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Classes Create Community - Come Find Your Tribe!
Click here if you'd like to see what former students say about my classes. I’m offering a new hybrid of class and coaching in the Mastering the Writing Habit Teleclass and Coaching Support Group. If want the satisfaction that comes from consistently showing up for your writing, click here to find out how this group can give you the accountability, information and support you need. This group is particularly effective for writers who can’t attend Loft classes because they don’t live in the Twin Cities metro area. I’m thrilled to offer a 4-day fiction workshop at the Madeline School of the Arts August 16-20, 2010. Click here to learn more about the inspiration, encouragement and downright fun you can expect in this workshop. The Madeline Island School of the Arts campus is located approximately one mile from the ferry landing at the historic Sandstrom Dairy Farm and features state-of-the-art classrooms, lodging with bath ensuite, orchards, gardens and walking trails. Click on the links below to find out what techniques and outcomes you can expect in the classes I’m teaching at the Loft Literary Center. The Loft is the country’s oldest and largest literary center, located in the Open Book building, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415. Some Loft classes are offered in Twin City suburban locations. 2010 Schedule
Note: The Dragon’s Den classes and Deepen Your Creativity workshops previously offered through Imagination Ink are available as workshops and retreats for groups. If you want to tailor a class, workshop or retreat for your group, please click here. Or contact me and we’ll discuss what can be arranged. Map to Loft Literary CenterNEW Class! Beyond Organic: Revising Spontaneous FictionSpontaneous writing that grows organically from improv, freewriting and other discovery writing techniques energizes the writer and frees her/him to access unconscious material in ways that more structured, planned writing cannot. But at some point, the writer has to prune that big, gangly, organically-grown manuscript to create a story that really works for readers. In other words, even spontaneous writers need to impose order eventually. We’ll use readings on craft, discussions and writing exercises to make conscious choices to strengthen your instinctive first impulses. We’ll bring the plot line into focus, explore ways to heighten the tension and fine tune the pacing, clarify what makes your characters unique and maximize the impact of setting and POV. Students should have a complete short story or at least half a novel to work with. You can expect written feedback from the instructor (on up to 15 double-spaced pages) and in-class discussions, exercises and lots of writing time. We will not use traditional workshopping. The Writing HabitTalent is a gift we’re all given to one degree or another. Techniques can and must be learned. But what really makes a writer is the habit of writing. In this course, you will identify your writing (or non-writing) habits and adapt them to fit your writing goals. Our weekly check-in will give you safe and supportive witnesses to help you become accountable to yourself. We’ll use a variety of techniques including in-class writing, discussions, two-person speak-and-listen, guided imagery and action mapping to explore the creative process, identify your priorities, generate plans, cultivate sustainable habits and develop a support network to help you maintain your momentum. Participants are encouraged to share the results of their new writing habits during check-ins, but because this class is focused on the process, we will not critique each other’s writing. Location and Times Section 2 Register: Contact the Loft at 612-379-8999 or www.loft.org. Writer’s ResistanceWe’ll explore causes of resistance and how to respond to reach your dreams and goals. We’ll do weekly check-ins to help you notice when and how you resist your writing, and guided imagery to clarify what you need to write and why. Exercises include demystifying which of the six common forms of resistance you’ve used to avoid writing and exploring what resistance has to tell you. We’ll look at the connection between creativity and destructivity, plus engage in playful ways to energize your writing self. You’ll brainstorm, freewrite, and dialogue in small groups. We’ll shine a light on excuses, obstacles and illusions. At the end of class, you’ll write/draw your action map for where you’re going and how you’ll get there. Location and Times Register: Contact The Loft 612-379-8999 or www.loft.org. Writing Our Way through ShadowPerhaps we would rather ignore it, but all writers have their shadow side. Our shadow will make itself known to us one way or another—a missed deadline, a sudden outburst of inexplicable emotion, a block that won’t give way, or simply a lack of energy and enthusiasm. We’ll discover how and why creativity and shadow are so intimately connected. We’ll use discussion, brainstorming, freewriting, and two-person processes to explore the shadow issues specific to writers, such as Taboo Topics (the things you don’t dare write about), Untapped Genres (the ones that are either beneath your dignity or beyond your ability), Blocked Genius (the origins and resolutions of writer’s block), Fear, and the Forbidden Fruits of fame and success. Our weekly check-ins will give you a safe and supportive place to notice how your shadow influences your writing and what you can do to embrace your shadow and accept the gifts it always brings. Location and Times Register: Contact The Loft 612-379-8999 or www.loft.org Improvisational FictionIf you wait for inspiration to strike, you can spend a lot more time waiting than you do writing. If you drive yourself to grind out pages anyway, you drain your creative energy and you don’t produce the sparkle you want. This class gives you a third alternative. In improvisational fiction, writers don’t wait until they know what happens before they write, they discover what happens as they write. We will play some improv games to warm up and inspire the writing. We’ll spend most of our time doing in-class writing, generating energy and ideas for both new material and stories students are already working on. You’ll share some of your in-class writing and you’ll be given optional homework assignments to further develop what you start in class. Location and Times Register: Contact The Loft 612-379-8999 or www.loft.org. Entering the FlowYou know how great it feels to be in the flow—when you lose track of time and your fingers can barely keep up with the images and words pouring through your mind. Flow is a different state of consciousness, one that can be frustratingly elusive. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler advises, “Art does not come from ideas. . . . There is a trance state that the artist must induce in herself to create a work of art.” We’ll use ideas from Butler’s From Where you Dream as one of several launching points in our discovery of the writer’s dreamspace. This class will show you how to intentionally shift your consciousness to find your own way into the flow. Each class will give you an opportunity to assess what’s working well in your writing and discuss topics like sensory-focused writing, rituals and routines, ego surrender, and writing place and time. You’ll spend the majority of class time in a relaxed, meditative state recording the images you find there in slow, easy writing that you will later expand into scenes. This class is recommended for fiction writers, especially those who think there may be a novel hiding inside of them. It may also be effective for poets and creative nonfiction writers who tend to use narrative scenes in their writing.Location and Times Register: Contact The Loft 612-379-8999 or www.loft.org. The Writer's WorkoutWhy would you pay money to sit in a classroom and write for two hours when you could stay home and write for free? Maybe because you can’t remember the last time you wrote for two hours straight. Maybe because you can’t think of what to write or how to get started or how to keep going. Maybe because you want new exercises to energize your writing. In this class, you’ll experience writer’s warm-ups that use creative play to propel you into the writing. You’ll immerse yourself in a writer’s aerobics and conditioning program that emphasizes in-class writing in response to directed exercises. You’ll discover how you can write with excitement and joy instead of being pushed away by resistance and self-doubt. And you’ll find new methods to welcome inspiration and move into the writing flow. Co-taught with Paula Granquist. Location and Times Instant Fiction: Just Add WaterYou don't have to outline or plot the whole story before you start writing; you can discover what happens as you write. If you started a story and don't know where to go with it next, or have characters in mind but don't know what happens to them, or just want to see what stories are bouncing around in your subconscious, this four-day intensive on beautiful Madeline Island will give you plenty of inspiration, exercises, and time to get the characters and story out of your head and on to the page. We'll spend most of our time playing with in-class writing, generating energy and ideas for either new material or stories you're already working on. We'll use improv games, collage-making, random generation tools, found objects, field research, guided imagery, mind mapping and other exercises to kick-start your writing. We'll review samples of published fiction to explore and discuss key elements. We'll read and celebrate student writing; we will not critique or workshop student writing. You and I will meet for a private consultation during the workshop. You will also have the opportunity to participate in a reading.
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When you take a class, you get information and insights
from your classmates as well as the instructor. You begin to see that many of
the challenges you face are universal and you hear how your peers respond to
those challenges. You’re also in a better position to identify people you
may want to invite to join you in a writer’s group or a creativity support
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Imagination Ink, Rosanne Bane, 612-722-4139, rosanne@rosannebane.com