Ellington's Unique Online Workshops Challenge Writers

Jan. 15, 2013 - PRLog -- (Cape Cod, MA) -- February, in the Northern Hemisphere, is often a time to stay home, sit by the fire, and watch too much television.  Author Devon Ellington has a solution for that - two short workshops on completely unique topics.
   “The Graveyard of Abandoned Projects”, running February 4-6 ($30) gives writers a chance to dust off projects put away and abandoned.  Participants get a chance to revisit up to five projects and dissect their possibilities.  Projects with potential will be revived and integrated back into the schedule; those that need to be released will be set to rest in a way that brings closure for the writer, allowing the writer to move on with more energetic projects.
   “Unfinished projects drain creative energy,” Ellington says.  “It’s great to put a FINISHED draft aside before revising.  However, if you keep starting projects and forsaking them, leaving an ever-growing pile of partial projects, you’re committing creative self-sabotage.  We learn so much for everything we write.  Finishing is one of the most important techniques in a writer’s repertoire.  This class will help revive projects with promise, give temporary endings to projects that may be revisited at a later date, and retiring projects that are thoroughly done.”
   The second workshop, running from Feb. 11-15, is “Journal into Fiction”. ($50).  In this workshop, participants learn how to transform journal entires into viable fiction, how to create characters inspired by real people/situations that then evolve into distinct and unique individuals separate from the original inspiration, and how to keep a travel journal that will feed one’s fiction for years.  This is not a class for those who want to use journal entries as the basis for personal essay or creative non-fiction.
   An avid journal keeper for nearly forty years, and a collector of published published journals, Ellington is fascinated by the journal/diary phenomenon and how it has evolved over the centuries.  “Social media and technology have an impact, but they don’t negate the purpose of keeping a journal in the twenty-first century.  There are more opportunities for a journal to be useful now than in the past -- and we’re going to explore them!”
   Both courses are online, and part of Fearless Ink Writing Workshop’s “Fast and Fun” series.  Ellington is a full-time writer, publishing under a half a dozen names in fiction and non-fiction, and her plays are produced in New York, London, Edinburgh, and Australia.  She provides a wide variety of business writing and editing services for an international client base, and teaches both in-person and online all over the world.  She is a recent addition to the Board of Directors of the Cape Cod Writers Center, and will teach her “Setting as Characters” workshop in April at NERWA’s conference “Let Your Imagination Take Flight” in Burlington, MA.
   For more information, visit http://www.devonellingtonwork.com/fastandfun.html.