Exciting News!

/ Tanya Cliff

Exciting News!

I am going to be hosting a weekly Writer’s Workshop here on Saturdays, beginning March 7th. Please join me for a fun, challenging opportunity to stretch your writing skills in this friendly environment. I love the group at GDG! I’m thrilled to be joining you, especially in a format that explores the power of language in storytelling.

The Writer’s Workshop will stick with a single prompt response each month, limited to 150-300 words, and involve several editing challenges to the same response designed to sharpen prose. The schedule is as follows:

Week 1: The Fastball
This week, I will introduce some element of good prose and/or share encouraging words from favorite authors. Then, I will pitch the Fastball prompt. Participants can link their responses in the comments section, and I will share them the following week.

Week 2: Batting Practice
This week, I will continue the discussion and share the responses from Week 1’s Fastball.
The challenge to participants this week will be to cut at least 10% of words from their response in week 1, tighten their prose. The 10% cut comes from Stephen King’s On Writing, one of several writing books that you will hear me refer to on occasion. The cut might seem arbitrary, but it forces concision and encourages the use of powerful language.

Week 3: Curveball Challenge
And just when you think you mastered it…
This week, I will throw a curveball, a specific challenge designed to improve prose, some element to be added to the response from the Batting Practice in Week 2. We will use this challenge to explore some of the grammatical tools that can be used to create tension and drama on the sentence level in our writing.
I will also show how I handled the 10% cut from Week 2 (including my word counts) and provide links to the Week 2 responses of participants.

Week 4: Players at the Plate
I will sum up the month’s activities, show how I handled Week 3’s Curveball Challenge, and link to all the other participants’ rewrites. Writing is hard work. You can expect a lot of encouragement and praise from me along the way.

I hope you will pull up a chair and join me for the Writer’s Workshop.

Tanya

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52 thoughts on “Exciting News!”

  6. Pingback: Exciting News! | Fullbeard Lit

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    • Thank you for all your kind words, Stephen! I can’t wait to get started. Count me in for a Skype group. That sounds like fun!

      The Veteran’s group sounds amazing. My dad was a Vietnam vet. He had many emotional scars from that time. The lack of support he received back in the US when he got home—came off the plane and had rocks hurled at him from protesters—was startling. It never left him. Willing to help with this in any way.

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  23. Pingback: Stephen’s Sunday Chat 3/1/20: A Virtual Cafe Connects Writers Around the World, plus Gratitude, Challenges, Reviews, Workshops, Round Up, and a little Rilke | Go Dog Go Café

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