Shelby Hinte | Writers.com https://writers.com/instructor/shelby-hinte Your voice is a gift. Share it. Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:57:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 Filling the Blank Page: How to Move through Creative Blocks https://writers.com/course/filling-the-blank-page-how-to-move-through-creative-blocks-2 Mon, 28 Jul 2025 12:12:21 +0000 https://writers.com/?post_type=product&p=42753 Understand your creative blocks in new ways, and discover how to turn them into opportunities for creativity and play.

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You’ll Leave This Course With:

  • Writing prompts and ideas to help you think through your own creative blocks, and how to push past them. 
  • Tons of actionable advice to make your writing life more focused, accessible, and fun. 
  • Quotes, insights, and tips collected from other successful writers—who all experience the same blocks that you do. 
  • A brand-new understanding of your creative struggles, and how to overcome them every time they arise.

What happens when you want to write, but the words have other plans? 

Writers of all paths encounter this problem: not knowing what to write. And when we let that fear dominate our writing lives, we often turn to the familiar phrase “writer’s block” to describe our struggles on the page. But, here’s the truth: writer’s block doesn’t exist.

Shelby Hinte offers a new way of understanding your creative blocks and how to turn them into opportunities for creativity and play.

The tips, advice, and prompts in this recording are designed to keep your pen moving and take the pressure off your shoulders. All writers will come away with a plan to write more, write often, and write with creative enthusiasm. 

What’s Included:

  • A 1-hour video recording of Shelby Hinte’s guidance for transforming blocks into creativity.
  • A complete text transcript of the video materials.
  • Lifetime course access.

100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

If for any reason you are not satisfied with the course, you may request a full refund within 14 days, no questions asked.

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]]> Filling the Blank Page: How to Move through Creative Blocks https://writers.com/course/filling-the-blank-page-how-to-move-through-creative-blocks Fri, 15 Nov 2024 19:49:48 +0000 https://writers.com/?post_type=product&p=24838 Discover proven techniques to get writing! Find the root causes of mental blocks, and learn practical tools to lead a consistently creative life. 

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]]> Being a writer involves lots of looking at a blank page and wondering: How do I begin? Luckily, there are proven ways to get writing—you don’t need to wait for inspiration to strike, and you don’t need to feel blocked in the meantime.

As a writer, I don’t believe in “writer’s block”; I believe we encounter creative barriers when we approach a project from the wrong mindset. Together, we will identify the root causes of mental blocks that make writing difficult, such as fear, procrastination, and distractions. You’ll get an array of practical tools and strategies to shift your perspectives and patterns around writing in order to create more meaningful and consistent writing habits.

Zoom Schedule

We will meet on Zoom on Wednesday, December 18th from 7-8:30 PM Eastern. The final 30 minutes of the session will be reserved for questions.

Note: We will be recording this session to share with future students as a recorded course. In this recording, only Shelby’s name and video will be visible. We may include Q&A exchanges in the recording, if they would enrich student learning. In this case, your voice would appear on the recording, but not your full name or your video. We will not include any student writing shared in the recording. 

Filling the Blank Page: How to Move through Creative Blocks
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]]> Toying with the Truth: Writing the Personal Essay https://writers.com/course/toying-with-the-truth-a-generative-nonfiction-workshop Thu, 14 Mar 2024 20:43:58 +0000 https://writers.com/?post_type=product&p=20505 Experiment with creative nonfiction forms and find the best way to tell your personal stories. Write a short piece each week, and choose one draft to polish. 

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]]> How to tell the stories of our lives? The way you choose to tell your personal stories can help you get to the heart of what you want to share.

In this course, we will experiment with a variety of creative nonfiction forms, and you will discover the best way to tell your personal stories. Through in-class readings, writings, and discussion, you will work towards finding the form that best suits the personal story you are trying to write.

We will explore a variety of creative nonfiction containers, from found essays and lists to the braided essay and memoir. We will look to writers such as Melissa Febos, Chris Kraus, Zadie Smith, Sean Enfield, and Vauhini Vara to help guide and inspire our own writing.

Each week, you will write one short creative nonfiction work inspired by the weekly readings and prompts. You will have time in class to write. Because this is a generative course, you are not expected to produce polished drafts of writing; instead, you are invited to experiment, play, and share material.

You will also receive constructive feedback from me and your peers on weekly writing assignments, and you will provide brief written feedback on up to 2 manuscripts shared by your peers. In our feedback, we will identify key moments in your drafts that you can use as gateways for deeper exploration of your writing.

In the final two weeks of this course, you will work toward revising a piece of your choosing into a more polished second draft.

Who This Course is For:

  • New writers looking for an introduction to creative nonfiction forms, and more experienced writers looking to try different approaches to writing creative nonfiction.
  • Ideal for writers who want to produce new material and receive feedback on their work in a more casual environment than traditional workshop models.

Learning and Writing Goals 

Learning Goals

In this course, you will learn: 

  • About a variety of creative nonfiction forms.
  • Core craft elements of nonfiction storytelling.
  • How to instill curiosity and play in your writing practice.

Writing Goals

In this course, you will:

  • Locate and outline events from personal experience that you would like to shape into creative nonfiction.
  • Generate multiple first drafts of personal writing.
  • Select one draft of a new creative work to revise and polish.

Zoom Schedule

Class will meet once a week on Wednesdays from 7-9 PM Eastern via Zoom. 

Weekly Syllabus

Week One: Who We Are – Introduction to CNF

In our first week together we will consider how we fill our creative wells in order to produce written personal works. Writers will create a list of stories from their own lives they are interested in writing, and we will investigate the creative blocks that are common in writing about the self.

Readings for this week include work by Melissa Febos.

Week Two: Filling The Creative Well – Found Essays & Lists

So much of writing is about observing and noticing. Exercises will focus on taking stock, making inventories, and collecting textual material. As such, week one emphasizes creating a practice around taking what we notice and putting it to the page.

Readings this week include works by Sennah Yee, Juliet Escoria, and Brandon Stosuy.

Week 3: Write What You Know – Memoir

In week three, we will begin with what we have: ourselves and our stories. Writers will examine the events, ideas, and experiences from their own lives that they feel most compelled to write about. Exercises this week will focus on turning memory into story.

Readings this week include works by Sarah Rauch, Jane Alison, and Vauhini Vara.

Week 4: Developing Images – The Essay as Portrait

How do we make ourselves and the people in our lives become as authentic on the page as they are in real life? How the frame we choose to present people in impact the way they are perceived? What happens when we change the frame? In week four, writers will create portrait essays of themselves or others. The focus will be on details and perspective.

Readings this week include works by Zadie Smith, C Pam Zhang, and Timothy Willis Sanders.

Week 5: Textures – The Braided Essay

In our everyday lives we are exposed to a constant stream of media: music, film, advertisements, headlines, literature, and more. These things can serve as backdrops to our day or be things that filter into how we act and think. In week five, writers will attempt to weave in materials from their lives, to create more textured narratives.

Readings for this week include works by Sean Enfield and Lidia Yuknavitch.

Week 6: Tell it Slant – Autofiction

In Mary Karr’s book On Memoir, she writes about personal truth through the example of a family telling stories at the dinner table. She remarks how common it is that members of a collective experience can disagree so thoroughly on the details of an event. This week, writers will imagine into the events of their lives and explore how intentionally taking creative liberty with the “facts” might reveal certain emotional truths of their stories.

Readings for this week include works by Julie Myerson and Chris Kraus.

Week 7: Revision

In our penultimate week we will reimagine revision. Writers will take stock of what they’ve written so far and reflect on the forms that felt most authentic to their voice and story. Through creative revision exercises, writers will generate a second draft of a previously completed work.

Week 8: Revealing the Self

In our final week together, writers will share revised drafts of a single piece of writing from an earlier session.

Why Take a Personal Essay Writing Course with Writers.com?

  • We welcome writers of all backgrounds, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
  • Small groups keep our online writing courses lively and intimate.
  • Work through your weekly lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
  • Share and discuss your work with fellow writers in a supportive course environment.
  • Award-winning instructor Shelby Hinte will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

 

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]]> Where the Diary Ends and the Essay Begins https://writers.com/course/where-the-diary-ends-and-the-essay-begins Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:16:53 +0000 https://writers.com/?post_type=product&p=19118 Start a diary practice and turn it into a mode of writing personal essays in this generative journaling workshop. 

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]]> A journal of a thousand miles…

What is it about the diary that makes it so compelling it requires a lock and key to keep readers out? What is it about the confessional that seduces the writer into penning their secrets?

In this 6-week long generative writing seminar, we will investigate the call of the confessional as both readers and writers. We will look at the diary in its various modes: archival undertaking, receptacle of the mundane, compulsive recording, anchor for creative works, and as an art form in and of itself. We will investigate the various connotations we have about journals, diaries, and personal essays. Is there a difference? Why is it that one conjures images of low-brow confessional while the other merits literary adulation? Why does the phrase dear diary make us cringe, while writer’s journal sounds somehow serious. Who defines these lines and how might we blur them through our own daily writing?

In this class writers will keep a diary throughout the duration of this course with the intention of daily (or consistent) journaling. Assigned readings, prompts, and in-class writing time will support students in consistently writing from personal experience. Through intentional daily writing, writers will develop a style both within their diary entries and the work that derives from it. Taking inspiration from writers such as Sei Shōnagon, Kate Zambreno, Audre Lorde, and Elle Nash, students will be invited to try different approaches to personal writing and further push the limits of their own understanding of what the diary can be and how it might inform their creative works.

In the second half of this class, writers will consider how their journaling might lend itself to other works and experiment with various modes of creative writing related to the diary. Taking into consideration class discussions, readings, and writing exercises, writers will build towards drafting a final creative work in the form of a personal essay (however one might perceive that label) to share with the group.

Learning & Writing Goals

In this course, students will:

  • Develop a strong journaling practice.
  • Generate lots of raw material.
  • Identify styles, theme, and concerns within their own writing.
  • Revise material from their journal into a finished draft of creative writing.

Zoom Schedule

This course will meet every Wednesday from 6:30-7:30 P.M. U.S. Eastern Time. 

Weekly Syllabus

Week 1 – Diary as Archive

In the first week of this course, we will discuss the how and why of keeping a diary or journal. What is a diary? Why write in one? How is a diary different from other writing? We will take stock of our own preconceived notions of what a diary is and how it might inform or bleed into other writerly endeavors. Writers and artists offering inspiration for the week include Sarah Manguso, Anaïs Nin, Sei Shōnagon, and Steve Anwyll. Students will commit to a daily writing practice that fits their individual schedules. Prompts and in-class writing time will help support students in getting their observations on the page.

Week 2 – Diary as Aperture

This week we focus our writing by creating a specific lens through which to organize our observational accounts. The diary or journal will function as artistic receptacle to daily experience, and we will consider how the medium itself is a way of seeing and creating. We take cues from Audre Lorde, Annie Ernaux, and Ross Gay. Exercises for this week encourage focus and restraint —students will choose a singular intention or point of focus to reflect on in their writing for at least the entirety of week 2.

Week 3 – Diary as Bridge

Where does a diary end and literature begin? In week three we explore the diary as both a tool for developing creative works as well as a device that can be integrated into creative works. We will investigate how cataloguing lends itself to creating. Writings from Kate Folk and Kate Zambreno will support our practice. Exercises for this week will emphasize adding texture to written work and writers are encouraged to integrate modes such as poetry, criticism, and/or fiction into the space of their diaries. One might ask, where does one end and the other begin?

Week 4 – Diary as Form

In week 4 we turn our attention to the diary as a fictive or performative space. We will consider the way audience and intention impact our own ways of seeing and creating. Works by Elle Nash, Megan Boyle, and George Saunders will serve as examples of the various creative modes the diary might manifest as. Exercises for this week focus on playfulness and experimentation with genre. Building on week four’s focus on integrating various modes of writing into the diary, now writers imagine the diary itself as a work of art/fiction/performance and consider how that manifests on the page.

Week 5 – Diary as Draft

In our penultimate week we return to previously written entries and investigate patterns, themes, and structures existing within our own writing. With an awareness to audience and intention, we will take an entry (or entries) and develop it into a working draft of creative writing. We return to the works we’ve read in class and delve into what their authors had to say about revision and development. The emphasis on this week is reimaging, revising, and developing.

Week 6 – Diary Unlocked

Our final week together will culminate with a sharing of revised work and a final note on audience, performance, and intention. 

Why Take a Personal Essay Writing Course with Writers.com?

  • We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
  • Small groups keep our online writing courses lively and intimate.
  • Work through your weekly lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
  • Share and discuss your work with fellow writers in a supportive course environment.
  • Award-winning instructor Shelby Hinte will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Where the Diary Ends and the Essay Begins
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]]> A Writerly Life: Develop a Writing Routine that Works for You https://writers.com/course/a-writerly-life-develop-a-writing-routine-that-works-for-you Thu, 17 Nov 2022 14:31:08 +0000 https://writers.com/?post_type=product&p=15172 What does a writer's life look like? Build a productive writing habit in this course for writers of all backgrounds.

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]]> Many of us have dreams of living a writerly life. Whether we simply want to write more regularly, or aspire to finally turn the seeds of an idea into a fully formed book, writing consistently can bring us meaning, perspective, and joy. But with busy adult lives, how exactly do we make time for writing? There is no shortage of advice online, but the truth is, when it comes to finding a writing routine that works for your unique life, one size doesn’t fit all.

In A Writerly Life: Developing a Writing Routine that Works for You, you’ll be guided through an inquiry-based approach to writing that helps you to better understand the obstacles that stand between you and your creative endeavors. In this class we will work to adjust our perceptions around what it means to live a writerly life, and identify the practices that are most suited to your goals. Through trial and error, intention-setting, and deep reflection, students will leave this class with a writing schedule and tools to use when they run into creative blocks.

This class is great for both beginner writers looking to start a practice for the first time, or experienced writers who are in need of a routine reset.

Learning and Writing Goals

By the end of this class students will:

  • Develop an individualized writing schedule.
  • Develop a clear writing goal with realistic steps to accomplish it.
  • Create a strong Writing Intention to help motivate them when writing gets hard.
  • Generate raw written material from teacher-provided prompts.
  • Practice working through negative perceptions around themselves and their writing in order to have a more positive relationship with their writing.
  • Leave with resources, tools, and exercises for maintaining a consistent practice.

Zoom Schedule

We’ll meet once a week on Tuesdays at 7 PM Eastern time, for 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Meeting Dates:

January 7, 2025

January 14, 2025

January 21, 2025

January 28, 2025

February 4, 2025

Course Syllabus

Week 1 – Creating in Chaos

In our first class, we will evaluate our beliefs around writing and discuss potential hang-ups and blocks that may be standing in the way between us and our writing goals. Through short readings and a series of writing prompts we will attempt to make space, however limited, for daily writing, and we will look to the everyday as a source of creative possibility. Prompts and exercises for this week are designed with even the most chaotic schedules in mind.

Week 2 – Getting Rid of Distraction

The world doesn’t stop for us, so we stop the world for writing. If only. In week two, we focus on identifying the things that distract us most from our writing (is it your phone? The internet? Self-doubt? Your kids? Work?). We will hear from other writers and psychologists about how to navigate a world full of distractions and students will commit to using at least one tool learned in class to mitigate distraction.

Week 3 – Manifest Your Magic: All About Ritual

What’s the difference between habit, routine, and ritual? In week three we will explore this question and look at writers who believe that sometimes the best way to write is by conjuring a little bit of magic. Note: by week three, students will have tried at least two different writing schedules (either from provided templates or self-designed) and they will begin writing a draft of their individualized schedule.

Week 4 – Mantras, Affirmations, and Intentions

Sometimes our biggest creative block is out own stinking thinking. In week three we will look at tools for resetting negative mindsets so we can get out of our way and write. Students will develop their own mantra, affirmation, or intention and create a visual aid to go with it.

Week 5 – Mining for Gold: Finding What Works for You!

After trying out a variety of practices and tools, students will identify which tools and routines work best for them. Students will create visual portfolios of all class documents to share with others and that will function as their writing toolbox after our final session.

Why Take a Creative Writing Course with Writers.com?

  • We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
  • Small groups keep our online writing courses lively and intimate.
  • Work through your weekly lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
  • Share and discuss your work with fellow writers in a supportive course environment.
  • Award-winning instructor Shelby Hinte will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

 

A Writerly Life: Develop a Writing Routine that Works for You
Notify me when this course is scheduled

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