Blog That Ish

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Our 2nd writing workshop set is now in session, and I'm pretty psyched about it. [Who says "psyched" anymore, you guys?]

For this set, we're doing Creative Blogging workshops where we try to break out of the old, boring "I did this and this happened" writing method that we employ on autopilot as personal bloggers.

I love these sessions, and not only because I've put in a lot of hard work to make them happen (this is our 4th session overall). In general, the goal is to:

* Meet other serious writers in Jeddah who are willing to put aside some time out of their busy schedules to sharpen their writing.

* Create a community of writers.

* Tackle different genres of writing that we all have - or want to - dabble in.

* Raise the bar for the writing industry in Jeddah.

* Encourage self-learning and peer-to-peer learning, as well as good form in giving and receiving constructive criticism from fellow writers.

* Develop critical thinking among writers, putting aside language, because language is merely a tool that we should perfect in order to be able to get our message across. Sometimes we think that having a good command of English (or Arabic, or any language you write in) equals good content. FALSE.

* Develop good writing habits.

* Aim for excellence by identifying and admitting our weaknesses as writers. Of course motivation and praise is essential in honing a craft, but I sometimes feel like we have an overabundance of praise going around. Think of the child whose parents only ever praised him, and so he thinks he is perfect. NO, CHILD, YOU SUCK ASSBALLS. SORRY.


So far, thanks to a total of 9 writers who have joined us since we started early this year, these goals are being (very) slowly but steadily met. And I love that shit. The sessions are fun, casual, focused, goal-oriented, productive and most importantly for me, hilarious. 

This is the closest thing to a writer's room that I'll ever have in Jeddah, for now. 
6 writers for 4 hours straight. It's... *weeps*
[From left: Menelik, Hassan, Saad, Samia, Sahrish]

We have big plans for our little community, and you're most welcome to join us. If you'd like to join the sessions, simply fill out this form, and if you know anyone else who'd be interested, point them in my direction. We got this. 

We are graciously hosted by the awesome Christy Watkins and (for our February sessions) Emily Abraham, without whose support we would've never gotten this off the ground. 

Here's what I produced during our session yesterday, where the writing prompt was "a true story/incident written in very-short-story format," inspired by a Neil Gaiman blog post. 

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OTHER POSTS BY NESSREEN:

#45 ~ V-Day

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