Instructor: B. Lynn Goodwin
Maximum Enrollment: 8
Class Term: 05/12/2025 - 06/09/2025
Tuition/Fees
SCN Member: $125
Non-Member: $165
Class synopsis
Root out the reasons you put projects on the back burner or cannot start new projects by writing about what holds you back. Identify issues and figure out how to overcome them. Then get back to the story only you can tell.Class description
Using free writes, optional feedback, and writing exercises, we'll tackle what's holding you back and put you on a path that moves you forward. Of course if you decide that this isn't the time, we'll honor that, but we'll ask why. By the end you should be back into your old story or ready to start a new one.
Class goals
1. Break through writer's blocks., 2. Develop a writing community., 3. Find resources and accountability so you keep going.
Class communication method
I'll have writers share through group emails, and if I have more than three participants, I'll encourage people to write back to the person who sent the request for feedback with a CC to me instead of sending it to the whole group. I'll send writing exercises and links to sites that might be valuable every Sunday night through email. See below for probable assignments. We can always modify and adjust assignments to meet people’s needs.Class outline
Week One: Identifying Obstacles
Write a brief piece beginning with My obstacles to writing are…
Send to the group and say whether you want feedback from the group or not. Feedback consists of what we love in the writing and what we identify with in the writing.
Week Two: Tackling Obstacles
Write goals for the week.
Apply those goals to a piece of writing that’s troubling you OR free write about a subject that trips you up or shuts you down.
Submit your writing by Wednesday of the week if you’d like feedback. Tell us what you’d like feedback about–relatability, scenes, reflection, emotional impact, use of characters, development of a moment or situation, tone, grammar/mechanics, or something else. The more specific you are, the better feedback you’ll get.
Week 3: Overcoming Obstacles
Write about how the feedback has helped you. Write questions about the feedback if you have them. Write about discoveries you made about revision. (Due by Thurssday.)
Send revision or plans for revision or a free write about new ways you can expand, develop, and explore your subject. If new subjects or themes came up, please tell us about them. (Due Monday of Week 4.)
Week 4: Follow through.
Set goals for the next week, the next month, & the next 90 days. I strongly encourage you to share these goals to stimulate ideas in others.
Make a list of ways you can tackle obstacles when they reappear.
Send us another troubling passage so we can give you feedback about what’s working and inspire you to make it even better.
Do something to celebrate what you’ve accomplished– take a walk, sign up for another class, find more writing time, watch a movie that deals with writers or publishers or bookstores, attend a reading, write a review of a book you loved…
Optional: Ask a class member to be your writing partner.
Class time commitment
Probably 1-3 hours per weekInstructor bio
Writer and editor B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. She’s written three award-winning books, two YAs, Talent and Disrupted, and a memoir titled Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62. Her flash fiction is published in Flashquake, Nebo, Cabinet of Heed, Murmur of Words, 100-Word Stories, Ariel’s Dream, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. She’s also a book reviewer and teacher at Story Circle Network and an editor/manuscript consultant at www.writeradvice.com.