Are you a writer of extended works of non-fiction - books, memoirs, reportage, review articles, or essays? If so - or if you want to be - this course is for you! I'll train you in a system for recording and organizing your ideas so that you don't spend most of your time hunting for sources - a system that will allow the structure and organization of your piece to emerge naturally from the content. You'll learn how to weed painlessly through your notes and assign ideas to chapters or sections of your work. We'll discuss how to face that fearsome blank page and get through a first draft. Writing can be a long process, and I'll provide strategies to remain focussed and productive. Once you have a draft, we'll consider what professional writers know is the phase where the real product emerges: Editing. I'll offer concrete tips for the structural edit, for the fine-tuning edit, and for the dull but necessary task of proofreading. As a psychologist and published author (How to be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use, The Assertiveness Workbook, Your Depression Map, Private Practice Made Simple, and more) I will guide you through the practical and mental process of writing engaging and successful nonfiction. My goal is to save you hundreds of hours of frustration, and to help you produce the very best work you can.
Your Instructor
Randy Paterson is the Director of Changeways Clinic and author of The Assertiveness Workbook, How to be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use, Private Practice Made Simple, and Your Depression Map. He is also the lead author of the Changeways Core Program, one of the world's most widely used group therapy treatment protocols for depression, and coauthor of The Antidepressant Skills Workbook. He has presented over 300 workshops on psychotherapy for professional mental health providers across Canada and internationally.
Course Curriculum
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StartGathering Your Ideas: Creating Your Idea Deck (7:57)
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StartResearching Source Material: Threshing and Recording (5:33)
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StartHow Many Cards do You Need? (3:00)
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StartA Tab System to Organize Your Thoughts (2:44)
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StartLetting the Book Find Itself: Excalibur and Your Outline (4:55)
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StartChunking Your Cards Into Sections (5:47)
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StartLay Out Your Chapters (5:52)
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StartStretching Your Mind: Creating the Mental Space for Writing (3:23)
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StartWriting With Tomatoes: The Pomodoro Technique (6:02)
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StartWhen do You Write? Avoiding the Motivation/Inspiration Trap (3:08)
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StartNOW Write Your Outline, Not Before (2:03)
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StartWhere Should You Start? Skipping the Beginning (1:40)
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StartWhich is Your First Content Chapter? (4:10)
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StartDrafts Versus Editing: Creating Rock to Sculpt (2:44)
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StartWriting a Chapter: Using Cards and Filling Gaps (2:39)
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StartShovelling Snow: Pushing Draft into a Draft (4:00)
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StartThe Motivational Dip: Anticipating and Coping with Declines in Enthusiasm (2:17)
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StartStaying Focussed on the Chapter at Hand (2:56)
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StartCoping with Writers' Block: Re-Deploying Your Focus (2:43)
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StartCompleting Your Draft: The Introduction and Conclusion (4:43)