community impact what you took away from the class?

In our class, we had writers from all different backgrounds, including age, writing experience, professional pursuits, and writing genres. We had a group of folks writing fantasy novels. A couple of folks were exploring their kind of cross-cultural, diasporic experiences in the United States. And we had someone who was writing a novel set in 200 AD. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't equipped to give very substantial feedback because they were writing things that I could only dream of trying to tackle. But it was also a really fun experience to try to get in there and think about the different genres and what they needed. And they reciprocated, too. People writing in different genres in my workshop asked me questions about my work that helped me flesh out my characters and conflict in ways I’d never thought of. Everybody was very smart, very sharp, and very forthcoming. I gained a lot of valuable insight and encouragement.

Overall, why would you recommend getting involved with Redbud?

I would recommend getting involved with Redbud because we all need that intentional community of support and encouragement.

Student Spotlight: Pat Morris from our 2024 Year Long Novel Intensive