Cultivating Your Writing Mindset
Overcome Creative Blocks to Create the Project of Your Dreams
The goal behind this course is to help you overcome creative blocks and take your first step toward making your dream project a reality.
During this 31-day course, we’ll take a deep dive into the blocks that have been standing in the way between you and creating the project of your dreams. And while you might not finish that project during the course (that depends a lot on how big your project is!), you will make progress on your project.
And progress, as we’ll discover together, is what it’s all about.
With the aim of your first steps toward creating the project of your dreams in mind, let me tell you something that I believe with every fiber of my being: Your dream project chose you. Not someone else in your field. Not your favorite author. You.
Maybe you’ve always known that you're a writer. You've spent years dreaming about that one special project—a novel, a short story collection, a ttRPG campaign... But somewhere between dreaming about writing your project and actually writing it, you’ve gotten stuck.
The purpose of this course is to help you get back on the path to pursuing your creative dream.
We’ll do some digging to uncover what’s keeping you stuck, guard ourselves against comparisonitis, and take concrete steps to making your dream a reality.
This course is for you if you’ve felt bogged down with:
And, starting now, no more saying “I can’t.” That’s rule number one. There aren’t very many rules, but from this point forward, no more negative self-talk when it comes to your writing.
You have this dream for a reason. The stories you want to tell are waiting for you—no one else can tell them. Your voice matters.
And over the next 31 days, you’re going to prove that truth to yourself.
During that time, you’ll work through five lessons, one for each week, and thirty-one reflection exercises. The themes for each week are:
Week One: Creative Blocks and Your Creative Story
Week Two: Progress, Process, and Productivity
Week Three: Expectations, Creative Freedom, and Protecting Your Process
Week Four: Experiencing Worthiness
Mini-Week Five: Dreaming Big and Choosing Yourself
The lessons unlock on a schedule, and you can complete the lessons on your own time. Here's an overview of the curriculum:
Welcome to Cultivating Your Writing Mindset
Get to Know the Storytelling Collective
Lesson One: Common Creative Blocks
Week One: Activity
Day One – Your Dream Project
Day Two – Your Creative Story
Day Three – Patterns in Your Story
Day Four – Patterns and Blocks
Day Five – Re-Visioning Your Story
Day Six – Rewrite Your Story
Day Seven – Your Dream Project and Your Goal for the Course
Lesson Two: Progress, Process, and Productivity
Weekly Two: Activity
Day Eight – Defining Your Input Sources
Day Nine – Brainstorming Boundaries
Day Ten – Setting Boundaries
Day Eleven – Reflection on Your Project and Blocks
Day Twelve – Reflect and Review
Day Thirteen – Revise and Refine
Day Fourteen – Dream Project Visualization
Lesson Three: Expectations, Creative Freedom, and Protecting Your Process
Week Three: Activity
Access to a private Discord channel and course Discussions
Help and support from your instructor
Support, encouragement, and accountability from the StoCo community
Meet Beth Ball
I’m really excited about making this transition from the classroom to your living room, home office, or wherever it is that you’re reading this, because you actually want to write! And I want to help you make your dreams into a reality.
My goal over the next month is to keep you encouraged and to enhance your belief in your creative dreams. I passionately believe in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us to ourselves, our communities, and the natural world. Stories are how we change the world, and they change us through the telling.
In May of 2020, I achieved a lifelong dream of publishing my first novel, and I’ve gone on to write and publish two other novels and three novellas since then. (It’s even more fun than I thought it would be!) But part of what inspired this course was looking back and wondering about the long span of years between when I knew I wanted to be a novelist—in childhood, adolescence, “ah-ha” moments in college, and even into my twenties—and the gap between that time and when I actually took steps to finally start writing my novel.
What was keeping me blocked? Why was it so hard to transition from dreaming about a project to bringing it into being?
In this course, we’ll delve into the answers to those questions for you.
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that creating your dream project is as easy as 1-2-3. But you have all the tools you need, right now, to bring your dream project into being.
It chose you. It chose you for a reason.
Several months, a year from now, maybe two, you’ll look back on this month with your finished project in hand (or on screen). Imagine, just for a moment, what that will feel like.
Your dream project chose you already. And now it’s time for you to choose yourself.