The KV School of Timeless Fiction at TBD

Offering a four-week personal writing intensive. Free. Online.

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Protect the Practice

A Four-Week Creative Writing Workshop for Writers of Memoir.

A workshop for sustaining a human-centered writing practice in an AI-saturated world.

The course moves from private attention to drafting, revision, thoughtful tool use, and sharing. Its central commitment is agency: writers decide what they want to make, how they want to make it, and what they want to share.

This is a proposed syllabus, not a promise of publication, audience growth, or permanent creative confidence.

Course at a glance

Element	Structure
Audience	MFA writers and recent graduates working in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or hybrid forms
Length	Six weeks
Weekly class	One proposed two-hour session; day and time to be determined
Between-class practice	A flexible daily writing routine, weekly reading, and one focused assignment
Office hours	Thursdays, 9–11 a.m. and 5–6 p.m.; time zone and meeting format to be confirmed
Final portfolio	One developed creative piece or excerpt, a process reflection, a personal AI-use policy, and a sustainable writing plan

The class day, delivery format, enrollment cap, and individual feedback schedule remain open rather than assumed.

What participants will work toward

By the end of the course, participants will have opportunities to:

• Establish a writing routine that fits their actual responsibilities.
• Develop work without treating every session as a performance.
• Read for craft and translate observations into experiments.
• Give and receive specific, non-prescriptive feedback.
• Distinguish useful revision from pressure to make a voice more conventional.
• Set clear boundaries for AI assistance and public sharing.
• Complete a manageable piece or excerpt and identify its next step.

Weekly class rhythm

Each two-hour session includes reading, writing, and sharing.

Activity	Time	Purpose
Arrival and private writing	10 minutes	Enter the room without having to perform
Reading and craft discussion	20 minutes	Examine specific choices in the assigned texts
Guided writing	30 minutes	Apply the week’s craft question
Break	10 minutes	Step away from the work
Sharing and response	35 minutes	Read excerpts and receive focused feedback
Revision or second experiment	10 minutes	Test an idea while it is fresh
Closing and next-step note	5 minutes	Identify a workable starting point for the week

The sharing block is designed for pairs or small groups, with whole-class readings rotating. It does not assume every participant can receive a full workshop every week.

Sharing agreements

• Writers may pass on reading aloud and choose what material to share.
• Private journal pages are never required submissions.
• The writer may name a question before receiving feedback.
• Readers describe their experience before offering suggestions.
• No one uploads another participant’s work to an AI service without explicit permission.
• Feedback addresses the work—not the writer’s talent, identity, or future prospects.

A useful response sequence is:

I noticed…
I stayed engaged when…
I became uncertain at…
I would be interested to see what happens if…

Week 1: Make Room for Your Own Attention

Focus

Separate the writing practice from the pressure to publish, post, or prove yourself.

Reading

• The opening section of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, through the narrator’s encounters with restrictions on access.
• One short piece the participant already loves, brought to class.

Read with the question: What conditions does this work ask us to notice—material, intellectual, or personal?

In-class writing

Begin with:

Before I started worrying about whether my work mattered, I wanted to write about…

Then choose one concrete memory, image, or question and write toward it without explaining its importance.

Sharing

Share a short excerpt from the exercise or describe a question it opened. Listeners identify a detail they would like to hear more about.

Between-class assignment

• Try the daily routine on four days, using either the full or difficult-day version.
• Draft a one-page “conditions for writing” statement: available time, practical constraints, sources of interruption, and boundaries to test.
• Choose one project to carry through the course. A fragment is enough.

Office-hours use

Bring scheduling obstacles, uncertainty about a project, or difficulty finding a manageable starting point.

Week 2: Notice Before You Explain

Focus

Build material from close observation rather than from the demand to have an impressive idea.

Reading

• Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish.”
• A short passage from a book of the participant’s choice that uses concrete detail memorably.

Read with the question: Which details change how we understand what we are seeing?

In-class writing

Describe a place, object, or encounter without naming its emotional meaning. Then revise one detail so the emotional pressure shifts.

Writers in different forms may produce a scene, poem, essay fragment, or visual-text sequence.

Sharing

Read the two versions. Listeners describe what changed in their experience rather than voting for the “better” version.

Between-class assignment

• Collect one observation each day.
• Develop one observation into a scene, poem, or short prose piece.
• Add a brief process note: “What I noticed before I knew what it meant.”

Office-hours use

Bring work that feels abstract, overexplained, or disconnected from lived detail.

Week 3: Draft Before You Defend

Focus

Allow a piece to become specific before deciding whether it is worthwhile.

Reading

• Anne Lamott, “Shitty First Drafts,” from Bird by Bird.
• One early draft of the participant’s own work, if available.

Read with the question: What permissions would make the next draft possible?

In-class writing

Name one point of resistance:

I keep avoiding the moment when…

Write into that moment for twenty minutes. Use the remaining time to continue or mark the questions the draft raises.

Sharing

Writers select an excerpt they are willing to discuss. Listeners identify energy, tension, surprise, and unanswered questions—not line-level errors.

Between-class assignment

Complete a workable draft or substantial section. Agree on a scope appropriate to the form, such as:

• One short story or a contained story section.
• One essay or a substantial essay section.
• A small sequence of poems.
• A scripted sequence for a hybrid or graphic narrative.

The task is to produce material that can be revised, not to meet a uniform word count.

Office-hours use

Bring stalled drafts, projects that keep expanding, or questions about choosing a workable scope.

Week 4: Revise Without Erasing Your Voice

Focus

Make deliberate changes while distinguishing confusion from intentional difficulty.

Reading

• The opening chapter of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft, “The Sound of Your Writing.”
• The participant’s Week 3 draft, read aloud before class.

Read with the question: Where does sound support the work, and where does it work against the intended effect?

In-class writing

Choose one paragraph, stanza, or page. Make two revisions:

1. A version that clarifies the movement or meaning.
2. A version that intensifies the voice, rhythm, or strangeness.

Compare the choices. A final version may combine them or reject both.

Sharing

Listeners describe what each version does. The writer decides which effects serve the piece.

Between-class assignment

• Revise the selected piece or excerpt.
• Keep a short revision log recording three meaningful decisions.
• If using AI proofreading, keep a before-and-after sample and explain which suggestions you accepted or rejected.

For this course, AI may flag spelling and grammar issues, but the writer remains responsible for intentional fragments, dialect, repetition, and syntax. This keeps the initial creative work independent while reserving a later, limited role for assistance—a sequence consistent with the creativity guidance discussed earlier.[georgetown]

Office-hours use

Bring a revision problem, conflicting workshop advice, or an example where “correct” language weakens the intended voice.

Week 5: Share Without Becoming a Content Factory

Focus

Choose an audience and a mode of sharing without making constant visibility a requirement.

Reading

• A short excerpt selected by the instructor from Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.
• One author newsletter, literary journal page, or process post chosen by each participant.

Read with the question: What is being offered to the reader, and what remains private?

In-class writing

Create two companions to the developing piece:

• A brief introduction for a reading, newsletter, or portfolio.
• A process note describing one actual creative decision.

Neither text needs to make a claim about authenticity, significance, or future success.

Sharing

Read the creative excerpt and one companion text. Listeners discuss whether the introduction creates a useful entrance into the work.

Between-class assignment

Draft a one-page sharing plan that identifies:

• The audience you hope to reach.
• One primary venue or channel.
• A frequency you are willing to test.
• What you will keep private.
• How you will describe AI involvement, if any.

Public posting is optional. Sharing with a trusted reader can fulfill the assignment.

For hybrid projects, use #HYBRID as a chosen label accompanied by a specific description of human and AI contributions. This approach fits the human-led collaboration stance in the supplied ArtistsWay.ai material; the label itself is not a certification.[artistsway]

Office-hours use

Bring questions about sharing boundaries, process notes, AI disclosures, or a public-facing description of the work.

Week 6: Build the Practice You Can Continue

Focus

Finish a course-sized body of work and design a realistic next cycle.

Reading

• Revisit the participant’s Week 1 chosen text.
• Read the first and latest versions of the course project side by side.

Read with the question: What can I now see or do that I could not see or do six weeks ago?

In-class writing

Write a brief letter to your next month of practice:

Here is what I want to keep.
Here is what I need to change.
Here is the question I am still willing to follow.

Sharing

Hold a closing reading in small groups, with optional whole-class excerpts. Each writer names one decision they made and one next step.

Final portfolio

Submit:

1. One developed creative piece or excerpt.
2. A 300–500-word reflection on the writing and revision process.
3. A brief AI-use statement, including “No generative AI used” where applicable.
4. A four-week continuation plan with a standard routine and a difficult-day alternative.

The portfolio documents choices and development. It does not require a publication-ready manuscript.

Office-hours use

Review the continuation plan, identify a next revision, or discuss what support the writer wants after the course.

The daily practice between classes

Participants can use the two-hour routine from our previous draft, but it is an option—not a daily course requirement.

Version	Structure
Full session	15 minutes private writing; 15 minutes reading; 50 minutes manuscript work; 10-minute break; 25-minute second pass; 5-minute closing note
Short session	5 minutes private writing; 20 minutes manuscript work; 5 minutes reading and a next-step note
Difficult-day session	3 minutes private writing; 3 minutes reading; 12 minutes manuscript work; 2-minute closing note

Aim for four practice days per week as a starting experiment. Adjust the duration before treating missed sessions as a failure of commitment. Reading time can count toward the weekly assignment; there is no need to duplicate it.

Office hours

Thursdays:

• Morning: 9–11 a.m.
• Evening: 5–6 p.m.

Office hours are for individual craft questions, project scope, feedback clarification, routine adjustments, and tool-use decisions. They are not an additional required class.

Before registration, confirm the time zone, location or meeting link, and whether visits are booked or drop-in. If appointments are used, fifteen-minute slots would be one workable starting format.

Feedback and completion

For a noncredit workshop, use a completion-based approach rather than grading literary merit. Look for engagement with:

• Reading and craft discussion.
• A realistic writing practice.
• Respectful response to peers.
• Revision and reflection.
• The final portfolio.

Do not assess participants by follower growth, publication outcomes, uninterrupted attendance streaks, or the amount of personal experience they disclose.

The course ends with a developed piece and a workable continuation plan—not a demand that writers emerge fearless. Its purpose is to give them a repeatable way to work while uncertainty remains.

Pin reactions. Feature small creators. Reward participation. All part of the strategy just ahead!

*when the portal is open, permission will be granted

Artistsway.ai < go

Disclaimer: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is our inspiration. We can’t recommend the book and workshops enough. We want to extend the work to a platform using AI that helps humans make the most out of the explosion of generative ai. The artistsway.ai respects Cameron’s copyrights and occasions quotes for clarification of the original work. Artistsway.ai is an original work of writing and expansion by John McElhenney, the creator of the platform.