Productive writing in balance with the rest of life – Online Coaching Programme
- Set writing goals that are meaningful, balanced, possible and satisfying
- Build confidence, motivation and awareness of what gets in the way and how to overcome it
- Establish strategies for productive writing practices in balance with the rest of life
- Ongoing peer-support and learning from the collective wisdom of the group
- Ongoing accountability and insight with regular group coaching and 1-1 support
- Create a sustainable writing practice beyond the programme
Whether an academic, a blogger or creative writer, Summer WriteClub is for anyone wanting to create a productive process of writing and establish a more effective, balanced writing experience. WriteClub works on three levels:
Establishing an effective writing practice while getting writing done. Our method – WriteHere, RightNow – offers a structure designed to enable you to write, to approach editing in an effective way, and to hold up a mirror to your own habits and strategies with a view to establishing an intentional approach that works to you.
– Sustaining motivation and overcoming barriers such as self-doubt and ‘the imposter’. In response to the challenges many participants find, group coaching engages with issues around core motivation, overcoming fear and insecurity, finding inherent confidence, and establishing effective intentions and goals.
– Who are you as a writer? A principle underlying the programme is to develop a better understanding of who you are as a writer, letting go of assumptions of who you are trying to be or thinking you should be. We work with what matters to you, with your strengths, with your vision of what your writing is for.
Starts with a one-day online live coaching virtual writing retreat followed by a programme of group coaching, peer and 1-1 support for 3 months.
For the next Summer WriteClub email Will (hello@writeclubcoaching.com)
Who is WriteClub for?
WriteClub is designed to enable you to write. Will brings experience of coaching writers struggling whether with academic papers, novels, blogs, websites, books, and proposals. The programme is about enabling you to create a successful process of writing and establish a more effective, balanced and sustainable experience. The WriteClub programme has been attended by researchers, lecturers, professors, creative writers, bloggers and PhD researchers, and has benefitted people from all backgrounds, from physicists to creative writers, sociologists to mathematicians.
What’s involved?
WriteClub has two stages, and is designed to adapt to the needs of participants
Stage one: WriteHere, rightnow day virtual retreat
The day’s agenda includes:
- Setting up: Introducing a coaching approach and the relationship between performance, potential and interference; sharing current experience of writing and how participants would like it to be; setting intentions.
- Engagement: Developing an agreement amongst the group for the time together and establishing principles for writing, including: when it’s writing time, write; separate preparing, drafting and crafting; be curious with a beginner’s mind; warm up & warm down.
- Live coaching experiments: Focused writing time paired with reflective exercises that lead to insights about process, challenges, successes, and self. Themes include: setting intentions; realigning vision and purpose; managing fear; being present; seeing mood as perspective; writing with joy, confidence, creativity, focus and rhythm.
- Developing strategies and commitment: Applying the principles; incorporating new insights; setting the conditions; developing writing habits that sustain momentum; establishing individual goals for the writing period; creating peer-support systems for sharing progress.
stage two: fortnightly group coahing, weekly peer support and one-to-one coaching
Following the retreat, participants will put into practice their writing strategies and will regularly come together to reflect on learning through the following:
- Group coaching (Zoom): A fortnightly group coaching session offers regular opportunity to reflect on progress. The topics are adaptive to the themes that participants bring up in the reviews – examples have included staying motivated; pacing oneself; maintaining focus; setting reasonable goals; working with co-authors; managing guilt, anxiety and lethargy.
- Optional Peer-support: Participants have the option to support and learn from each other in small self-managed groups. Each group’s members will determine how they want to support each other. Options might include: weekly check-in; regular shared writing time (virtual); a system of reward and challenge.
- One-to-one coaching (Zoom): Participants will have the opportunity to receive focused attention from the coaches with a 20 minute one-to-one conversation around the mid-point of the programme. They will have the option of an additional one-to-one 20 minute session on an ad hoc basis if needed at any stage of the programme.
- Fortnightly review: Each fortnight participants will complete a short review of progress on their goals and questions and receive email support from the coaches as needed.
- Concluding group call: A final group call at the end of the programme will create space for reflecting on key lessons learned and how to take those forward into everyday practice.
What previous participants have said …
- “Fantastic. It has brought discipline, daily practice, extensive self reflection and camaraderie. It has sustained me through a very difficult few months. (Participant, Autumn 2020)
- “An excellent source of support, inspiration, learning and supported reflection.” (Participant, Autumn 2020)
- “”Amazing, inspirational, motivational and dare I say life-changing (and affirming).” (Participant, Summer 2020)
- “An excellent experience, a journey of discovery and self-reflection. Not what I expected, it was much more than a writing course.” (Participant, Summer 2020)
- “Just thanks to Will and everyone else in the group for the supportive atmosphere, helpful suggestions and the ability to make even bad writing weeks seem much better after each call! I think my attitude towards writing has really shifted this summer, and become much healthier, and that’s had a big impact on my day-to-day work life.” (Researcher, Lancaster University, 2017)
- “I stayed on target with my writing goals, and it enabled me to see quickly when I was slowing down and allowed me to get back on track more easily than otherwise would have been the case.” (Lecturer, Lancaster University, 2018)
- “The meetings were incredibly useful for touching base with writing and sharing experiences with others, artfully facilitated by Will.” (Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University, 2018)
- “The most useful has been Will’s experience and skills as a coach. He can tune in to each individual and is so versatile in his methods. He is amazing and has truly helped each one of us, and has kept us motivated and focused.” (Lancaster University PhD Researcher, 2016)
- “I’ve attended a few writing retreats with Will, and each reinforces/refreshes/refines my efforts. It’s invaluable.” (Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University 2018).