goldenwordsmith

Freelance Writing Classes

Freelance Writing Classes – Beginning and Advanced

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I teach classes on freelance writing. What I teach is very simple and clean, no promises – it is all up to the writer. I present a fool-proof, eight-week plan in the Beginning Freelance Writing Class that comes from almost a decade of experience. Twenty years, if you count the small articles I wrote after high school. I had a great mentor, Rich Bruursema. He was one of my first meditation teachers, and was not my first editor, but was the first editor to really work with me. Non-pretentious, simple, down-to-earth, he was always supportive. His wife Sheila, too, joined him in all this work. They bought Kansas City Parent Magazine, and in 2000, when I’d gotten really ill, he asked me to write a food column for the magazine. I did. After a year, he told me I should start sending them out as reprints, and I did that, too. Editors bought them! What an amazing thing. I sold many, many of my articles in New York, but I also sold them in every region of the country.

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Teaching freelance writing began in Washington, when I was on a planning committee for a writers’ conference and they asked me to teach. I’ve been teaching for two decades, but that’s when I began teaching about writing. I taught for that conference for a few years. Then, I taught the same curriculum for the City of Astoria, then PCC in Portland, and two university community education programs – one in Seattle and one in Kansas City. I teach it now for my own organization, and the two universities.

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If you follow the class program, you will get published, and it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with you. The Beginning Freelance Writing Class teaches the basics, construction of an article, editing, the business of writing, creativity, working with editors, resources, networking, marketing, and more.

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The Advanced Class has evolved into an amazing class focusing on marketing and selling articles. This class includes defining a mission statement, making a plan, writing a long article defining a marketing plan, including resources and interviews, and creating a web presence and press kit. Writing every day is included in both classes. This is nothing new. Julia Cameron is terrific, and I highly recommend The Artist’s Way, but Natalie Goldberg wrote about writing daily, Eudora Welty wrote about writing daily, and Brenda Ueland wrote about writing daily. I give exercises designed to get people over their fear of submitting. They do work, even if they sound a little strange. In Washington I belonged to a writer’s group. The person with the most rejections each month was taken to lunch. It meant you submitted. That was the point. Everyone taking my classes this summer did an amazing job, and the people in my Advanced Class have been working with me for two years. I’m so proud of them. It’s amazing how much their work has changed, how much they’ve changed.

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At the end of the season, we have a writer’s party, with a reading of final pieces, a guest speaker, usually, and coffee or tea. We also always have a ‘writer’s gift exchange’ with a cap of five dollars. The gift must be for or about writing.

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Everyone loves this.

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Then, there is the special Niche Class, and the New Year Map Making for Your Writing Year class. Niche Writing is for someone wanting to specialize in a particular area, like health, beauty, travel, food, or parenting, and is a one-day class. The Map-Making Class is a one-day class in January drawing on all your creativity and planning to create a marketing plan in visual form that you can use all year.

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Don’t miss this fun class!

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A former student asked me recently to teach a one-day class on interviewing. I might do that.  I read poetry to all my freelance writing classes, and have taught the very, very basics of poetry, so students could incorporate it into their writing. The poetry I’ve taught was so basic that a person could take a poetry class afterward, and not feel completely lost. People are really intimidated by poetry. I think it is a life-long journey of study.

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I’m still learning, too, all the time, and sometimes my marketing falls by the wayside because I’m writing poetry, or working on radio, or another project, my zine, Cafe’, but I’m always learning, and I think that’s the key to writing well, and living a life as a writer. You can’t go wrong if you’re always learning. I learn from the people taking my classes. They never fail to amaze me. In the near future, I will introduce you to some great people who had never written an article in their life before taking my class, and what their lives are like, now. Until then. Email with any questions – goldenwordsmith@yahoo.com

~Kerri

Many Masks

The Life of a Freelance Writer: Wearing Many Masks

The life of a freelance writer is anything but simple. If you love writing articles, it is joyful to work at home, at your library, coffee shop, or wherever you choose, and do what you love to do. I love marketing, too, though it takes time, planning and thought. When I worked for big corporations (Westin Hotels), I didn’t have to worry about marketing, but when I started my own business, I was suddenly thrown into it. Fortunately, I loved it. As a freelance writer, you have to be a marketing manager, researcher, photographer, writer, editor, instructor, sometimes an illustrator, and more. More on marketing later, but it is the wheel that keeps your rent coming in.

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