30 Stories in 30 Days Creative Writing Workshop

In “30 Stories in 30 Days” you will write, write and write some more using favorite writing prompts by published authors and expert writing instructors. In this course, you will respond to timed daily writing prompts that will force you into a creativity focus where your “internal editor” will have to wait their turn, allowing story development to take over. Daily writing prompts will begin immediately when you click the “Take this course” button. Subsequently, you can begin during NaNoWriMo or at the beginning, middle, end of any month, whenever it suits you.  Each prompt is available to you on its scheduled day and you will write at your own pace. If you are so inclined, you can submit one or more stories for our One on One Creative Writing Workshop, where you will receive individualized developmental edits, line edits, end notes and a phone chat.

This course focuses on your creative and narrative talents. You are welcome to share your daily writing prompts with other course writers on each day. You can take this course in tandem with friends during NaNoWriMo or any month of the year. When you develop one or more prompts into a fuller narrative, consider our One on One Creative Writing Workshop.

Writing Methods

  • You will have access to one writing prompt per day.
  • Timed writing in ten minutes or less. The prompts suggest first person narratives; however, feel free to write in whatever PoV and tense works best for you. If at any point, the narrative derivates from the original prompt, let it. Go where your creativity leads you.
  • Stop writing when the timer stops. Take a break. Stand up. Grab a drink. Keep writing new words if you like or, if not, file the scene/narrative for a later time.
  • Give yourself at least two days before you revise these new narratives/scenes.
  • Finally, if you would like to share your narrative, post it to the discussion board below each lesson and share it with your course peers. If you end up expanding this narrative into a fuller work and would like written, individualized feedback on it, we invite you to join us for a One on One Creative Writing Workshop.

Goals for Writing Prompts

  • To further explore authentic voice
  • To write a new narrative every day for thirty days;
  • To leverage the creative right brain to generate ideas;
  • To strengthen daily writing regimens;
  • To exercise freewriting;
  • To mine personal experiences and observations for narrative details
  • To practice scaffold writing in an authentic and culminative process.

What is NaNoWriMo and Why is “30 Stories” Different?

NaNoWriMo mainly focuses on drafting a novel of 50,000 words or more in November each year. For some writers, writing a novel in a linear approach–point A to point B to point c….–works very well. For some writers, a less linear format will unearth creativities and connections otherwise missed. With our structure, you can write that novel you’ve been wanting to write OR you can write a series of short stories or essays that may turn into a novel or a collection. Another aspect that differentiates our workshop is that you will have the option to write culminatively, using early work to inform later work in a scaffolded structure. Finally, where NaNoWriMo focuses on the long form, our approach gives you the liberty to approach new work in your most authentic process. And when you’ve completed your thirty days of writing prompts, you will start the process of developmentally revising at your own pace, either independently with lesson guidance or with a published author and mentor.

Why Online Writing Workshops?

Online creative writing workshops present the best of both worlds for creative writers. Creative isolation and craft interaction. In “Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught?” (The New Yorker), Louis Menand not only asks should, but also if. Our stance at The Eckleburg Workshops is that writers can be shown craft writing skills. Writers can be encouraged to explore voice through the practice of these skills. Writers can observe and deduce authentic skills in both master and developing narratives. It is our job to sculpt and nurture creative writing and this is best done by published authors and experienced writing teachers. This is what we give you in each and every writing course and in our One on One individualized manuscript sessions.