Writing need not be lonely – how we can help
It’s hard to achieve your writing goals alone. It’s easy to get stuck, easy to procrastinate, easy to give up.
That’s why All About Writing exists. To give everyone the chance to be the best writer they can be. It’s our passion to promote writing, and we love to help people.
“There were so many times that I wanted to give up but persevered knowing that you would be there to help me,” said Mali, one of our participants. And Tariq, who completed our last Creative Writing Course, said, “It was fun, informative and nurturing. I loved that we all spoke about each other’s work in a positive way.”
And what she found least useful about the course? “It ended.”
Portia, who’s just completed our Creative Screenwriting Course confessed that she “used to think I would never be able to write anything, but All About Writing changed that thought for me… If I did it, you can do it, too. Thank you so much, All About Writing.”
So, how can we help you? Firstly, a few ideas:
- Find a small writing group. Meet once a month (whether face to face or online group via Zoom) and use that date as your deadline. If you’ve done our Creative Writing Course, you have a ready-made group.
- Invite a small group of friends to meet on Saturdays. Use our competitions as prompts and write together.
- Find someone you trust to read your work as you go along, preferably not your partner. If they’ve done our Creative Writing Course, they will have a trained eye, primed to pick up what works and what doesn’t.
- Read our Monday Motivations and writing tip blogs.
- If you’ve done one of our courses, join our Facebook alumni group.
But if you’re deadly serious… If now is the time… If it’s now or never… Here are our offerings, guaranteed to launch you into your writing project before the end of another year:
- Our September Story workshop in Stow-on-the Wold will inspire and equip you to create and develop stories that draw and hold your readers, whether you’re writing fiction or creative non-fiction.
- Our celebrated Creative Writing Course will run from 8 October, both online and face to face in Cape Town. This course provides (nearly) everything: inspiration, confidence, and the skills to write fiction or creative non-fiction. The online course is packed with links, movie clips and the possibility for live interaction with us and your fellow writers.
- Our Creative Screenwriting Course kicks off on 8 October. Leila, who recently completed this course, found the “feedback useful and very comprehensive and constructive” She enjoyed “the content and gaining skills as well as receiving regular feedback. As well as the interactive nature of the course.”
- Join a Coaching Programme – Focus on Scenes or Logic of Story. Both of these provide two weeks of daily writing tips and exercise, with personal feedback. Start immediately, or in November with a group.
- Kilt up for a Scottish writing adventure in the second half of November, when All About Writing will be in residence at The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town. We’ll be offering daily writing challenges, with prizes, focused writing workshops on three mornings, and individual mentoring sessions.
- Start the new year writing – with a guide to lead you through your project. Submissions for our 2019 Mentoring Programme are due at the end of November. Numbers will be extremely limited so please send us a considered and honed proposal. We prefer Mentoring participants to have completed a substantial creative writing course – ours or another.
All our offerings are designed to provide as much help as we can. We’ve learnt from our own writing, our successes and failures, as well as the best the world can offer in terms of writing advice.
We’re here to build you up, not knock you down. If we can help make your dreams come true – it will all be worth it.
We believe that, with a few skills, and a lot of practice, you can reach your creative aspirations. Yes, your dreams can come true.
Happy writing
Jo-Anne
