Second Chances Spring 2025 – No More Excuses

Welcome to the WLT Second Chances sale! From now until 11:59 PM CT June 30, 2025, all of our Spring 2025 class recordings are available to purchase by our Members. Become a member here. Members, log in to your account see the ticket options.

From setting achievable writing goals to starting (and sticking with and finishing!) your novel or memoir to building a career as a writer, these classes are meant to help you get out of your own way and to get the work done.

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a live class registration. When you register, you’ll receive access to previously recorded classes taught for a live audience. Registration includes access to any handouts, readings, and slides the instructor originally shared with students. The videos will be available for viewing immediately upon purchase, and will expire on July 31, 2025.

Descriptions for each class recording can be found below. To purchase access to the recordings, all you need to do is add your preferred tickets to your cart and check out. You’ll then receive an email containing the receipt for your purchase along with a link to the class recordings and any class materials.

To find our Craft Fundamentals, click here.

To find our Expanding Horizons, click here.

“Writer’s Reset: Mapping Your Writing Goals for 2025”
with Julie Poole

A new year means a fresh start. Imagine what you want your writing life to look like in 2025 and come prepared to dream big.

While it’s tempting to charge full tilt toward the next big writing goal, it’s critical to reflect on why it’s a goal in the first place and what it will take to achieve it. As writers, we need to constantly reconnect with our sense of purpose—why we write—and, from there, adjust so that we have the support, good health, and routines in place in order to do what we love. This class is designed to help writers do just that.

As a community, we’ll tap into what works and what doesn’t—discussing the common pitfalls writers face, including imposter syndrome, writer’s block, and the comparison trap. Come prepared to talk about what holds you back and what keeps you going. Don’t be afraid to dream big! Students will walk away from this experience with a strategy for the coming year and a road map with accountability milestones to guide the way.

What students had to say about the class:

• “I would recommend this class to people who need the push, who need the validation that a ‘real’ writer knows their struggles and has struggled themselves, too.”

“Catching the Spark: Turning Ideas into a Novel”
with Charlotte Gullick

Do you have an idea for a novel but aren’t sure where to start? This class will help guide you from the idea phase to laying the groundwork for your book-length project, setting you up for success in writing a novel.

We will explore how to outline our work (pantsing or plotting), how to deepen our understanding of character desire and tension, how to create routines that empower and embolden our writing, and how to connect with other writers to meet our goals. We’ll have a lot of fun by generating material and creating the map for our first drafts.

What students had to say about the class:

• “Charlotte obviously knows her class material. That combined with her beautiful sense of humor creates classes that are always enjoyable.”
• “Charlotte’s way of instruction really created a ‘spark’ of new ideas.”

“Becoming a Full-Time Author: The Personal, Emotional, and Financial Logistics of a Writing Career”
with Laekan Zea Kemp

Pantsing your way to becoming a full-time author is not an option.

You need a plan–one that considers the emotional and logistical implications of leaving behind the stability of your 9 to 5, as well as the financial safety nets necessary to make it work long-term. In this 3-hour class, we’ll cover considerations, safeguards, and the timing of your transition, as well as help you find answers to some of your most pressing questions like, “How much money should I have saved before I quit my job to become a full-time author?” and “How often should I sell new projects in order to create a financially sustainable career?” There will be time for individual planning, as well as a short Q&A following each section of the presentation. Attendees will receive a copy of the presentation, which will be full of valuable information and additional resources.

What students had to say about the class:

• “The level of detail Laekan provided on this topic was superb. I appreciated and enjoyed her no-nonsense approach and understanding the ‘why’ behind her recommendations. She pulled no punches and I loved this!”

“Memoir 101: Everything You Need to Know to (Finally) Start Your Memoir”
with Jessica Wilbanks

As you begin your memoir, this class will provide strategies for generating material and finding structure.

The most haunting memoirs aren’t just autobiographies. Instead, they pivot on a subject that mystifies and confounds the writer, about which they cannot quite make up their mind.

In this class, you’ll begin to mine your life for material and work through a series of generative prompts designed to turn rich, messy fragments into surprising and powerful prose. We’ll steal liberally from the sensory world of poetry, the narrative world of fiction, and the fact-driven world of journalism, even as we plumb the depths of interior life. Along the way, you’ll learn how to build a strong narrative arc, write vivid scenes, and prioritize the details and images that make prose come alive.

All levels of experience are welcome, but this course will be particularly helpful for writers who are in the earliest stages of a memoir project.

“Spark into Flame: Working with Early Drafts of a Novel”
with Charlotte Gullick

You’ve done it! You have an early draft of a novel, and now you want to take it to the next level.

This class will focus on how to improve your current draft by focusing on plot, characters, setting, dialogue and language. We will discuss the role of secondary characters, enlivening the mushy middle, and how to push through resistance and discouragement. The session will also help you create a concrete game plan for finishing with confidence and joy.

“Taming the Fire: Mapping Out Your Revision”
with Charlotte Gullick

In this class, you’ll create a roadmap for what is needed to revise a book-length draft into an engaging manuscript.

Students will assess what they have on the page, what is still needed, and create plans for closing the gap, while honoring the initial spark that started the work. Participants are asked to bring the first 5 and last 5 pages of their current draft, as well as 5 middle pages. We will look for themes, primary symbols, and subplots to deepen or eliminate. We will explore willingness (or lack thereof) to let go of current pages in order to create better ones.

What students had to say about the class:

• “I’ve been in a MFA program in the past and very few writing instructors have ever made me come alive, especially around the topic of revision, like this. And in a Zoom online teaching space too of 3 hours? I can’t believe how much I got from this!”

“Following Desire: Shaping Stories with Want”
with R. O. Kwon

Kurt Vonnegut said that, on every page of writing, someone should want something. I’d expand this idea: I believe that, in every line of our writing, desire can and perhaps ought to be present.

It seems truthful to living as I know it: I want and want, and the characters I write do so, too. Desire is so central to my fiction that it supplies much of a book’s or story’s shape: I follow what my characters want, and, pulled along, find a world. But with desire often comes terrible vulnerability: to admit to longing can be shaming, even frightening, and how to grapple with such complications and fears? In this class, we’ll look at desire-fueled writing in multiple genres, and we’ll dream up some of our own.

What students had to say about the class:

• “Truly excellent and very generative workshop.”
• “This was one of the best classes I have had! …she was so engaging that it felt like the hours flew by. I also really loved the generative writing exercises.”