Prewriting Mini-Course Available Soon

Greetings! I’ve been working on an online course entitled:

Prewriting: Jump-start Your Writing Projects With These Eight Approaches
[Fun AND Productive First Steps to a Completed Work]

It’s not yet ready for unveiling, but in the next two weeks, I’d like to make a free mini-course available to get knowledgeable writers’ feedback.

If you’d like to take the free prewriting mini-course, just add your email address below.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Video-based Modules Included in the Full Course:

  1. The flexible outline [K.M. Weiland demonstrated this in a Writer’s Digest article.]
  2. The Foolscap approach [based on work by Steven Pressfield.]
  3. Mind Mapping
  4. Use of concept lists [Here is an Surprise-The Unexpected-Amazement Concept List July 2017 with the theme of ‘surprise/the unexpected’.]
  5. Character Interviews
  6. Interviews with yourself as an author
  7. A recap of James Patterson’s approach to outlining. [I paid $95 for his master class. Good, good investment.]
  8. Building Hemingway bridges into your prewriting

Also included:
— Videos demonstrating my use of these strategies.
— Writers’ quotes and insights into prewriting.
— Relevant applications from the following two books:

  • 45 Master Characters [Victoria Lynn Schmidt]
  • 20 Master Plots [Ronald B. Tobias]

Email Gems: July 17-21

From my Austin Kleon weekly newsletter:
Here [with 2 Years of Exhausting Photographic Detail] Is How to Write a Book by Ryan Holiday

From the newsletter of Jill Badonsky [the author of The Muse Is In]:
“Strengthen Your Tolerance Muscle–To be good at anything in the creative realm you must be able to accept that you’re not instantly perfect or even kinda good. If you don’t have a tolerance muscle, your mission if you want to answer your creative call, is to build it before the skill you are trying to cultivate.”

 

 

 

Writers Horoscope–July 21

Today’s theme: No!

Repeat after me: No!

‘No!’ to that request for an article on-spec from Blood Transfusions Weekly.

‘No!’ to that bag of Doritos at the impulse item shelf at the checkout stand, despite your third canned email rejection of the week. [Hey! Not the Cheetos either!]

and

‘No!’ to that self-extended invitation to binge-watch the entire Law and Order franchise. [You really have got to get over those rejections.]

‘

 

Writers Horoscope–July 20

Today–reach out to people.

Plan your cookbook-signing.

Your biggest challenge: Finding an actual brick-and-mortar bookstore.

Alternatives? Set up a promotion table at the meat counter in Earl and Pearl’s Stop n’ Shop. [Better provide skewers and samples. Hungry shoppers don’t exactly sprout cash for text-on-paper.]

Next to the table, try something subtle, yet memorable.

“Portion-control is for wimps. Buy the whole book!”

 

Writers Horoscope–July 18

Your publishing company is off to a good start.

You’ve tracked down office space. [That spare lumber in the garage needed to be cleared out anyway.]

For those draining 400-word days, you’ll need that footrest. Rex the Wonder Retriever lies at the ready.

And every writer needs face time with an apathetic reader. Your tabby Whiskers is primed to ignore your every word.