Peer Writing Groups Improve Skill
Without Breaking the Bank
The Independent Writing Studio
When You Work Alone, You Need Structure:
We Help You: 1. Carve Out Time to Write & 2. Improve Craft By
Reading Like A Writer
Carve Out Time to Write:
WRITING is something you do for you. This is your time. And we all know that if you do not schedule time for the things that are important to you...well, they fall by the wayside.
SAVE THE DATE!
Get Reminders & Access to the Link & Pass Word
Stir It Up Shut Up & Write on ZOOM
8:30 AM to 10:25 AM Pacific Time
Every week on Thursday. Free.
| Register Once & Done! |
SAVE THE DATE!
Get Reminders & Access to the Link & Pass Word
Book Group: Writers Read to Write Better Novels
on ZOOM
8:30 AM to 10:25 AM Pacific Time
Every Month on the fourth Saturday
| Register Once & Done! |
- A Simple Roadmap for Success:
Follow the Road Less Travelled - I. Spend More Time Reading Like A Writer
To Discover How Masterful Novelists Write - II. Discover The Validity of Your Own Perceptions
To Create Reader Responses That Teach You How It's Done - III. Meet With Your Peer Writing Group Weekly
To Integrate New Understanding & Compare Notes On Craft
✒ All the enjoyment of MFA Writing Community without the hefty price tag! ✒ ✒ ✒
- You get sucked into collecting a lot of research, but get sucked into an endless rabbit hole of new references to chase down.
- You spend time amassing a collection of appropriate books, but by the time they arrive in the mail, you've forgotten what you were going to use them for.
- You find a course that should help, but it turns out it's a time-vacuum that set's you off in a different direction that is not where you were wanting to go.
- You've researched some of the new software that would help, but get lost in time learning how to use it.
- You discover AI and how it might help you, but the learning is time-consuming and exhausting.
- You know what to do, but have simply lost the thread because life is demanding your attention in ways it has never done before.
- Yes, you have to pay attention to finances, but not at the expense of doing what you love.
- Yes, you have to pay attention to what's going on in the world, but now it's all so confrontational it puts you in freeze mode.
- Yes, it's important to go to work, but your job takes you out of being creative enough to follow through.
“...Language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint.”
This helps writers understand how literature is crafted at its core.
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
He stresses that reading extensively sharpens a writer’s skills.
“The process of reading is part of the process of writing..." Without it, she says, "...Writing can hardly be said to exist.”
Read once for enjoyment and then again to analyze techniques like pacing and emotional impact.
“I got a tremendous boost to my confidence from my fellow students."
Mentorship gave him valuable feedback and encouragement
“Is there anything better than having a shared list of complaints, making each other laugh about things only you both would understand, and mutually being obsessed with language? It’s the dream.”
She emphasizes how these relationships provide understanding and inspiration that non-writer friends may not fully grasp.
They critiqued each other's drafts—Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" and Lewis’s "Out of the Silent Planet"—and formed the literary group they called "The Inklings."
This collaboration not only strengthened their works but also fostered a sense of camaraderie that kept them motivated.
“He showed me how to be fearless.”
Their bond was a source of emotional strength and creative inspiration for both authors.
FAQ's About the "Writers Read to Write Better Fiction" Book Group
What Kind of Themes Will Be Deconstructed?
The theme of the novels we study is focused on how fiction can facilitate healing. Narrative is a powerful way to rewrite trauma, and providing the reader with humor and comfort demonstrates a perspective only the truly resilient can muster. Creativity transforms trauma by allowing a person to channel the somatic experiences of profound emotions into characters and storylines that find alternate ways of responding without having to directly address the trauma at all. Writing taps into unconscious reserves of perspective.
What Kind of Novels Will Be Included?
The books we choose with be works that demonstrate both the craft of writing fiction artfully & the work of successful authors who demonstrate uplifting stories in spite of difficult circumstances. Many readers read precisely for that reason: to discover how other people navigate the challenges of being human...and remaining true to their humanity, even when disaster strikes. This IS a theme pertinent to our times, given that the world will never be the same as it was before the pandemic & given that people have shown how easily they change in the most unexpected ways when fear is the dominant environment.
What Are The Books for April?
A Gentleman in Moscow, which speaks to our humanity in times of political strife: a theme entirely relevant to our times.
The counterpoint book on Craft, which is about reading from the understanding of the writer, is
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form.
The Air Raid Book Club, by Annie Lyons, which speaks to how people survive loss during times of great social upheaval and still retain their integrity.
What Are They About?
Reviews about the novel state that A Gentleman in Moscow is eloquent, witty, thought provoking, poetic, and meaningful. It's a welcome relief from a world drowning in click journalism, hypocrisy, and selfies. It's extolled as a masterful narrative unfolding within the confines of the Metropol Hotel, which offers an expansive and impartial reflection on the sociopolitical shifts of the era, as experienced through the lens of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, whose relationships with others who show up in the hotel keep him going, in spite of living under "house arrest" during the turbulent and dangerous rise of Stalin.
Reviews about Read Novels Like a Professor, state that the author maintains a very conversational tone, quite engaging, that makes the book really easy to read. "He gives lots of examples, and even though you may not be familiar with Oedipus or Green Eggs and Ham, you will always get what he is explaining." Each chapter concise and well organized. The first 2/3 of the book is apparently aimed at writers.
Reviews about The Air Raid Book Club, describe as having the main theme that reading and books, if possible in the company of others, can improve and even change lives. The book opens in 1938 during the London Blitz, when, for the first-time fighting is over London airspace. The main character, Gertie Bingham, coming to terms with the death of her husband is an uplifting read, about how she takes in a Jewish child and what then transpires.
BOOKS:
1. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
2. How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form, by Thomas C Foster
3. The Air Raid Book Club, by Annie Lyons
✒ ensure you are supported and encouraged!
- A writing practice focused on specific ways to thrive.
- Creativity is a path to greater resilience.
- Gain insight and inspiration that bubblies up from your own intuitive process as you write to learn.
- Honor your own process and get increasingly better at writing independently.
- Meet a warm, welcoming, like-minded community of writers sharing without distractions of focus.
- Curated resources that inspire your learning and keep you in touch with your own goals.
- References sourced from great books and articles to guide your journey and keep you motivated.
- The discovery of shared interests within the community as they come up.
- Live and synchronous interactions within a safe, private social network
A place where the obstacles to creativity and connection are diminished because it's so much easier to make headway with like-minded people than if you try to "go it alone." And you don’t have to explain what derails your focus. Your writing goals and creative process deserve to flourish. In this space, find a way to jump-start your writing every week, and enter into discussions that make you a better writer.
With Writing In Mind
You know that labels need not limit you.
You are ready to try something completely new, something that will feed your inner yearning to learn more, be more, do more.
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Between Experience, Validation, Learning & Creative Writing
Write Your Truth
~C. Maxwell Cade, British Biophysicist and psychobiologist.
The books: A Gentleman in Moscow, which speaks to our humanity in times of political strife: a theme entirely relevant to our times. And the counterpoint book, which is about reading from the understanding of the writer, is How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form.
Reviews about the novel state that A Gentleman in Moscow is eloquent, witty, thought provoking, poetic, and meaningful. It's a welcome relief from a world drowning in click journalism, hypocrisy, and selfies. It's extolled as a masterful narrative unfolding within the confines of the Metropol Hotel, which offers an expansive and impartial reflection on the sociopolitical shifts of the era, as experienced through the lens of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, whose relationships with others who show up in the hotel keep him going, in spite of living under "house arrest" during the turbulent and dangerous rise of Stalin.
Reviews about Read Novels Like a Professor, state that the author maintains a very conversational tone, quite engaging, that makes the book really easy to read. "He gives lots of examples, and even though you may not be familiar with Oedipus or Green Eggs and Ham, you will always get what he is explaining." Each chapter concise and well organized. The first 2/3 of the book is apparently aimed at writers.
Reviews about The Air Raid Book Club, describe as having the main theme that reading and books, if possible in the company of others, can improve and even change lives. The book opens in 1938 during the London Blitz, when, for the first-time fighting is over London airspace. The main character, Gertie Bingham, coming to terms with the death of her husband is an uplifting read, about how she takes in a Jewish child and what then transpires.
BOOKS:
1. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
2. How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form, by Thomas C Foster
An alternate novel we could :
3. The Air Raid Book Club, by Annie LyonsYou Get From A Regular Writing Practice With Us?
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InspirationThere's no such thing as 'writer's block' when you learn to consistently follow your own interests and curiosity over time. It becomes a magical form of emergent learning about yourself and how to engage the world you live in with greater substance and meaning! -
Experienced FeedbackThere is no substitute for feedback from an experienced, trained facilitator or from your peers in a group that is well-structured to be a safe space that fosters your creativity and growth as a writer. -
Huge GratificationOften people don't write because they think they haven't experienced anything. Yet, when you realize that your life is totally unique and that your perspective is, too, the energy to start writing gains momentum. Join a community of others interested in writing. Realize that, just perhaps, you are interested in so many things that you don't even know where to begin! Writing reconnects you with what makes life interesting! -
AutonomyPeople who live like a leaf wafting in the wind are not in touch with their own deepest desires. Because of this, they tend to live at the effect of what everybody else wants from them. If you yearn to have agency and independence, but are not even sure what that means, a writing practice is where you gain entry into your own most profound sense of self and self-esteem. It opens invisible doorways within your psyche that give you new access to a vaster, more awe-inspiring world. Go ahead, open the door!
"We yearn to touch life’s mysteries, to step out into the world looking for new solutions to old problems, if not new worlds altogether. We need to tap into our vulnerabilities, seek to understand our fears, look at life through others’ eyes, ask questions, and open up our awareness of the wonders of the universe."
~Grant Faulkner
I'm Happy to Host! It's Like An MFA Program That Never Stops Giving!
"It takes a village to build writing into one of the most fulfilling things you've ever done!"
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Stir It Up Shut Up & Write is a local chapter out of Jacksonville, OR, of shutupwrite.com - the national organization. We have been meeting online since the pandemic. Our Southern Oregon Chapter started in January 2019 meeting in person at Rebel Heart Books. We routinely got about 19 people and met after for coffee
but now we get people from all over the globe!
Trade offs happen when things change...either way, it works!