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    Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing
    • Home
    • Mentoring
    • Retreats
      • Venice Writing Retreat
      • Stow-on-the-Wold Writing Weekend
      • Karoo Writing Retreat | Memoir & Fiction Getaway in South Africa
    • Courses
    • Resources
      • Free offerings for writers
      • Downloadable writing resources
      • Blog
    • About
      • About Us
      • Testimonials
      • Contact
      • How to enrol

    Newsletters

     Why Readers Stop Trusting Your Story (And How to Fix It)
    0
    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted July 1, 2025

    Why Readers Stop Trusting Your Story (And How to Fix It)

    Last month, I found myself helping my half-Mauritian friend set the table for a lunch with her relatives in Point d'Esny – and getting it all wrong. This simple mistake taught me everything about [...]

    READ MORE
     What to Include in Your Memoir: Choosing Your Story
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted May 28, 2025

    What to Include in Your Memoir: Choosing Your Story

    READ MORE
     Unlock Gripping Stories: The Power of What Your Character Wants
    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted May 7, 2025

    Unlock Gripping Stories: The Power of What Your Character Wants

    Unlock gripping stories by understanding the power of what your character wants! Jo-Anne Richards shares essential writing craft tips for fiction & memoir to create compelling characters and [...]

    READ MORE
     Observation: The Secret Weapon of Successful Storytellers
    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted March 25, 2025

    Observation: The Secret Weapon of Successful Storytellers

    Here's why observation is the secret weapon of successful storytellers: A book doesn’t simply consist of plot, or even character. You want to spirit your readers into another world: make them [...]

    READ MORE
     Strong Sentences, Stronger Stories: Craft Your Way to Powerful Prose
    By All About Writing
    In Newsletters, Writing Craft
    Posted March 6, 2025

    Strong Sentences, Stronger Stories: Craft Your Way to Powerful Prose

    Welcome to the recap of our March writers’ webinar focusing on the craft of sentence construction—the foundation of all compelling writing. If you missed the live session, you can watch the [...]

    READ MORE
     The foundation of good writing: the sentence
    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted February 15, 2025

    The foundation of good writing: the sentence

    Had you met me in my first year of school, you would never have pegged me as a future writer. Besides my awkwardness and social difficulties, I could not learn to read. My brain could not form [...]

    READ MORE
     Your best writing year starts here
    By All About Writing
    In Newsletters, Writing Craft
    Posted January 14, 2025

    Your best writing year starts here

    Here’s the replay of our fun creative writing webinar designed to kick-start your most successful writing year. Your Best Writing Year: Key Insights from the Webinar Here’s what we [...]

    READ MORE
     Setting your writing intentions
    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Newsletters
    Posted January 9, 2025

    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 [...]

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     One Life launch
    By All About Writing
    In Newsletters, Author Q&A
    Posted December 5, 2024

    One Life launch

    Our focus as we wrap up 2024 is the art of the short story. We finished up our series of events (a free short story webinar and two short story workshops with Joanne Hichens in November) with [...]

    READ MORE
     Short Story Workshop
    By All About Writing
    In Invitations, Newsletters
    Posted November 26, 2024

    Short Story Workshop

    Our focus as we wrap up 2024 is the art of the short story and in particular the new call for submissions from Short.Sharp.Stories. Here are the replays of our short story workshops. The [...]

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     Short Story Webinar replay and info about two free workshops
    By All About Writing
    In Invitations, Newsletters
    Posted November 14, 2024

    Short Story Webinar replay and info about two free workshops

    Our focus this month is the art of the short story and in particular the new call for submissions from Short.Sharp.Stories. We held a fabulous short story webinar with Joanne Hichens who shared [...]

    READ MORE
     Short.Sharp.Stories call to enter
    By All About Writing
    In Writing Competitions, Newsletters, Writing Craft
    Posted November 1, 2024

    Short.Sharp.Stories call to enter

    Short.Sharp.Stories invites you to write a short story of between 3000 and 5000 words reflecting on or inspired by their exciting theme: POWER. Submit your entry before midnight, 31 January 2025. [...]

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    INSTAGRAM
    🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writi 🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍

This week's writing motivation newsletter involves a challenge. We invite you to join in, and then send us your creative piece. Maybe we should put together a blog of some of the submissions? What do you think? 

So here is your challenge: Take a break from your writing and go on a walk you do often: to the shops, round the park, the same route with the dog. This time, go looking for what has changed since you last did it. A new crack in the pavement. A tree that's started to turn. A shop sign that's faded. Write a paragraph about them and post it in the comments. We'd love to read what you found.

#creativewriting #writingcommunity #writingchallenge
    It’s the final step on our conversation on James It’s the final step on our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ 

Step 5:
Very cunningly, I’ve foreshadowed this final step. Fix it, dear Henry, fix it. Or, as James Clear, (author of Atomic Habits) in a blog on creativity had it: 'Put your idea out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.'

It's worth saying plainly: none of this is mystical. Young wasn't describing inspiration, he was describing digestion – you feed the mind raw material, let it marinate, and it comes back rearranged. The gap most writers get wrong is Step 3. We treat the walk, the weeding, the washing-up as time stolen from the work, when it's actually where the work is quietly getting done without the apparent involvement of our conscious minds.

So if you're stuck on a plot that won't cohere or a character who refuses to breathe, try trusting the method rather than the muse: load up on facts, worry them for a while, then go and do something that has nothing to do with writing at all. The idea that turns up afterwards won't arrive polished. That's fine. Fixing it was always Step 5, not Step 4.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number four.

Step 4:
Now allow your mind to reconsider the problem – the story that needs a great inciting incident; the character that simply isn’t gelling; the ending that is unsatisfactory – and you’ll find, nine times out of ten, that you do now have an idea. It might not be perfect, in fact it might feel quite rickety – but what you’ll do in Step 5, is fix it. Stay tuned for the last step!

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number three.

Step 3:
Go and work in the garden, or spend an hour or two pottering about in your workshop, or go for a long walk in an area you’ve not visited before. In short, put the problem you’re trying to solve completely out of your mind and do something entirely different that fascinates and energises you.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number two.

Step 2:
Now massage all these facts, look at them from different angles. What surprises lurk in territory that might seem utterly familiar but contains shadowy corners? See what links exist between one fact and another. Whales and oil derricks? Balance sheets and the collapse of traditional shops? Astronomy and glass blowing? See what facts seem to resonate with each other.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    Ever wondered where ideas come from – or how you Ever wondered where ideas come from – or how you can tap into a source of ideas around which to build your stories?
I’m not sure whether you’ve come across references to a man – James Webb Young – and his book, published in 1939 and only recently rediscovered by a self-help industry. It’s called A Technique for Producing Ideas. 

Why mention it? Because its 'system' was designed for application initially by young admen (Young was a copywriter for an advertising agency). And, browsing through the little book, it seemed to me very obvious that it is possible to apply his method to the generation of ideas for stories.

Here are his five steps, with a little of my commentary woven round them:

Step 1:
First, gather material. This might sound odd if you’re writing fiction, but actually even the most outrageously fictional confection is full of factual material. You might have chosen to set your story in a specific location. Even if you think you know it well, you’d be well-served to dig out a map of the place, find out why the church is called St Clements, whether any controversy attaches to the demolition of the old brewery …

If your story concerns a particular subject – weaving, say; or fishing; or accountancy; or astronomy – then, naturally, your research will focus on it. But don’t forget that a very much wider focus can also help enormously. Your character might work on an off-shore oil derrick – but you might, when investigating deep sea oil drilling, find yourself reading material about marine fossils, or the Gulf Stream, or famous wrecks … Don’t curb your curiosity.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing c ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing course? ✍️✍️

The Power of Writing takes you to the heart of creative writing. Over just four online modules, the course introduces you to a handful of creative writing’s essential skills.

The Power of Writing course is designed to introduce you to the key skills of creative writing – and help you use these skills in your own writing. 

We’ve wrapped the theory around a series of practical writing exercises in four modules. The course will: 

 ✍️Help you to write confidently without constantly censoring yourself. 
 ✍️Give you tools to develop your unique writing voice. 
 ✍️Introduce you to disciplines that will continue to help you to write fluently long after the course is done. 
 ✍️Give you tools that will help you write more vividly. 
 ✍️Show you how to think more creatively and communicate this in your writing. 
 ✍️Help you get more out of books by reading actively. 

‘I have been writing for a number of years but every so often, I like to sharpen the saw. Your course is so valuable in this regard.’ – Hendie Grobbelaar

‘I thoroughly enjoyed the modules… I loved the fact that the modules are balanced. The first two do not require specific writing techniques, but exposes thoughts and observations. The last two modules start exploring the how of transforming ideas/happenings into something that works on paper.’ – Melanie du Plessis, Centurion

‘I enjoyed the introduction to each assignment, explaining what is needed with examples, especially for an online course.’ –Alma van As, Welobie

‘My experience was positive. I enjoyed the challenge… It was great focusing on writing rather than the content that one does in the daily drudge of communicating. I liked writing for the pleasure rather than rushing through the normal communications of the day – bit like “stopping to smell the roses”.’ – Charles Nesbitt, Somerset West

Sign up online: https://allaboutwritingcourses.com/product/power-of-writing-course/
    In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites us to just write three good sentences. Can you avoid the trappings of being a writer and put pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard? 

Read the full piece in our Link in Bio and if you don't subscribe already, sign up via the same links.

#AllAboutWriting #allaboutwritingcourses
    "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myse "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myself. However, as I have become softer and plumper, I guess I’m becoming more like her. But that wasn’t my plan. Where we do overlap is in our love for the Karoo." - Sally Andrew, author of the Tannie Maria mysteries.

It was a real pleasure to host the unassuming author of the Tannie Maria mysteries, Sally Andrew, on our monthly webinar. She had much advice for would-be writers, imparted in her generous, down-to-earth style, always infused with her quirky humour. We chatted about place, about characters and about planning and writing practice. She finds it important to keep her characters as different from herself as possible. I guess I’m the same. It’s not something I’ve ever particularly striven for, yet most of my adult characters are quite different from me, in personality, preoccupations and the way they present to the world. Yet, nonetheless, I always draw on myself to some extent. I try to embody them and, for that brief period of writing, become them. In that way, I draw on what is different from me, yet still to be found, real or imagined, somewhere within me. - Jo-Anne Richards, All About Writing

Watch the replay now available at www.allaboutwritingcourses.com or visit our link in bio

#allaboutwriting #writingwebinar
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