Writing Catalyst
Learning Program
Transform Your Writing Process Find Your Flow
A self-paced Learning Program designed to help you cultivate joy in your writing and achieve your creative potential. This program will transform your writing process by addressing mindset, habits and interactive exercises inspired by other artistic disciplines designed to unlock flow.
This isn’t just about prompts and finding inspiration. We will transform your relationship to writing by addressing challenges that cause you friction and create resistance.
By adapting strategies from Emergent Strategy, somatics, Theater of the Oppressed, and more, we are going to get you back into a writing flow and you’ll finish this course feeling inspired and equipped with the tools you need to elevate your writing.
You will also have access to our free learning community, with a private discord channel for those making their way through the program, an opportunity for support, accountability and to celebrate successes.
Sign up for the waitlist now, and purchase the Workbook during launch week to receive a FREE 1:1 20-minute coaching session with me! You’ll get personalized feedback, insights, and tips to help you enhance your writing and achieve your goals.
Don’t miss out on this transformative writing journey, sign up today!
Are you experiencing at least one of these struggles?
- Struggling with creating a clear structure and strategy for writing and putting thoughts into paper
- Having difficulties staying focused and “in the flow” while writing
- Feeling stuck in the writing process
- Struggling to balance the inner creator and inner critic
- Dealing with fears, excuses, and self-doubt that may be hindering creativity
- Finding it challenging to transform silences into language and action
- Wanting to build a writing community and share work with others
- Navigating the process of getting published.
- Struggling with finding a good strategy for writing that keeps you focused and productive
- All over the place with your annotations
Then this Program is for you!
Information
Who is this Learning Program for?
Maybe you’re thinking:
“I don’t have a writing project…”
“I haven’t written anything in years…”
“I’ve started a million things I haven’t finished…”
The Writing Catalyst Learning Program is for people who want to work on creative writing projects, whether you…
- have a writing project you’ve started and want to finish
- have an idea for a project, but haven’t yet put pen to paper
- have no idea where to start
I will share interactive activities and prompts that I use in my own writing process, accessible to all abilities and capacities.
You’ll also develop some great habits and rituals you can carry through into the rest of your year.
Course Overview
Each unit will include interactive exercises that will help you generate new words on the page and refine existing works in progress.
Unit 1
Tactile and hands-on approaches to every stage of the writing process including brainstorming, drafting, and revising.
In Unit 1, you’ll learn hands-on strategies for writing that will help you create your own path to success. You will learn techniques to get into your body and embody your writing practice. You’ll discover new ways of mapping and outlining your work, as well as techniques for annotating and marking up your drafts. I’ll guide you through prompts to develop your own writing ritual and hone it for maximum productivity. By the end of Unit 1, you’ll feel more confident in your writing process, and you will know which rituals, habits, and strategies work for you.
UNIT 2
Generative writing exercises that connect you with others and the world around you. Refine existing work or generate entirely new material.
In Unit 2, we’re going to dive deeper into the creative process and help you tap into your inner voice. We’ll explore ways to get your inner creator and inner critic to collaborate rather than fight. You’ll also have the opportunity to reflect on your fears and excuses and how they may be holding you back. Finally, we’ll wrap up the unit with a focus on finding joy in the writing process, rather than just focusing on the end result. So get ready to connect with your inner creativity and discover new ways to approach your writing journey!
UNIT 3
Get in touch with rituals, habits and strategies that work for you, and discover ways to amplify them to fuel your writing.
You’ll start with a writing ritual to get into the right mindset, followed by exercises to help unlock your creativity through touch and self-love. You will learn some techniques to create your character and how important it is to practice. This unit will wrap up with a powerful prompt on transforming your silence into language and action and three exercises to reflect on this.
UNIT 4
We’ll focus on building your writing community and sharing your work.
You will reflect on and address your fears about your work in the world. You will learn how to overcome these fears and anxiety. We will dive deep into how to create a community and a writing group.
We’ll also tackle the topic of getting published, including the art of crafting pitches and submitting your work, how to write a pitch, and how to find editors.
By the end of this unit, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to build a supportive writing community, share your work effectively, and take steps toward getting published.
BONUS: ACCESS TO A PRIVATE LEARNING COMMUNITY
You will receive an invitation to our free learning community, with a private discord channel for those making their way through the program, an opportunity for support, accountability and to celebrate successes.
1:1 CoACHING
I am providing a complimentary 1:1 20-minute coaching session to anyone who joins the waiting list and purchases the program within the initial week of its release.
ABOUT
Barrak Alzaid is a writer of memoir, prose, poetry and art criticism whose current work in progress, Fabulous, is a memoir relating his queer coming of age in Kuwait and depicts a story of family fracture and healing.
Excerpts are anthologized in The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human: Tales from Many Muslim Worlds (Penguin SEA) and New Moons, an anthology of Muslim writing edited by Kazim Ali (Redhen Press).
His short story The Runner was awarded a first runner-up prize and published in Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal as part of the Barjeel Art Foundation’s Mudun Short Story Prize.
His poem Fa’et was awarded a first-place prize by Nasiona Magazine in their inaugural micro nonfiction and poetry competition.
He has been awarded fellowships and residencies through Yaddo, Delfina Foundation, Lambda Literary Retreat, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, La Napoule Foundation, and 100 West – Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency.
He is a founding member of the artist collective GCC.
Testimonials
“I joined this retreat hoping I’d stop hiding from my art when I felt blocked. What I learned was much more than that. The ideal balance between reflections and prompts enabled me to contemplate my work and practice different strategies to improve my craft. Barrak is amazing at conducting the meetings and is always concerned about making everyone feel safe to share and participate as much as we’d like. It was a very comfortable and rich experience. The outcome after the end of the retreat was very positive, I can practically feel the growth stemmed from it. The resources Barrak shared were also really useful.”
“This retreat replenished my excitement to write! I had hit a wall with my projects, but the sessions, prompts, and resources that Barrak curated helped me see my work in new ways and got me itching to get back to the page. The flexibility of the asynchronous environment worked for me because of time zone differences. Not only is Barrak a skilled writer and teacher, but he creates multiple avenues for engagement that make it clear everyone has a place in the world of writing. I hope I can do an in-person retreat with Barrak in the future.”
PRICING
for writers on their own path
for writers who wish to collaborate with one or more people
