ELEMENTS OF THE WRITING LIFE
Online masterclass series with Emily Perkins
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Enrolments open - click for details

Following the sellout series Elements of Fiction, covering aspects of writing on the page, Elements of the Writing Life now turns
to off-the-page process, exploring how to create a nourishing, fruitful environment in which you can begin, maintain and complete creative projects. 

These 1-hour masterclass webinars offer practical advice, support and imaginative guidance born of our own experiences as writers over several decades of publishing. If you follow them 1-5 you’ll find a structure to support a project from beginning to end, but each class is also applicable to creative work - in any genre - at any stage of development.

Classes take place via Zoom, participants can ask questions during class, and all enrollees have six months' access to a video recording of the session together with further readings, links and resources on each topic. You can join us live or simply watch whenever it's convenient.  

Attention: Restoring creative fascination. Writing begins and ends with close attention – a brain capacity that must be protected, practised and nurtured. We’ll kick off our new series looking at how to catch sparks and hone your ability to not only pay attention but sustain it for deep focus. We’ll look at practical ways to deal with drags on the work like distraction, fragmentation and procrastination.

Permission: Are you allowed to do that? This session looks at giving yourself permission to write freely, as well as addressing the ethical questions around writing from life, story sovereignty, appropriation and attribution. We’ll show you how to fight corrosive self-censorship, exploring good and bad kinds of responsibility, irresponsibility, rebellion and disobedience, and how to attune to the value in what you’re creating.

Traction: Keeping the project going. This session offers practical, pragmatic advice on how to keep at it through the long haul, creating and maintaining momentum. We will look at making the best use of the time you have, creating boundaries to help you get in the zone, and how to protect the work as it proceeds. We’ll also look at how to reap the benefits of time away from the work without losing your connection to it.

Faith: Keeping the faith. What to do when ‘why not write’ turns into ‘why’? This session offers guidance on how to face the blank page when you’re wondering what the point of it is. We’ll talk about how to use both internal and external motivation, helpful/unhelpful emotions – how to set them aside, how to use them to keep going – and about creative self-doubt versus second guessing.

Completion: When is the work finished? What happens next? This session looks at revision and redrafting, deadlines, perfectionism, feedback and editing. We’ll also provide strategies for when the work meets the world: good reviews, bad reviews, no reviews, prepping for promotion - and friends’ and family responses. And we’ll look at how to listen in for the beginnings of your next idea...

ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Online self-directed masterclass series with Emily Perkins

Available now - click here for details 

A series of five practical, stimulating and encouraging online masterclasses for writers, presented by ​award-winning authors Emily Perkins & Charlotte Wood.

​Each 1-hour class focuses on a key aspect of fiction writing: Voice, Texture, Time, Tension or People. As part of the videos we answer real questions from writers of all levels of experience.  
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With these recordings you’ll also get carefully selected writing exercises or prompts, and links to resources we’ve been inspired by and find ourselves returning to again and again.

Voice: Finding the right voice is essential to getting a writing project off the ground. We’ll start our programme looking at how to work with point of view, vocabulary, sounds, rhythms, attitudes, mood and the senses.

Texture: Following on from Voice, this session looks closely at paying attention, selecting details, creating an atmosphere, and the textural properties of language.

Time: A vital and excitingly flexible element of narrative. We’ll discuss structure, pace, leaps, repetition and other aspects of time in writing. 
        
Tension: How do writers keep readers engaged? We’ll look at plot hooks, subtext, withholding, strangeness, pressure, containment, and creating enticement.

People: Our final session will focus on fascination with behaviour, what makes an interesting character, interior and exterior action, layers and surprises, and the unseen.