Lit Lesson #19: The Butler Method

The Butler Method: Best Online Creative Writing Courses From Flight School & One more thing about scene: This is a nearly abandoned beach and this four by four foot sign makes the rules pretty clear: Yet, as I walk on the wet sand, I take note of truck tire tracks, bike tracks, and what else do I see up ahead in the bear grass…is that a woman trudging through the dry sand (in the nesting area of the endangered birds)…with a dog that is off leash? Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. It’s not my...

Lit Lessons #17: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Professional Groomer? Or Fizzy Educator?

Online Writing Lessons to Enhance Your Writing Skills “O where shall I find a virtuous woman, for her price is above rubies.” Proverbs 31:10 I knew The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark would be trouble when a writer wrote a hilarious text that read, “I want to claw my eyes out.” ???? ???? ???? True, it is extraordinarily hard to connect with this book and yet, if one can place this dark satire in the proper context, the story is chillingly familiar. First and foremost,...

Lit Lesson #16: Oh Pioneers by Willa Cather: Which Plot?

Unraveling the Plot of Oh Pioneers: Writing Classes for Adults …the time will come when she’ll be ranked above Hemingway. ~ Leon Edel “My God, girl,  what a head of hair!” he exclaimed, quite innocently and foolishly. She stabbed him with a glance of Amazonian fierceness and drew in her lower lip, most unnecessary severity… …and we are off on a story about Alexandra the only daughter of a Swedish farmer about to die. Alexandra was an unusual heroine of her...

Lit Lesson #15: Incorporating Feedback

Improve Your Writing: Creative Writing Courses for Beginners After that first time up to read, I developed a system of going through the commentary from Tom and the other writers page by page and transferring all their marks onto a my master set of pages. Praise. Typographical errors. Line edits. Everything. Next, I sat down and typed the feedback into my computer copy. If a suggestion bugged me, I didn’t cast it aside. Rather, I looked at this feedback a couple extra times to see what bugged...

Flight School Lit Lesson Submission Guidelines:

Writing Advice From Writers: Submission Guidelines “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~ Anais Nin If you are on the path to becoming a published writer, Blackbird is devoted to supporting you with a format for publication: Flight School Lit Lessons. This isn’t just a blog, or newsletter (as some call it). This is a place to capture the teachings here at the Studio and bring them into concrete form. It is also a place for you to share your voice through...