This workshop is currently full. Please join the waiting list to be notified when a spot becomes available.
The Rewrite Master Class is a Live-on-Zoom workshop with Alan Watt for novelists and memoirists seeking to complete their work for publication.
"The challenge of the rewrite lies in preserving the wildness of your first draft while distilling your ideas to their nature."
THE PROCESS OF REVISION
The Rewrite Master Class is an ongoing workshop that takes you on a deep dive into the material you created in The 90-Day Novel and The 90-Day Memoir. This workshop is not a mere examination of your prose — it teaches you a process of uncovering hidden patterns that allow you to create a dynamic and compelling narrative.
My goal as a teacher is to help you stay connected to your original impulse by asking the right questions. In the rewrite, it is often tempting to sterilize the complexity or contradictions in your work in order to make it "understandable" — but too often I've witnessed the dismemberment of fully alive first drafts. The Rewrite Master Class is an opportunity to deepen your relationship to your material by gaining a clearer sense of what you set out to express.
The 90-Day Novel and The 90-Day Memoir processes were primarily designed as a right brain exercise to guide you to the completion of a first draft without going back and editing. The rewrite process involves moving back and forth between the left and right brain — where you are editing and refining prose, while simultaneously generating new material and clarifying your theme.
The rewrite process is not a science, but an art, where the goal is to shed everything that doesn't belong in order for the truth to emerge.
Class Size: Limited to 16 writers
Class Length: This is an ongoing workshop. Once you are in the workshop, you are welcome and encouraged to stay until you complete your rewrite. When a writer leaves, their spot is offered to the next writer on the waiting list.
Class Days and Times: Tuesdays 9:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Where: Zoom
Price: $1,650/12-week session
Please note: There are no refunds for this workshop, nor transferring registration to other classes. We do not prorate for missed classes.
about the workshop
We meet once a week in a LIVE Zoom call on Tuesdays from 9:45 am-12 pm Pacific Time.
The workshop consists of four cohort groups with four writers in each group. Writers share their material with their fellow cohorts, and each week, one writer from each cohort reads their work in class. Alan Watt offers notes and opens it up to discussion between members of the cohort.
Each Zoom workshop is recorded. You will receive a link to play back the workshop as often as you wish for up to three weeks after the last class.
Every morning a daily letter lands in your inbox.
The letters were developed over the course of several years, and are a guide through the process of creating a compelling narrative.
Writers often comment on the synchronicity of the letters — on how they seem to meet you right where you are. While the letters focus on craft, they are also a response to the seemingly uncanny uniformity of experience shared by the many writers who have taken the journey before you.
The group forum is where we meet each day to share our daily experiences and hold ourselves accountable to our daily page count.
Over the course of 12 weeks we discover that we're not alone — the ups and downs that caused us to question whether or not we were really a writer, are, in fact, par for the course.
It's liberating to realize that our private struggles are universal, and that they often provide direct clues into the world of our characters.
"Al teaches you to live in your scenes and set aside the hypercritical surveillance that can plague the rewrite process. This is a great class!"
Frank B. Wilderson III, Winner of the American Book Award for his memoir, Incognegro
“I owe so much to Al Watt. It was in his workshop where my debut young adult novel, The Education of Margot Sanchez, came to life. He created such a safe and welcoming space that I was able to overcome my fears of failure and write freely. I still continue to incorporate what I’ve learned in his workshops in my daily practice.”
Lilliam Rivera, author of The Education of Margot Sanchez, Simon and Schuster, Nominated Best YA Fiction 2017
“Al Watt’s Rewrite workshop is the ultimate gift to writers—an incubator for the stories you want to bring to the page from a place of emotional truth and from your heart. I wish I’d known about Al when I wrote my first novel. His mastery of story fills in the missing pieces and he guides you to your best work.”
Sarah Lovett, NYTimes Bestselling Author for Blowback, Penguin Random House
meet your teacher Alan Watt
Hi, I'm Al. They call me the Writer Whisperer.
I'm the L.A. Times bestselling author of the novels, Diamond Dogs and Days Are Gone, and the recipient of the American Library Association's Alex Award, a Book Sense Pick, a New York Time's New and Noteworthy book pick, and winner of France's Prix Printemps for best foreign novel of the year. Along with the national bestseller, The 90-Day Novel, (Amazon's #1 book on writing for five months) the lab has published five other books on writing. I teach a process of marrying the wildness of your imagination to the rigor of structure, and my students span the range from first-time writers to best-selling authors and filmmakers who've won numerous accolades for their work including the Pulitzer Prize.
I’m also the writer/director of the independent feature, Eddie, Kill the President (formerly Interior Night), which won four best feature awards at U.S. film festivals as well as The Boston Film Festival's Filmmaker Visionary Award. Oh, I also had a small part on Seinfeld back in the 90s when I had a thick lustrous head of chestnut hair. It's the Chinese gum episode. I'm the movie theater vendor who sells Kramer the vile hotdog.
“Al Watt is a master teacher with a brilliant, intuitive understanding of story.”
Allen Zadoff, Author of The Unknown Assassin Series, Little Brown
“The 90-Day Rewrite gave me all the tools I needed to refine my first draft while staying true to the heart of my story. Al’s highly effective techniques stay with you as a writer and give you the confidence to finish your work and prepare it for publication.”
Jennifer Scott, International bestselling author of Lessons from Madame Chic, Simon and Schuster
"With its superb organization and fresh approach, Al's approach to the rewrite process is unlike any other. This practical program, broken down by weeks and containing useful information and inspiring techniques, succeeds because, quite simply, Al teaches you exactly how not to fail."
Leslie Schwartz, Bestselling Author of Angel's Crest and Jumping the Green
"Al helps writers accomplish the miracle of getting that novel down on paper. Do yourself a favor and give yourself a gift you will always treasure. Only you can write that book -- and Al can make it happen."
Marc Scott Zicree, Author of The Twilight Zone Companion and Magic Time
"The Rewrite Master Class is truly a life-changing experience. It is like no other writing class I have been in. It is the perfect blend of instruction and the necessary space to bring your project to the next stage. Al provides an incredible amount of supportive yet constructive feedback, and you also learn so much from your fellow writers in the class. Like many writers, I often feel overwhelmed by self doubt and question my ability to write a novel. Attending the live classes over Zoom and reading Al's daily letters have provided a helpful counterbalance to this. Time and time again I am reminded that completing this project is not only possible but that I have the tools to do it."
Keri Cronin, PhD, Author of Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1875-1914 and Manufacturing National Park Nature: Photography, Ecology, and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper
join the waiting list
The Rewrite Master Class is available to graduates of The 90-Day Novel and The 90-Day Memoir or by submitting 5 double-spaced pages of your work-in-progress. To set up an interview with Alan Watt to discuss your work, please leave us your email here.
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