The Blank Page Writing Workshops

These sessions can be as long as you want them to be, as many times a week.  You can choose to write for 5 minutes or an hour.  The point is to dive in and just start writing.  Here are the guidelines of the exercise:

1. Keep your hand moving.
2. Don’t cross out.
3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.
4. Lose control.
5. Don’t think.  Don’t get logical.
6. Go for the jugular.

Contracts

You will give me, at the start of the workshop, a contract stating how often you want to write each week, for how long, and what you want to get out of the workshop by the end.

I’ll hold you accountable to this contract.  If you tell me you want to write three times a week for 30 minutes, then I will check-in three times a week to read your writing.  We will work together to get you to the next step on your writing journey.

Posting

The posting schedule is determined by your contract.  You will post your writing every time you complete a timed exercise.  So if you commit to write once a week for an hour, then you will post once a week.  If you commit to write five times a week for 15 minutes, then you will post five times.

Feedback

While the workshop is designed to help you generate new writing, it runs on the currency of feedback.  While writing may be a solitary act, I don’t believe it’s possible to be successful as writers without community.  We need each other’s support to push on through the highs and lows of this craft.

For that reason, I have built into the workshop a feedback component.  You are expected to check into the workshop at least 2-3 times a week to read what your group-mates have written and offer initial feedback.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to read everything your group mates post.  Some of you will be writing once a week, some seven times a week.  I simply as that you read ONE  - TWO pieces per member by the end of the week.

I will ask that you not post the writing for your next week, until you have read and given feedback for the previous week.

The Nature of Feedback

Writing is a practice and takes many drafts to finally produce something we may feel is ready to show the world.  For that reason, the feedback we give in this workshop will be centered in the beginning stages of writing.  We’re not interested in looking at the micro-level edits of a piece or the technical edits.  That type of feedback comes later in the process, around draft 3 or 4.

For this workshop our feedback is aimed at helping each writer see what is working in their draft and what to build on as they sit down to write the second draft.  The questions I will ask you to answer are:

1. What stood out to you?  What phrases, sentences, paragraphs, images, thoughts captured your imagination and delighted you?
2. What did you want to know more about?  What questions arose for you as you read?Where do you envision this piece going in a second or third draft?

Writing Prompts

There will be a folder full of writing prompts for you to pick from everytime you sit down to write.  You may have your own things you’d like to work from.  If so, go for it!  But if you’re feeling stuck or need a little nudge out the door, then use the prompts I’ve providing.