This training will benefit anyone – from writers to accountants to problem-solvers in any field looking for new inspiration and a richer palette of ideas.

If you use ideas at work or need to overcome obstacles, if you feel blocked, would like to tap into your imagination, learn to trust your judgment and explore your creativity, this course is for you.

It’s suitable if you:

• Want to expand your thinking and feel more inspired
• Suffer from writer’s block or The Fear, or are stuck with a project
• Need to use words more effectively at work
• Would like to explore your imagination and see where curiosity takes you
• Need to get better at problem-solving or committing to new things
• Are happy to try out new creative techniques
• Enjoy the discipline of deadlines and would like to try peer feedback
• Enjoy working with a friendly and supportive group of learners
• Can dedicate 3-5 hours a week to complete the assignments.

This course allows you to:

• Embrace new ideas, cultivate your imagination and trust your emotional intelligence
• Hone your observation skills, so you start to see ideas everywhere
• Use deadlines to your advantage
• Sift ideas and learn to judge which ones have legs
• Approach problems with new eyes and master problem-solving skills
• Commit to exploring ideas in more depth and sticking with them
• Learn to embrace failure and listen to its lessons
• Develop an understanding of the professional skills that move ideas into reality (from discipline to attention to detail)
• Increase your professionalism in working with others
• Practise giving effective feedback to others and receiving critical notes
• Build greater independence, autonomy and critical judgement as you work on a final assignment.

Our courses and training are carefully designed to support accessible and inclusive learning. 

Each course is divided into sessions. These sessions are released one by one (weekly or fortnightly, depending on the course). 

There’s no need to log on at a set time. You can work through the learning materials whenever suits you, day or night, wherever you are in the world. Just complete the assignments and join forum discussions by the session deadline. 

Our teaching method is based on the science of active learning: you read/listen/watch, try out, share and reflect. It’s a social experience – you become part of a small group, feeding back on each other’s writing to build a supportive bunch of readers you trust. Find out more here.

There are new modules on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.

Session 1: Start Your Journey to Creativity – Tap into the innate creativity inside your head and learn how to draw inspiration from the world of ideas that surrounds all of us all the time. Choose an idea to work on over the next month, and share for discussion.

Find the Creativity Inside – Understand your psychological make-up – and how it can both stimulate and stop your creativity. Practical ways to tap into universal needs and fears to source new ideas.

Look for Creativity Outside – How to spot good ideas disguised as problems, solutions, procedures and skills. Live hour-long group Zoom with your tutor to discuss your creative stimuli and obstacles. Take the first steps in developing your chosen idea, and share with your peers and tutor for feedback.

Session 2: Take a Leap – Learn how to cultivate the power of imagination more effectively, sift ideas and commit to taking them further, plus the art of problem-solving.

Harness your Imagination – Think like a scientist, poet, philosopher and artist to release your imagination. Practical ways to use constraints to make you more imaginative and get things done. Set some rules that work for you.

Learn to Commit – Diagnose your fear of committing to ideas. Tips on making choices, knowing they might be wrong. Discuss your approach to commitment and choose one or two ideas to explore in more depth.

Problem-solving and Creativity – Be like a scientist finding new problems to solve, an artist making up problems, and a business leader doing both. Select a problem with your chosen idea, approach it with new eyes, and share the results with your peers and tutor for feedback.

Session 3: Overcome Your Struggles – You now know how to be creative! So let’s find ways to weave these new skills into your daily life at work / in your creative practice. 

Establish Creative Rituals – Take control of your muse. Learn how rituals work, with practical ways to establish some that work for you.

Get Playful – Develop a mindset of fun and curiosity to keep new ideas flowing. Practical ways to keep creative through trickier moments and jumpstart a virtuous circle.

Embrace Failure – Take lessons from failure: why it’s not a sign of moving in the wrong direction nor success in disguise. Live hour-long group Zoom session with your tutor to discuss your creative rituals and mindset. Progress your chosen idea further using this week’s learning, and share with your peers and tutor for feedback.

Session 4: Make Creativity Happen – Finally, using everything you’ve learned over the past three weeks, you’ll draw the threads together to work on the task you identified in week 1 and produce a final submission (max 2,000 words or equivalent), a reflection on your process (up to 200 words) and a list of the habits you will take away from the course.

There are tutor tips on:

• Maintaining a network to bounce ideas off, be inspired by and inspire in turn
• Getting over common blocks and barriers.

Plus a final opportunity to ask tutor questions and share work with your peers and tutor for feedback.

Your tutor will offer brief feedback notes on your final assignment at the end of the course.

Join our alumni community 

After your course, you can join our online alumni community – a friendly group of writers supporting each other as they continue to explore and develop their writing. There’s no cost for this. It’s easy to access via the online classroom, where you can:

• Revisit all your courses materials, including tutor notes, feedback, videos, podcasts and forum posts
• Rejoin your classmates, and continue working together in a private space
• Meet alumni from other courses to find beta-readers and share work on our critiquing forum
• Network with other writers working in your genre or area of interest
• Take part in regular ‘sit and write’ Zoom sessions, to push forward with your work-in progress
• Join our monthly live alumni events with our expert tutors and industry guests, including agents, editors, publishers, competition and festival organisers, and prizewinning writers.

Commission a report on your work
If you’d like to receive a personalised, detailed report on your final piece of writing from your course tutor, this is available at an extra cost. You’ll receive detailed written feedback assessing your ideas and writing, plus advice on what steps to take next.

Taking things further
If you’d like to continue on to another Professional Writing Academy course, please get in touch for more details.