What students say about my workshops.
“I truly enjoyed the workshops I have taken from Joy Held. I not only learned a good deal about different approaches to creativity, but it helped me regain a sense of excitement about writing again. I rediscovered my love of writing and employed arts and crafts using suggested tools. Journaling activities helped me to write with abandon and with focus on a variety of topics. Creating collages to springboard ideas through a visual media for writing provided a fun way to get words down. The music playlist which Joy provided stirred responses to topics which I might not have considered. Most of all, the courses reminded me to honor the creative in myself and take risks with the writing.” Thank you, Joy Held.
~Catherine Greenfeder
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Available anytime self-paced online workshop “Create a Discussion Guide for Your Book” click here.
2023
MARCH 26-APRIL 1
“Learning from the Masters: The Journals of Published Authors”
Online
Host: Women’s Fiction Writers Association
Registration opens Feb. 16, 2023
Register here
APRIL 3-28
“Reflective Writing: A Journal Workshop for Writers”
Online
Host: Romantic Women’s Fiction Romance Writers of America
Register here
EVENTS
BOOK SIGNING, JUNE 2, 2023, 5:00-7:00 p.m. EST, Clarksburg Harrison County Public Library, Clarksburg, WV
***
Workshop Descriptions
To schedule a workshop for your group or organization, please email me at
writerwellness at gmail dot com.
List of workshops currently available:
“Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity”
Good self-care is the new multi-vitamin! Writers should still take a multi-vitamin, and Writer Wellness is a complimentary plan to help you stay on target for writing and life. WW is a lifestyle technique for anyone who loves to create with activities to stimulate creativity and health by encouraging regular journal writing, exercise, relaxation, good nutrition, and creative play. Regardless of style, genre, or writing goals, Writer Wellness is the perfect writer’s companion.
The workshop will offer one to three activities per key area (journaling, fitness, relaxation, nutrition, and creative play) for participants to try then respond to discussion prompts posted in the course. This interactive workshop will present ideas any writer can put into practice, tweak, and maintain throughout a writing career with the goal of better health and expanded creativity for many years. Discover the Writer Wellness Warrior in you and be well, write well!
online for 2-4 weeks or
one-hour introductory session FREE online
“50 Ways to Leave Your Muse: Creativity Hacks”
My theory about the muse is pretty straight forward: it’s a fantasy, a myth created by Greek and Roman philosophers who operated with limited resources on every level. The world was flat then. While the idea of a muse appeals to my senses, excites my imagination, and stimulates my sense of theatre, the reality is that the shoemaker’s elves don’t really exist. Me and the cobbler have to show up, no matter what, and do everything from concept, design, draft, prototype, revisions, production, marketing, promotions, and follow-through to actually applying the idea to paper.
This online workshop explores what it means to live a creative life, and to maintain that fun, creative edge all the time. And when that edge becomes dull, the ideas in the course will help you revive what you need to stay juicy, productive, and happy as a writer.
“Reflective Writing: A Journal Workshop for Writers”
This workshop will explore the many different ways writers can utilize journaling to document process, clear mental clutter, examine story, and cull ideas from the pages. We’ll look at the journal practices of writers like Sue Grafton, John Steinbeck, and others to see how their journals contributed to their output. Participants will receive three journal prompts per week to practice and have ample opportunities to discuss the outcomes and uses of keeping a journal when it comes to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. We’ll look at what’s out there as far as journaling tools and how keeping a journal provides insight, focus, and positive change. With a bit of research and journal keeping history thrown in, this workshop will expand your ideas on how, why, and when journaling can assist your professional writing and personal growth. Journaling is more than sitting down with a pen/paper or at the keyboard and recounting your day. Reflective writing is a metacognitive process that will free your creative spirit.
Students will discover:
*what reflective writing is and is not
*ways journal writing supports a writer’s creativity, organization, and wellbeing
*examples of journals of published authors
*journal practice
*tools of the trade
*wide range of journal prompt ideas
*how to make time for journal writing
*resources online and in the library related to reflective writing
*class discussions utilizing the 3-2-1 strategy for learning
“Learning from the Masters: The Journals of Published Authors”
In 1951, Pulitzer prize winning novelist John Steinbeck “warmed-up his writing arm” with a letter to his editor each day before working on East of Eden. Those letters were later published as Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters. Crime novelist Sue Grafton (“A” is for Alibi) kept a journal for every book she wrote that included ideas, positive self-talk, and more to help her stay on track. Author Anne Lamott has written two memoirs that are formatted like journals, and Virginia Woolf’s diaries examined what it was like to be a female author in the world of writing and publishing during the 1930’s and 40’s.
It’s refreshing and renewing to read the journals of published authors and recognize some of our own struggles in the pages of those who forged successful careers before us. We’ll look at the journals of the authors mentioned and explore what we can learn from them and how we can emulate some of their personal writing habits to support our own lives and work.
Each lesson will include:
- examples of journal entries
- narrative lesson on a particular aspect of journaling for writers
- an activity for you to try
- discussion questions for deep learning
“Mindset, Motivation, and Wellbeing A to Z for Writers”
presents a host of suggestions for overhauling your writing life inside and out. Some of the topics will resonate and some will need to percolate for a while, but everything from coping with anxiety to applying zero-based thinking can potentially recharge your existence until you are unstoppable in every aspect. These premises apply to more than just writers, but the creative juices needed to produce stories is more draining than it looks. These concepts could be the missing ingredient you’ve been searching for.
The course will present the ideas and offer outside readings or internet links to explain each one. Course participants will be encouraged to post experiences and thoughts.
“Essential Oils for Writers”
Learn the basic practice of incorporating essential oils such as lavender and frankincense to improve mood, productivity, and well-being. This is a 75-minute webinar presentation. Please contact me for information.
“Create a Discussion Guide for Your Book”
Available always self-paced online course with seven modules that is text-based and available anytime. Click HERE to register.
Joy E. Held