I have sold out my How to Write a Poem course, starting tomorrow (1st february) but I have plenty of places on the Approaching Your Writing With a Beginner’s Mind course. One of my own personal favourites, this one, and probably the antidote we all need on this stressful political climate. Details below
Do you remember why you began writing? If you close your eyes and settle your mind, can you remember the feelings you experienced when writing your first story, your first poem or even when you read your first book? Does the process still spark the same joy?
In this month long, online course you will be invited to reconnect with your beginner’s mind and explore your creative process not from a new perspective, but from an old perspective, casting off the self doubts and worry that often accompany the writing process and embracing the mind of the beginner.
What is the beginner’s mind? The expert’s mind is full of knowledge, it knows about technique and is widely read, the experts mind is full of purpose and definition but is also constrained by them, worrying about ‘getting it right’. The beginner’s mind is open to new experiences, new ways of looking at the world, the beginner’s mind is free to express itself. In the beginner’s mind, creativity is the key part of the writing process.
This four week course/online workshop will help you reconnect with your beginner’s mind. Each week you will receive a ‘lesson plan’ with a simple mindfulness meditation exercise to try, a weekly writing focus, resources, writing examples, tips and guidance. You’ll also receive a daily, optional, creativity prompt to help stimulate your writing potential. These will be delivered directly to your inbox. There will be a closed Facebook group, which is optional, where course attendees can chat, exchange ideas and share work for gentle and constructive criticism.
Ready to embrace your beginner’s mind? Places are limited so book early to avoid disappointment. The course begins on 1st February.
How to Sign Up
I now have a simple payment method in my shop where you can make a payment to sign up. If the email address you want your course materials sent to is different to your PayPal address, let me know by emailing me at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com. To make things fair, and to make sure that my courses are available to those on lower incomes, I have a tiered pricing system. Details below. And don’t forget, you can sponsor a place for a writer who doesn’t have the money to sign up. What a great gift that would be! I currently have zero sponsored places.
Payment Tiers
For this course, and all future courses, I am bringing in a method of tiered payment, a ‘pay what you can’ method which relies on the honesty of course attendees. There are three payment levels: £20, £40 and £60. There is also the option to sponsor another place at the price level of your choice so that I can support disadvantaged writers.
Why I have given the option to pay more
Lots of previous attendees have told me, during feedback sessions, that they would have paid much more for one of these courses, comparing it to other courses available to them. But at the same time, lots of people have told me they were grateful for the lower cost as it meant they could afford to develop their writing within their own means. I am from a working class background and still live in a working class town. There’s a grey area when it comes to WC folk, and it’s the place where almost everyone I know lives – the place where you are certainly not living in poverty, but you can’t justify retreats, courses or workshops because there is always something else (Christmas, birthdays etc).
It’s my opinion that everyone should have access to exploring their world through the arts, creative writing is my niche and in a world in which the arts are being slowly eroded, where funding is reduced and reduced, I feel I need to do something practical to help people like me, from my background. At the same time, as a working class writer and workshop facilitator, I need to be able to pay my bills and continue doing the things that I have trained for. Hence the option to pay more if you feel you can.
I know from experience how difficult it is to work out which level is right for you, so I have put some guidance together, below. I’ve based my reasoning mainly on the value of £20 in relation to food and alcohol for some reason:
Sponsored Place –
If you would need to make a choice between the course and essentials like food and electricity, then you are most likely entitled to a sponsored place. Get in touch at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com for a chat. I don’t interrogate, this is an honesty system and giving writers a leg up is important.
£20
If £20 is what you might spend on a takeaway and a bottle of wine, this is probably the tier for you.
£40
If £20 is what you spend on a bottle of wine and a nice bar of chocolate, the forty pound tier sounds about right for you.
£60
If twenty pounds is the amount that you might put into a charity box, or a church collection, then this is probably the tier for you.
YOU CAN SPONSOR A PLACE
Even if you aren’t interested in doing the course, you can still sponsor a place and give a leg up to a writer who has hit hard times and can’t justify the disposable income for a creative writing course. If you ARE doing the course, you can also sponsor an extra place. You might choose to pay £40 for yourself and sponsor a £20 place, you might be an absolute angel and pay £60 and still sponsor a £20 place, you might be a virtual saint and sponsor two £60 places. It’s up to you. Mix and match.
Wendy Pratt 