Setting your writing intentions

I’m not sure that anything I’ve ever resolved to do at the start of the year has come to fruition. Something about the demands made by new year’s resolutions, the way they wag their fingers in my face, makes me rebellious.

So, happy new year from all of us at All About Writing. I hope we all have a healthy, happy and creative year. But my advice is: don’t make resolutions. They just make us all feel bad.

Let’s rather fix our writing intentions for the year. Intentions are slightly different. They’re not as strict. Resolutions are the bullies on the playground. Intentions aren’t bossy – they’re our guides.

My intentions for the year are to move on steadily with my own writing project, to swim and knit and do all I can to curb my chronic anxiety, and to do just a little Duolingo Italian every day (but not beat myself up if I miss a day, and break my streak).

We do need some intention, if this is to be a writing year. it’s too easy for our practice, and our creativity, to slip beneath the mountain of busy-work we fill our lives with.

And we can help you with it, whatever stage or level your writing is at.

Our new year’s gift to help you with that intention

We’re offering our foundation writing course, The Power of Writing, completely free, to launch your writing year. Use it if you’re a beginner, to learn the basics of writing creatively or, if you’re more experienced, as your limbering up exercise.

Power is a four-module online course, with feedback offered on the final assignment. It is designed to introduce you to the key skills of creative writing – and help you use these skills in your own writing.

The course will:

• Help you to write confidently without constantly censoring yourself.
• Give you tools to develop your unique writing voice.
• Give you tools that will help you write more vividly.
• Help you get more out of books by reading actively.

Here’s what Carol had to say about the course:

​Sign up for your free course now.​

How else can we help you make this a writing year?

Watch the replay of our writing intentions webinar. It’s designed to help you set your writing intentions and kick-start your writing year.

We answered your questions about:

• Creating sustainable writing habits that fit your lifestyle
• Launching your new writing project with confidence and clarity
• Breathing fresh life into existing manuscripts that have stalled
• Crafting deeper, more compelling characters and storylines that captivate readers

Whether you’re working on your first tentative idea or your fifth novel, you’ll leave this session with practical advice for your writing journey in 2025. Watch here.

Our Creative Writing Course is not our flagship course for nothing. It’s a good starting point for beginners: it will teach you all the skills you need to write a book, fiction or creative non-fiction.

But experienced writers have also told us how invaluable they’ve found it, in reminding them of the founding principles of writing well. Find out more here.​

We only have one place available on our Mentoring Programme. The programme is designed to provide a guide and hand-holder through your writing project. It makes the process less lonely, daunting and scary. We design your mentoring experience around your needs: if you need help in brainstorming and developing a story, or need feedback on monthly submissions, we can help. Email Trish for all the information.​

If you’d like to prepare yourself for the year and establish a daily writing practice at the same time as honing your craft and igniting your creativity you can do so through our self-guided Thirty-day Writing Bootcamp.

You’ll receive daily email guidance and stimulating writing exercises that offer fresh, practical approaches to strengthen your skills and you’ll receive expert personal feedback on a wrap-up exercise. Sign up today!​

If you’d like some writerly camaraderie every month, we invite you to join our Writers’ Circle. At a monthly Zoom meeting Richard and/or I will hear your writing, offer feedback and answer your writing questions. You can ​sign up here​.

Writing holidays

I know you feel guilty about focusing on your own needs. I know this because we’re all the same. But we’ve now learnt – and it’s been confirmed by psychologists – that we can’t spend our lives thinking only of other people, even if they’re people we love. We need balance, or we burn out.

Travel expands and stimulates the mind – and travel with intention allows you to achieve something as well.

Our Venice retreat – now in its ninth year

For one or two weeks, we can wave our wands and transform you into a Venetian writer, practising your craft in a 16^thcentury palazzo.

And for once, someone else will take care of your needs – creative and physical. We’ll provide an inspiring space, and daily one-on-one time to focus on you and your writing. We provide two meals a day and evening aperitivo.

You can live and write in, surely, the most stimulating city in the world. Watch the sunrise over Academia bridge, people-watch in a café in Santa Margarita, take a vaporetto through its waterways or out to an island.

Our entire focus is to help you achieve what you want in the time you’re with us. During your one-on-one time, you’ll have the undivided attention of an experienced writer and teacher: myself (Dr Jo-Anne Richards), Richard Beynon, or our resident non-fiction and travel writer, Fred de Vries.

It’s pleasurable, but not without purpose.

Stay for two weeks, from 1 to 15 October, or only one, from 1 to 8, or 8 to 15 October. Now, I must warn you: every space for this year’s Venice retreat is pencilled in, but some reservations have yet to be cast in stone. So, speak now … Also, if you’re keen and we’re full, ask Trish to put you on the waiting list. Cancellations do occur.

Fizz, from East Sussex, UK, has joined us four times. Here’s her verdict:

Katherine has joined us twice, from Florida, USA. I’ll leave the last word to her:

Here’s a link to the downloadable brochure and to more information on our website.

Writing weekend in Stow-on-the-Wold

If you’re based in the UK (or travelling there), join Richard Beynon from 6 to 8 June in that most charming of Cotswold market towns, Stow-on-the-Wold, to explore the art and craft of creating story.

It’s our seventh retreat in Stow and the wide-ranging programme will include discussions, writing time, mentoring, prompts for writers without a project, and tightly focused sessions on particular writing skills.

You can use the weekend as a way of recharging your creative batteries or to accelerate your current writing project.

Here’s what Richard, from Shrewsbury, thought of the Stow weekend:

​Find out more about the Stow weekend here.​

Barrydale retreat

If you’re in South Africa and can’t stretch to Venice – or, if you just can’t wait till October – the peace of the Tradouw Valley will provide the magical time-out-of-time that you need.

Spend a frosty Karoo week with us from 6 to 11 July. Write beside the Aga range, wander through the village and beyond, take icy dips in the pristine river.

Joanne Hichens and I will work with writers of fiction and non-fiction, one-one-one, each day, in the beautifully restored Karoo Art Hotel. In the evenings, we’ll eat typical Karoo fare in the toasty dining room. No matter what you’re writing, or considering writing, we can help.

Here’s what Tina from Cape Town said about the retreat and the memoir weekend:

Barrydale memoir weekend

If your heart belongs to memoir, join us in Barrydale, just for the weekend of 4 to 6 July, or use the weekend to jump-start your retreat week with a workshop focused on the skills of memoir.

We’ll get you started and show you how to extract a compelling story from your life.

The workshop guides you through the construction of your story and encourages you to make a start. If you’ve never written memoir, it’s perfect for you. If you’re more experienced in this genre, or have joined us before, use it to recharge yourself mid-year, re-enthuse yourself with your story, and remind yourself of the foundations of story.

Here’s what Merle, from Hermanus, thought of the weekend:

And Wendy, from Cape Town, found it helpful too:

​Read more about our Barrydale memoir weekend and writer’s retreat here and download the brochure here.

A last word from me

We tutors and mentors imbue these writing holidays with our own passion for creativity, and nurturing the writing of others. We want to give you the best time, fill you with confidence for the rest of the year, and allow you to be the best writers you can possibly be.

It’s an adventure, but you can be assured that it’ll be a constructive adventure. You’ll always be safe in our hands.

We wish you the best, most creative year possible. It’s you who make what we do possible. It’s you who create the warm, safe space that our community has become.

Warm regards,

Jo-Anne