A little over a week ago, I facilitated a writing workshop for a women's group. This group of women meets once a month, and they explore topics ranging from Reiki to time management to writing. (Hint: that last is where I come in.)
Several women in the group write and/or are interested in writing, but their main obstacle to being happy little writers is getting past the noise in their minds to the words behind the clutter. A common problem, and one that I help people with all the time. It was quite easy (and soooooooo much fun) to design a workshop around this topic. I had material, exercises, tools... The workshop ran for 2 1/2 hours, and I didn't come anywhere near using all my material. (The benefits of a teaching background - NEVER run out of things for the kidlets to do. Or maybe that's from twelve years of kids' birthday parties...).
One of the tools I showed them was a strategy I showed small child some time ago. Anastasia came to me, frustrated. "I have all these ideas in my head, and I don't know what do with them!" I gave her a box that fits index cards, and we brainstormed different categories. She has a category for ideas for characters, titles, ideas for stories, scenes, added ideas - ones that are put together to make up a story.
I asked her if I could take her writer's box to the workshop as an example. "Cool!" she said. "I'll be famous to, like, ten people."
"I'm also going to write about it on my blog."
"Oh. Well, then, I'll be famous to eleven people."
She thinks she's funny. I have at least two readers of my blog.
Anyway, being asked to do this workshop (and getting paid for it, by the way), designing it, and giving it reminded me that facilitating workshops and eventually retreats has been part of my long-term goals. I do virtual very well, but I shine in person.
Giving in-person workshops is going to become a bigger facet of Write Well U, and I just can't express how dog-gone excited I am about it.
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