For the Good of the Writing Order

Over the weekend I taught my first writing workshop in almost two years. I was nervous before it began but after we got it going, found the groove. What a fantastic and eclectic group of writers! I met some incredible new people and I believe our exercises and discussions energized all of us to fire up our passions for our current projects. I know it did for my writing about the homeless and that came to me in the form of one sentence. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Below is a list of thoughts I shared to conclude the workshop.

Some final thoughts to conclude the writing workshop:

Support local writers by reading their print and digital publications.

If a writer’s words move you, let the writer know.

Stock your local street library. Choose something to read from a street library that you might otherwise never read.

As a writer, look where no one is looking on a subject.

Consider naming a theme song for your current writing project.

Don’t rarefy the act of writing. Keep it grounded.

Go back through your old writing. Something new will emerge with this material.

Support open mics in the best manner you see fit.

Try writing in long hand every now and then.

Challenge your own assumptions or dynamite them to smithereens and then start writing from there.

Lurking inside every dilapidated local history museum is a great story ready to be discovered.

Go to the beaver for a model of writing industry and architecture.

Publish your ideas in print in interesting publications and distribute them in street libraries, laundromats, community gardens and homeless encampments.

Support your local bookstores.

Submit writing to trade publications and local newspapers and newsletters.

Ass to chair is the only way to get the work done.