Online Class: Creative Writing Workshop

Do you dream of writing poetry, short stories, or novels? Have you ever watched a movie or a play and felt the desire to write a script of your own? Or have you already done some writing but want to find ways to bring more creativity, more originality, to your writing? Have you ever read a so-so novel or seen a lousy movie and told yourself, "I bet I could do better?" Do you find yourself excited and intrigued by words, and by their sounds and meanings?

If you said yes to any of these questions, then this course is for you. A creative writer makes art just as a painter or sculptor does, but with different tools. Instead of brushes, canvas, and pigments, the writer uses words. While the painter produces a painting we can see in front of us, the writer makes magic of a different sort. With a simple palette of letters and punctuation - just lines and symbols scratched on paper or scattered on a computer screen - the writer can create pictures and even entire worlds within a reader's mind.

Unless you are an accomplished typist, I recommend writing longhand for now. As you work on your writing, you want to let the words flow out of you and onto the page, unhampered by your limited typing speed. If you create a piece you really like and want to work on further, you can always type it into a computer document and revise it on the screen. As you type up work you like, your typing speed and skill will improve. Eventually you will be able to create the same flow with a keyboard that you now can with your writing hand. 

For now, though, choose simple paper and pen. Use a fancy journal or composition book if you like, or just a simple spiral-bound notebook. Buy a sexy fountain pen or just grab a lowly ballpoint from that mug by the phone. Any working pen and paper will do. After all, they are just tools. It is what you do with them that counts.

Many would-be writers make the mistake of waiting for inspiration. I'll write a story, they say, when I get a good idea for one. But just as the sprinter whose long hours of physical conditioning give him the burst of speed at race time, the writer who conditions herself with regular writing finds her ideas coming more easily. Inspiration will come more readily to you as you hone your writing skills.

There will be days when you sit down to write but feel you have absolutely nothing to say. On these days it is important to say something anyway. The runner gets up and runs when the weather is gloomy and his muscles are sore, and he'd rather be doing anything else but running. He knows that his discipline and conditioning will pay off later. Working your writing muscles gets you in shape for the day when the big inspiration does come.

All successful writers are avid readers. Immerse yourself in the world of words. If you do not already do so, commit not only to writing, but also to reading every day. If you have a specific form in mind, read widely in that form, but don't limit yourself. The poet learns things from reading novels. The playwright learns from reading short stories. Don't feel the need to actively absorb and learn from your reading. Don't stress yourself out, thinking, "I have to pay attention to how this writer constructs her paragraphs." Just read, and enjoy yourself. The learning happens unconsciously and naturally. There is a place for actively studying the work of writers you admire, but don't worry about that now.

Your reading may inspire you to write stories or poems of your own, but at times, reading great literature may also intimidate or discourage you. You may ask yourself, how could I possibly ever write this well? Remember that the work you are reading may have been re-written a dozen times before it was published. Some writers do twenty drafts of a work before showing it to the world. Don't make the mistake of comparing published work to your first draft. And even if you aren't the likes of Ernest Hemingway (yet), there's still plenty of joy to be found in creative writing. 

If you haven't written much before, it's hard to know where to start. How does one even come up with the thousands of words necessary to complete a short story, let alone ten times that number to write a novel? In this course, we will go over many first steps you can take shortly, but for now it is important to remember that you don't have to take on a huge project now. You may know you have a novel in you, but wait a bit before you try to bring it out. Do smaller exercises. Limber up your writing muscles. Write something short. If you can fill a page or five with words, you are closer to making that novel happen, than if you can't.

Next, take yourself someplace you've never been. Try your favorite movie star's home, or an igloo in the Arctic Circle. Describe it in the same detail as you did the real location above. This time, of course, you have to make everything up. Don't worry about getting it right; just do your best to imagine the sights and sounds around you. What would the inside of an igloo look like? What would the people in it be doing? What sort of decorating does your movie star's home feature? How many rooms does it have, and is the place empty, or full of staff and hangers-on? What do they talk about when the star isn't listening? Try for two or three pages or more on this place, as well.

Creative writing is a form of  telepathy. When you see a place in your mind and describe it on paper, someone can read your writing and see the same place in his mind. Though no reader will imagine the scene exactly as you imagined it, there will still be similarities. Thus, your picture and story of a place travels from your mind to someone else's.

All Work is Play

A key to achieving this is to remember that what you write is private. While you may wish to share your writing with others, do so only when you choose to. You may imagine others looking over your shoulder, disapproving of what you write. We all have a critic inside ourselves who tells us what we are doing is no good. We will talk about gently nudging this critic out of our writing space. For now, remember that you can write anything you want, and no one will see it until you are ready for them to look.