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The Sea, The Sea

This is a brand new four week online workshop/course open to all levels rom absolute beginners to more experienced writers. Although we’ll mainly be working on poetry, the course is open to fiction writers and creative non fiction writers, there will even be the chance to try a little sort writing.

The course begins on 1st July 2020 and ends on 31st July 2020.

The last online course sold out in two days, so please please don’t leave it to the last minute, I may not be able to squeeze you in! x

What the Course Covers

Over the four weeks of the course we’ll be looking at your own personal relationship with the sea, your memories, your experiences, we’ll be looking at the wildlife and nature of the sea, we’ll be exploring the myths and folklore surrounding the sea and we’ll be writing about the industrial sea: the fisher folk and cargo ships, the clippers and the coal ships. I’m excited to share with you the coast line that I live by; the glorious Yorkshire coast, but we’ll also be travelling the world to see the sea in different cultures and landscapes. I hope you’ll join me for a paddle!

How the Course Works

The course will last the full month of July, with a daily prompt, weekly notes and poems, videos, links and other relevant material included as examples of the themes we’ll be covering, all of which is delivered directly to your email inbox. There’s also a closed facebook page where course attendees can share their work. The whole thing is moderated by myself and I interact with the group on a daily basis. I’m hoping to bring in a ‘live’ element to this course too, with a weekly get together.

Who the Course is Aimed at

The course is aimed at beginners through to established writers, there’s something for everyone. We’ll be working mainly in poetry, but there will be the opportunity to try your hand at fiction, creative non fiction and even some script writing. Whilst you are encouraged to push out of your comfort zone, you don’t have to write in both forms if you don’t want to.

The No Pressure Style

This is a no pressure course in which you do not have to produce anything, nor do you have to comment or even join the FB page. It is much more important to me that you relax and enjoy the course, enjoy the prompts and enjoy engaging with the course materials.

Sounds good doesn’t it! I’m really looking forward to having you on board

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, and your website invite, 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!

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. This is just a rough guide designed to help you think about your own expendable income.

£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.

What Happens Next

Once you have paid by PayPal (please drop me a line if you have paid in another way, I may miss your payment otherwise) I will use the email provided to invite you to the Facebook page. I will also use this email address to send a welcome letter to confirm that this email is working.

Places are limited, so please book ASAP to avoid disappointment!

Thanks for being a part of this adventure!

Wendy