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Laurie Wagner

Creative Nonfiction, Essay, Writing Practice

40 Days & 40 Nights: Deepening Our Practice
40 Days & 40 Nights Part Two: The Journey Continues
Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Essay (taught by Laurie Wagner and Gretchen Clark)
Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Essay 2 (taught by Laurie Wagner and Gretchen Clark)
The Lyric Essay (taught by Laurie Wagner and Gretchen Clark)

About Laurie Wagner
Student Comments
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40 Days & 40 Nights: Deepening Our Practice (10 weeks)

10 weeks
40 writing assignments

With a focus on practice

The point is to write everyday. The point is not to worry yourself over questions like am I a writer? Does my stuff suck? But instead to ask the more important question; when will I write today?

Everyone dreams of writing and seeing a byline, but like everything else, the only way to get good at something is to practice, practice, practice.

Think of anything you've ever done in which you excelled. Chances are you didn't get great at that thing after a try or two. It was something you worked at and stuck with for a long time.

This class will have four writing assignments each week. Most will be short and direct and will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to do. You can adjust assignments based on your time. The purpose won't be to make fine art every day but to sit down and dig in, one word at a time. At the end of the week there will be a chance to share a piece of writing with the class and get feedback.

Good ideas and a sense of craft are things a writer needs. But it's my belief that the thing that will take a writer the farthest and make him or her the happiest is a sense of freedom and comfort in a relationship with writing. This class focuses on that relationship, which is why we'll write something new every day.

This is a class for people who can commit to this practice of writing much the same way someone might practice yoga or meditation. The more you practice the better you will get.

Each week there will be a list of assignments as well as mini-lectures on getting going and finding a way into the writing.

After 10 weeks and 40 assignments you will see a difference in your work.

You will: feel more comfortable writing; find a looseness in your voice; take more chances, more risks; develop a relationship with writing that is comfortable and familiar. You might even get to know the sound of your own voice.

This is especially good for writers who experience writers block and who freeze when they sit down to write. If you can let go of the product in this class, if you can give way to process and creativity and to sitting down four times a week to follow a writing assignment that can take you as little as 30 minutes and or as much time as you want to put into it, this class is for you.

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40 Days & 40 Nights Part Two: The Journey Continues (10 weeks)

Like the original class, this class will support writers in creating a daily writing practice, as well as a more intimate relationship with their instinctual voice. To that end, during the first five weeks Laurie will provide writers with 20 new writing prompts, as well as writing samples and short lectures on various aspects of writing. For the remaining five weeks of class writers will focus on crafting, building and finishing at least three of the pieces that they had created during the first half of the class. Students need to have taken the original 40 Days and 40 Nights class to join this one.

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