Writing workshop on Saturday

We had a a great turnout for the AHAMA Writing Workshop, which took place right after our Generations conditioning workout. We talked about the importance of starting with a rough first draft in which we let ourselves just focus on getting all the details down on paper (or on screen) before we start shaping those details into a story. This is our mantra: "Relax -- it's just my first draft. I'm not finished yet."

We also did some short writing exercises to practice:

• Organizing the details of our story
• Thinking about our audience -- what do they care about, what do they already know, and what do we want them to think/feel/do as a result of reading what we write
• Drawing on our five senses (seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling) when we write
• Using similes, metaphors, and personification to make our writing more descriptive

I really enjoyed listening to different people share their descriptive sentences and stories. Everyone also took on an assignment to complete by next Saturday, July 27: writing a post on the Generations blog on the topic, "The first time I ..." and including descriptions based on our five senses.

Thank you to all who attended (and especially to those who donated to the AHAMA scholarship fund):
Jae Jae, Sebastian, Matthew, Jordan, Annmarie, Taylor, Serena, Brandon, Andy, Kaitlyn, and Olivia Leonard (from Family Kicks TKD -- yea!).

For anyone else who's interested, I've posted the handouts and exercises that we used in this workshop to the Generations page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/429485083774723/#

-- Michael