Make More Than Coffee Money

The First In a New Series of Classes…

Kris and I tend to spend a lot of lunches out in restaurants with a notebook, planning workshops. Usually we have a focus, like a certain week in a class that needs to be recorded. We make sure that I am recording the workshop we want it to be. Between the two of us, we think we hit good workshops more than we miss.

And sometimes in these lunch discussions we just end up with new ideas  for workshops that we think would be fun or valuable. A couple details have to be in place before we talk about it enough to get to working on it. First, it has to be something I would find challenging recording it, learn something from doing the recording. Second, we both think it would be valuable to writers who want to be professional fiction writers.

We come up with a ton more ideas than we would ever get to. At times here I mention them, but most of the time we just sort of let the idea drift into a place where it was fun to talk about, but we will never do.

However, the reason the Pop-Up Classes came along was because we were coming up with ideas, a bunch of them, that fit perfectly with 10-12 videos and a short story assignment. So now we have eighty or so of those and more coming shortly.

And every-so-often, we come up with an idea that turns into a six week workshop with assignments and such. Like the two new ones in July, Heinlein’s Rules and Media Kit.

And for Kickstarters, we do the three-week “Special” classes with a couple of assignments and a short story, but you can only ever get those through Kickstarter Campaigns.

So I noticed when Kris asked me the other day if I had looked at the notes she and I had done in the last six months at these lunches, and I had not.

So I did.

Turns out we had a lot of teaching topics that didn’t fit, were too much for a Pop-Up, but were not big enough for a regular six-week class.

So Kris mentioned at lunch in the Circa the other day that what we needed to do was a Quick Solutions Series.

I loved the idea, so that lunch we banged out the structure.

The QUICK SOLUTION SERIES OF CLASSES will be about twenty videos (Double the Pop-Ups), and you get them all at once in three units. An assignment at the end of the first two units to help with the topic, but you don’t turn them in, just do them for the learning, and a short story assignment on the topic to be sent to me when you finish. (No deadlines, like the Pop-Ups.)

In essence a structure similar to the Kickstarter workshops, only you can do it all at once, do the assignments for yourself, and turn in a short story when you want, if you want.

About 18-20 or so videos on a topic. Half the number in a six week workshop, twice the number of Pop-Ups. No assignments, just a short story on a focused topic you can turn in when you want.

The first one of these QUICK SOLUTION SERIES, when we get them all worked out, will be

— HOW TO MAKE MORE THAN COFFEE MONEY. 

Then launched with that will be three different classes that are related…

— HOW TO REBUILD AND RESTART YOUR WRITING

— HOW TO REBUILD AND RESTART YOUR BUSINESS

— HOW TO REBUILD AND RESTART YOUR ATTITUDE

We figured those are really needed coming out of the pandemic.

So if anyone has ideas for this new series of middle-area focused classes, write me directly or put them in the comments here.

We have about ten more ideas that fit, but since we won’t have the first four ready to go for about a week, I thought I would ask you all.

And the advanced workshops like Advanced Pacing is a six week workshop, so don’t include that.

And yes, I will get the Media Kit full six week workshop posted tomorrow for July. And the August six-week workshops list should be up soon as well.

And new Pop-Ups coming in the next Kickstarter.

All kinds of fun stuff happening at the moment.

More on this new series when it launches. Great fun. At least for me.