CBW-LA’s third Kickstarting Your Writing Career Workshop last January 11^th, 2014, was divided into five parts:

I. Reflection: Where Are You on the Write Path?

II. Reflection: What Do You See at the End of the Write Path?

III. Publishing 101

IV. Tools to Kickstart Your Writing Career

V. Making a Commitment to Your Writing Career.

In Part 1, participants were asked to reflect on their writing past and present. They had to answer the following questions:

1. Who are you?
2. What kind of writer are you?
3. When did your writing journey begin?

 

In Part 2, the following questions challenged participants to look ahead into their writing futures:

1. Why do you want to be a writer?
2. Where do you want your writing to take you?
3. How will you achieve the kind of writing career you want?

In order to achieve their writing dreams, participants first had to come face to face with publishing reality.

In the third part of the workshop, they were introduced to the publishing process and the key paths to publication: Traditional Publishing, Self-Publishing and Other publishing options such as In-Progress publishing, Blogs and Websites, Fanfiction and Crowdfunding.

In Part 4 of the workshop, participants were given a list of tools to kickstart their writing careers. Worksheets also helped participants develop their mission-vision, as well as list down their writing goals. They were given templates to help them get started on a five-year writing career plan, as well as templates to get their schedules and goals organized.

With the many publishing options now available, all writers need to do is to figure out what kind of writing career they desire, and commit to it.

The final portion of the workshop encouraged participants to take their writing dreams seriously by fully committing to it. Committing to being a writer means keeping true to the “write” path and keeping the promises they’ve made to themselves. These promises can be as simple as finishing a draft or trying their best to get published.

 

Workshop participants wrote the following words down as part of their personal writing contract:

 

I am a writer.

              I will commit time and patience into achieving my writing goals.

              This year, my biggest writing goals are:

• List down your biggest goal/s for each role you plan to fulfill: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur

I will do everything in my power to have the writing future I envision.

                I will become an author.

 

Once they’d written the words, they signed and dated their writing contract and asked fellow attendees to sign as witnesses.

Participants left with tons of handouts, worksheets, templates, a renewed passion for writing, and a sense of how to take their writing to the next level.