SEMINAR | 1,000 Words in 3 Hours: “Writing the Heat” to Generate High-Stakes Material, Faster
May 2 @ 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT
Learn how to follow the energy in your memoir to generate powerful, high-stakes material that bypasses your inner critic and gets to emotional truth.
For Memoirist
When we try to write methodically, we shut down the part of us that’s in flow. Planning every scene and forcing ourselves to be logical and linear blocks our creative energy. We produce stale, predictable pages that feel dull to write and even duller to read. Meanwhile, our inner critic gets louder, our perfectionism takes over, and we avoid the vulnerable places we need to go to make personal narrative work. Your subconscious knows what you need to write better than your logical mind does—but how can you access that energy on demand?
The “Write the Heat” method is an intuition-driven practice that helps you follow currents of energy rather than a premeditated sequence. By writing toward what feels tense, interesting, or unresolved (the moments that carry “heat”), we trick ourselves into saying the truest thing. We generate material that’s raw, compelling, and emotionally honest. With “Writing the Heat,” you’ll write faster, with more confidence, and stumble upon insights you never would have found through careful planning.
In this seminar, you’ll learn the foundational technique of Katie’s proven “Write the Heat” process and practice it through guided prompts. Discover how to silence your inner critic, follow your gut instinct, and generate high-stakes material that captures what your story is really about. You’ll take away concrete methods to produce more—and truer—pages every time you sit down to write.
In this interactive three-hour live seminar, you will:
- DISCOVER how to identify “heat” in your story—the most tense, interesting, or emotionally charged moments
- LEARN “heat mapping” and timed freewriting techniques to bypass your inner critic and generate high-stakes material quickly
- PRACTICE writing toward what feels alive rather than what you think you “should” write
- UNDERSTAND how following energy and intuition leads to truer, higher-stakes storytelling than logical planning
- EXPERIENCE the relief of making “writing badly” the goal and lowering the stakes on your writing process
This course is ideal for…
- whose perfectionism and inner critic stop them from getting words on the page
- who know they need to “go there” but aren’t sure how to start
- whose writing feels stale, predictable, or emotionally distant
- who want to access the vulnerable, high-stakes material their stories require
- who feel blocked when they try to write in a linear, methodical way and need permission to follow their intuition
Closed captioning is available. ✔
Think you might miss class? No worries, replays will be available 3 business days after the event. ✔
ABOUT YOUR Instructor
Katie Bannon’s teaching is encouraging and practical, with step-by-step guidance and concrete tools. Writers who want to access deep creativity with a solid framework will love her classes!
Katie Bannon is a writer, editor, and educator whose work has appeared in The Rumpus, ELLE Magazine, NPR, Newsweek, Narratively, and more. Her memoir manuscript, which charts her journey as a compulsive hair puller, was a finalist for the Permafrost Nonfiction Book Prize. A graduate of GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator, she holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Emerson College. She is a developmental editor who loves working with nonfiction writers to find the “story” behind the “situation” of their memoirs and essays. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two cats. Find Katie at www.katiebannon.com
Student Testimonials
“Katie is the best writing instructor I have ever had. Her presentation was impeccable. She provided an abundance of ideas, details, examples, and information. In fact, the class was overflowing with information. I have nothing but praise for Katie and the class content.”
“Katie was an amazing instructor. She explained core concepts with clarity and ease, provided excellent examples and writing samples, and created a very supportive learning environment. The class truly exceeded my expectations!”
“Holy moly, this was a superb class. Instructor was well-prepared with lots of valuable and well-organized information and ideas. I have already begun applying some of the tools from class to revise—and what a difference it’s making!”
THE FINE PRINT
We understand that life can get in the way of your plans. We want you to be able to get the most out of your course, and our refund policy is designed to balance your need for flexibility with our deadlines and obligations to our teachers.
Before the class, you may request a full refund.
Please keep in mind that no refunds or credits will be issued after class begins.
Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com
