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Last updated on
8 September, 2007

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The Isolated Writer:
Working Effectively Wherever You Are!
with Joy Rothke

REGISTRATION:

COST, LENGTH, PREREQUISITES:

No prerequisites.

Regular course: $100 / 4 weeks. Click here to register

For questions about this COURSE, e-mail Joy Rothke at jrothke@gmail.com

THE ISOLATED WRITER: Working Effectively Wherever You Are! How to stay in touch with your muse, your dream and your fellow writers.

In 2001, Joy Rothke relocated from San Francisco, California to La Fortuna, Costa Rica. This rural town of 5,000 has no library, no bookstore, slow and expensive dial-up Internet access, undependable mail service, few English speakers and no other writers. There she came face to face with the realities of the isolated writer (and a few unique to the tropical writer, including lizards on her keyboard and molding books and diskettes!)

Following a period of tears, homesickness and free floating existential despair, she developed the habits and techniques that have made her a productive daily writer. She learned to use the isolation as motivation, and make her limited Internet access with other writers not a time drain, but a source of inspiration and connection.

COURSE OBJECTIVES. After completing these four sessions, students will experience new confidence and enjoy clear, achievable writing goals. Their "isolation", whether geographic or emotional, will not impede their work habits. They will have begun to create a writer support system that operates across borders, handicaps, and timelines.

Week 1: WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO? AND WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO GET THERE? Are you ready to shut the door, apply seat to chair and experience the solitude of a writer's life?

- How powerful is your goal? How much do you really want it? Discover your best writing time.
- Defining your "isolation" as a writer. Is it geographic, physical, emotional, experiential? How do you deal with solitude and isolation? Identifying and overcoming self-defeating habits.
- Putting yourself on an email "diet".
- Creating a calendar of Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Annual writing goals. Are you setting attainable goals or are you setting yourself up for failure?
- Rescheduling and rearranging. What do you need to do (e.g., setting up a home writing "space", reschedule commitments, canceling social engagements, etc.)?

Week 2: PUTTING YOUR FOOT ON THE GAS, AND GOING IT ALONE.
- Goal review: What worked and what didn't?
- What changes will make you more productive?
- How are you doing on your email "diet"?
- Connecting with the community of writers online. Where to search for the best online help and support. Finding support systems (listservs, newsletters, organizations, critique groups, e-zines.)

Week 3: USING THE INTERNET INSTEAD OF LETTING IT USE YOU.
- Goal review: What worked and what didn't?
- How are you doing on your email "diet"?
- Making your time online count - especially if it's limited. How to spend more time writing and less time surfing.
- Identifying and using your "Best of the Web". Building bookmarks/favorites of power.
- Simple techniques to "speed" read and organize large amounts of online content.

Week 4: WHAT TO DO WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH.
- Goal review: What worked and what didn't?
- What do to do when you just don't want to write: outwitting writersä block, discouragement and setbacks.
- Writing prompts, freewriting techniques and other processes to jump kick you out of any funk.
- Writing books and guides that inspire and motivate.
- Making sure your cyber and postal "support systems" are operational.
- If sufficient interest, establishing a post-class listserv.

Joy Rothke has always been a writer, and has written most everything: essays and features for the Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, tourist maps and brochures for the State of California, laundry instructions for the Wisk Web site -- even an account of her visit to the set of a porn movie.

Born in New York City, she moved as a young child with her family to Southern California. She studied Mass Communications at Arizona State University, and in the ensuing years has managed — most of the time — to support herself as a writer.

Her work, which has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Tico Times (San Jose, Costa Rica) Salon.com , New York Times Syndicate, San Francisco Focus magazine and Diablo magazine is distinguished by its humor and timeliness and appeal to her baby boomer contemporaries.

At the age of 47 she married a man who is the adventurous type. So, despite an abhorrence of insects and an aversion to humidity, she found herself living in the tropics of Central America. From the small town of La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica, with an active volcano the view from her front door, she maintains an active freelance writing/teaching/consulting career.