5 Writing Lessons I Keep Coming Back To
NEWS: How To Write Your Essay Collection in 6 Months class opens again!
The writers in my essay classes often joke that this “very much feels like therapy”. And they’re not wrong. Good writing advice is actually just good life advice: because to be creative, is to be alive after all.
As I’ve just opened the doors to my next How To Write Your Essay Collection in 6 Months creative writing class (till Sunday you can still get the early bird discount!), I wanted to share my favourite bits of writing and life advice—the ones I keep coming back to, year after year.
5 Writing Lessons I keep Coming Back To:
fuck the word count seriously I don’t think there’s anything more damaging than obsessively looking at your word count than when you’re trying to write an essay or anything really. An essay is an attempt, an effort to think something through, to get new insights, thoughts you weren’t able to procure any other way but to put one sentence after the other and we want to see that, we want to follow you on that journey and it is not helping when you keep looking at your step count instead of enjoying the scenery.
most writers have an innate fear of being seen and misunderstood I see it every year anew, the dread, the reasoning why someone hasn’t booked a 1:1 session yet or is anxious about the feedback session. The fear of being seen is hard to overcome but unfortunately it is the very thing you will not be able to avoid when you want to be published and read widely by other people. And the beautiful thing is, if you allow yourself to be seen you might just realise how much easier the words flow onto the page, how much more space there is around you.
writing is much more about good self-parenting than anything else learning how to talk to your inner critic, to your fears, to your hopes, it will all lead you to handle the occasional writers’ block and procrastination with much more ease.
you get out what you put in plain but simple: the writers who genuinely committed to their projects always finished with a final draft so far. And by commitment I don’t necessarily mean time or discipline. I mean the writers who really loved their idea and really took the lessons to heart, who were throwing themselves into it with their whole self (see good self-parenting).
encouraging feedback can go a long way I don’t believe that being a harsh critic is actually benefiting anybody. I have sat through countless horrifying feedback sessions while studying at the University of Arts in Berlin and the only thing that it accomplished is that the person lost all faith in the project and/or it would take ages to get back to it. I have experienced it myself and saw my friends go through it. It was never worth it. What I found what really helps instead is when someone points out the strengths of a piece or describes what they see in it, to be a vision holder and a reminder that writing is a process.
If all of this makes you feel like, “YES, I want to finally get started & write that book!”, if you sign up till Sunday you will get the early bird discount.
Write your Essay Collection in 6 Months!
“Sophia's class is a breath of fresh air. The sessions are inspiring, nurturing and informative, and her advice is broad (and highly knowledgable) yet tailored to the individual and their specific writing goals. Her enthusiasm for her craft is infectious, and she genuinely wants to see us succeed with our writing. I highly recommend it!“ Lucy Siddall (alumni )
Get the Early Bird Discount till this Sunday, 6th of June
Write your Essay Collection in 6 Months!
In this creative writing workshop I will teach how to create beautiful, intricate essays with the aim to produce a collection at the end to submit to publishers.
Schreib deinen Essayband in 6 Monaten!
In diesem kreativen Schreibworkshop bringe ich dir bei wie man literarische Essays schreibt, die berühren mit dem Ziel am Ende eine Sammlung in der Hand zu haben, die man an einen Verlag schicken kann.