How? What? When? Tell me more and how much does it cost?

Here at www.letterinthepost.com we know how much people like to write.

We also know that each letter written contains nuggets of your life. Your past; your current and your future. So we have got together and assembled a short on line writing course over 4 consecutive weeks. Each Session being 1 hour long. And the cost is nothing to you, my dears, provided you are a member of Letter in the Post Pen Pal Club.

Not a Member? No worries. You can join here!

Course Content

During this Course you will ;

• Introduce yourself by writing a piece approximately 250 words long. So train yourself to be succinct
• Work on short exercises as a group and homework on your own
• Learn about ” showing” – not ” telling. ” Seeing” is believing. Don’t lead the witness.
• Discussing how ” true ” it needs to be. As we know, recollections may vary!
• Setting time Lines – how far back should you go
• Images. Are they important and who should be included?
• Making it personal, or including a wider part of your family
• Setting the tone. Should I make my life comedic? Full of angst? Or flatline the audience into a torpor of everyday monotony
• Is a lot of dialogue necessary when writing your Life Story? What format should you decide on?
• Looking at images and photos of your life and making a short story from those images
• Does social mobility still play a part in Life Stories? Where do you hang your hat?
• Bring in an item relating to ” your life”. Can you write about it in such a way that readers realise ” it is YOU”
• 15 mins of fame. A quick exercise writing for 15 minutes and then reading it out
• Homework – preparing 1500 words on a life story, be it yourself; a family member of even a famous person

What will the result be?

We cant say for sure, but we hope to kick start those digestive juices back into action with our friendly on line courses. We hope you will share some of your work but if not, participate in our exercises at home. We want to share suggestions; exercises and give kind but constructive feedback to all those who wish for it

Who is this for?

This is a short introductory on line writing course for anyone who wishes to write a life story, be it of themselves; a family member or even someone more well known. You can have writing skills or be new to it. We wont judge. Its just a small group to support and help you take those first few steps to writing more. It can give you ideas on how to get started and it can give you useful feedback from your work. Maybe you have already started and hit a bump in the road. Maybe you have finished and wonder how it will be received. We aim to guide you as much as we can to the next step, where that may be.

When and how will this work?

What is the time line?

We aim to run this initially for 4 relaxed easy and friendly weeks. One hour a week on a Tuesday evening from 1900hrs (7pm) BST starting early January.

This is an on line course via ZOOM. You will need a reliable Internet source. Pen and Paper for sure and lots of ideas

Give me some examples

We will not be studying books in detail, but rather take snippets of them to discuss the different ways of writing your Life Story. For example, one such book would be ” The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion

Another would be discussing the raw writing of ” Why be happy, when you can be normal?” by Jeanette Winterson.

There is also some merit from books by celebrities, such as Billy Connolly, where comedic value takes a bow! Windswept and Interesting is his current book.

If you have any ideas you would like us to discuss, then please feel free to send them over for consideration.

What’s next to do?

So if you are interested please sign up now. We will make a list and get going once we hit our number.

It is a free course, so absolutely no cost to you, provided you are a Letter in the Post Member.

Once we have our Group we will email you the Course Content and get you going with a practical exercise to talk about on your first lesson.

So follow the link and use the contact form to register your interest. No obligation, whatsoever.

Contact – Letter in the Post

Looking forward to taking this fun journey with you in the New Year.

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