Happy New Year! After 6 weeks of pushing excessive sugar and consumerism on us, the media would have us believe that we all need to be perfectly set up with a brand new slew of 2023 goals.
You know what I’m talking about. The rollercoaster of insecurity that seems to be running double time in January.
And trust me: I love a clean slate, love checking items off a list, love setting new intentions. I love the whole ritual of a new calendar and 12 months of possibility.
BUT…so often for creative types, we really don’t need new goals. We already know what’s important to us–it’s just gotten lost in the fog of holiday madness.
What’s the one thing you can do that will bring health and happiness into (most) areas of your life?
If you are a writer: you write.
AND you write with more curiosity, more playfulness, more consistency and more self-love than ever before.
You already know how to do this because you’ve done it before. You know what it feels like to be in the flow.
So instead of NEW goals, it’s really about getting back to the basics. And the basics for me are always: How do I create a life where I am making more art more often? Because if I am making it more often and more consistently, the quantity will take care of the quality. The more you do it, the better it gets.
What about you? What does returning to the basics look like for you?
Maybe:
- Returning to story drafts with fresh eyes for revision?
- Picking up that manuscript you have taken a (longer than intended) vacation from?
- Putting all your ideas in one document and thinking of them as a book (oh my!)
- Start writing that big story you’ve always wanted to tackle?
- Establishing (or re-establishing) a daily habit? (Remember, regularity is more important than quantity!)
- Getting out of a creative rut? Trying something new or playing more? Surprising yourself more?
- Or maybe you‘ve been writing alone too long and you’re ready to bring in your trusted community?
And most important: Are you remembering to include having fun with your writing?
Join me in 2023 and let’s start the year writing together in a fun, no-pressure way. All my classes, whether online or in person, are playful, positive, encouraging, and they are designed to bring out all the amazing potential inside of you: there’s nothing I love more than waking up in the morning and reading a deluge of brilliance from you. And you will feel the same way. Seriously.
Flash Flood: Write a Flash Novel will help you play with and harness that “big” story idea that you’ve always wanted to write (fiction or nonfiction), and Beautiful Flash Fiction: Pop Lit and Flash Fusion is just pure fun, a workshop I designed to help you loosen up and remember the joy of creating…maybe even surprise yourself.
Writer Sarah Dinan sums it up best in her article, “Welcome the Weird”:
“There is something magical about the container of a class like that. Prompts that push the envelope of the known, and encourage thinking in new ways. Classmates who offer positive feedback on your work (no highfalutin literary critiques allowed, only commentary on how the work landed, and/or what the reader thought you did well). Opportunities to read and share works in progress in real time with kindred spirits. And expanding your skill set under the tutelage of a wise, and funny guide. Joyful exploration. My favorite kind.”
So whatever your goals are this year, I am wishing you FUN, play, and all the potent possibilities of your own true brilliance.
Your writing cheerleader, always xoxo
Nancy
2023 Winter Workshops
Last chance at 2022 rates!
Beautiful Flash Fiction: Pop Lit and Flash Fiction Fusion
February 6-10
(5 days, online asynchronous)
The world is a constant and incredible source of inspiration–IF we are paying attention. We will engage with unexplored or under explored avenues of potential inspiration including pop culture, music, trends, politics, fashion and more to discover unusual angles and back doors into new ideas.In this 5-day generative class we will actively blur the distinctions between low brow and high brow art, and elevate the mundane to the miraculous.
We will examine the fundamentals of flash fiction, try a variety of approaches to the compressed narrative, and you will generate your own original flash pieces. As always, come with an open mind and expect to play.
*This course is open to writers with all levels of experience in the form, whether you are brand new to flash fiction, a writer coming from other genres, or a veteran flasher looking for a dose of inspiration and some writing camaraderie.
Flash Flood: Write a Flash Novel
(and Launch Your Big Idea)
January 23-Feb 3
(10 days, online asynchronous)
Do you have a Big Story Idea brewing, but you don’t know where to begin? Is it a flash novel? Novella? Collection? A regular novel or memoir or a million other things? Sometimes not knowing can stop us from getting started. Sometimes the scope of it feels overwhelming. Is 2023 the year you finally write or finish your book?
Flash Flood: Write a Flash Novel is my signature course designed to help you launch your Big Flash Novel Idea. For 10 days we will envision, draft, collage and create the momentum for that large-scale idea you’ve been wanting to tackle. We’ll begin breaking it apart and making friends with the scope of it, and in that process of discovery you will find momentum, insight, excitement, and sometimes a total pivot–that’s okay! For 10 days we’ll get out of our own way–10 days and a flurry of words and ideas and encouragement and camaraderie–and when it’s over you will have the bones (at least) of a longer project and a much better idea of where to go next.
NOTE: This class is the recommended jumping off point for the 12-Week Flash Novel Mastermind
AND RETURNING 2023:
The Flash Novel Mastermind
a 12-week incubator to get your manuscript across the finish line
February 13-May 5
Whether your book is fiction or creative non-fiction, if you are a dedicated writer, drawing on the skills of flash fiction, this is the container of inspiration, motivation, community and support you have been wanting to bring your ideas to fruition.
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Nancy Stohlman 