Class Title: Build Your Creative Writing Muscle Instructor: Sheila Bender Class Term: February 6-March 5, 2012 We are not accepting any more enrollments for Sheila's class; the class has started. Synopsis Learn to strengthen your writing and its depth by using lyric language and lyric organizational strategies in both poetry and prose. Practicing with exercises will help you approach new topics as well as ones you didn't think you could write about effectively; using sound to gain momentum in your writing as well as using imagery and figurative language to deepen your writing's impact will become second nature. Class Description Each participant will write three exercises a week for four weeks and receive detailed responses from the instructor and classmates. The details will include where to go in revision to create poems, memoir, personal essays and stories. Documents with the week's exercises will be posted to the course Yahoo group at the beginning of each class week. Instructor and group response will be posted as replies to participant work. Helpful links will also be posted for participants to gain more knowledge. Students will learn to write vivid and moving pieces that move toward insight and engage readers. Students will learn how using lyric techniques means never being at a loss for words or ways into material. This class will benefit all writers, from beginners to those who feel they need a jumpstart in their writing. Using a yahoo or google group will be of benefit, although all posts will also be emailed and the class can be done via email alone. Two hours a week would allow each student to do three freewrites and send some words of encouragement to fellow classmates. Many students will find themselves spending more time with the freewrites out of interest in their writing. We will conduct class in a restricted Google Group. Lessons and exercise results as well as responses from classmates and the instructor will be at that site—and all postings can be received and responded to directly through email if desired. Outline Unit 1: Playing with sensory imagery, metaphor, simile. Unit 2: Playing with sound: repetition, half-rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia. Unit 3: Playing with rhythm and elocution: how we say it is part of what we mean. Unit 4: Putting it all together: more writing exercises that allow you versatility with lyric elements. Student Skills, Equipment, and Time Required Students will need access to the internet. Basic skills require using an Internet site. Time commitment varies, but 1-2 hours per week is average. Tuition/Fees for this course SCN members: $128. Non-SCN members: $160. Instructor Bio Sheila Bender publishes Writing it Real, an online instructional magazine for those who write from personal experience. Her books include Creative Writing DeMystified, Writing and Publishing Personal Essays, Writing Personal Poetry, A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery, and Keeping a Journal You Love. She wrote content for LifeJournal for Writers software and published a prose memoir, Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. She teaches in-person around the country and is a frequent guest blogger and interviewee for writing sites. Visit her website. Praise for Sheila's Classes Sheila Bender critiques in such a way that you not only learn how to improve your writing, but how to improve your own self editing and how to critique others in a way that helps others. The class itself was great and I found myself writing beyond my comfort zone without fear. Sheila did an excellent job and I would definitely take another class with her and I would absolutely suggest it to my friends. —Denise H., Palatine IL