Writing With Mimi Retreat - Virtual Workshops

Feeling creatively blocked? Can't get started or re-started? Stuck on a book project and ready to throw it in the drawer? 

It sounds like you need to WRITE YOUR DAMN BOOK!

Brought to you by Writing With Mimi, this writing retreat brings together craft workshops, focused writing time, & community building for the ultimate weekend! Whether your feeling blocked, unsure of how to begin a book project, or just looking to make some new writing friends in the same boat...this virtual edition of our retreat is just for you!

Join us for a few workshops this weekend and give yourself permission to explore the book you've always wanted to write!

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:

1. Writing With Vulnerability with Brad Wetzler

Friday, September 13, 3-5 PM Mountain Time

Join Brad Wetzler, acclaimed journalist and author of “Into the Soul of the World,” in this deeply immersive workshop to explore the art and heart of memoir writing. Featuring in-depth analyses and personal writing assignments, this workshop encourages writers to lead with their most vulnerable emotions. Drawing primarily from themes and techniques used in “Into the Soul of the World” with additional guidance from other celebrated memoirs, you will learn to authentically handle sensitive topics and deep emotions in your writing. 

2. Unblocking Your Emotions with Movement with Kristen Poppe

Saturday, September 14, 9-10 AM Mountain Time

This workshop seeks to demonstrate the vital role of emotions in writing, and how those emotions appear in the body. Writing requires tremendous courage to get to the deep emotional truth of an experience, and the emotions that are released in that process can be overwhelming and frightening or triggering. Learn how movement helps you unlock emotions that have been blocked or stored in the body. We will move and stretch in this workshop, so bring comfortable clothes you can move in.

3. The Secret Sauce: Writing Structure & Notecards with Mimi Hayes

Saturday, September 14, 10:30 AM - 12 PM Mountain Time

If you’re anything like me, you fly through life by the seat of your pants. Turns out that applies to my writing style, too. And there’s a name for it in the writing biz: “Pantsers.”

The true nature of a “Pantser” is to be an agent of chaos: to write with no road map and to go where the pen/keyboard takes us. Sound familiar? OK, so what happens when you pants yourself out and you’re so far down the road you don’t actually know where you are and you can’t even find your pants???

In this class, I will help you find the true structure and path for your book. Whether you’re knee-deep in editing a manuscript with no discernible direction, or if you’re just getting started and feeling anxious about the road ahead.

4. Marathon, not sprint: Finishing Your Book Over the Long Haul with Joe Fassler

Saturday, September 14, 3-5 PM Mountain Time

For most of us, completing a first book is an unpredictable, years-long foot race, a trek beset with detours, wrong turns, and plenty of heavy weather. How do we stay committed to — and joyful about — our work as writers when the journey pushes us to our limits? This workshop will provide attendees with a map to the territory, guiding them along the path to publication while offering strategies for overcoming common personal, professional, and creative obstacles. We’ll focus especially on time management, emotional strength training, and defeating writer’s block, drawing on the instructor’s personal experience and his interviews with hundreds of other writers.

5. Turning Points: How Choice Makes a Great Story with Patricia McCrystal

Sunday, September 15, 3-5 PM Mountain Time

The most memorable, moving stories aren’t made up of a sequence of events simply happening to the protagonist. Just like SpiderMan or other well-known figures, it’s our choices that make a story interesting. Choices show us who we are, and what we want.

What are your canon events? Is there an event in your life that defines you so clearly, you wouldn't be who you are if it didn't happen? What choices did you make afterward, and how did they get you to where you are today?

We’ve all made big choices—“good” or “bad”—that changed the trajectory of our life in significant ways. In this workshop, we’ll identify the “turning points” in specific stories, then identify our own turning points in life. From here, we’ll secure the scaffolding to build a story around your turning point event, and discuss how to make readers understand and care about its impact.