Ready to start 2012 with a bang? I’m offering my popular 3-week online workshop Become an Idea Machine again and the next session starts on Monday, January 16 Monday, February 13, 2012.

Whether you’ve been feeling ho-hum about the ideas you’re pitching to editors or you’re a new writer who’s floundering in a sea of insecurity about the quality of your stories, this workshop can help. For $149, you’ll get access to a weekly web-based workshop, complete with idea-generating exercises, that will help you build up the quantity and develop the quality of your story ideas. In addition, you have three weeks of e-mail support where I’ll answer your questions, help you shape ideas, suggest possible markets for your stories, and give you the confidence to go forth and conquer your fears about querying.

Who does best in this workshop? The dividing line isn’t between those who have previous freelancing experience and those who have zero or few clips. The students who shine are those who are extremely self motivated, who aren’t afraid to push through the hard work of the first week. Moreover, my successful students are the ones who ask the most questions and who aren’t shy about participating. You know that saying, “You get what you put into it?” That’s definitely true for my workshop, because no matter how much I reach out to you, you’re not going to walk away with an arsenal of ideas if you don’t put forth the effort required. And I’m not kidding you — it’s hard work.

But the hard work is worth it. The students I’ve worked with who’ve given the workshop their all have gone on to sell stories they developed in this class to outlets like Women’s Day, Parenting, Saveur, New Scientist, Yankee, Health, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times (actually three of my students have sold to the NYT!). And while some of my students were established freelancers, several were not. They were highly motivated students with good writing skills who, despite their fears and insecurities, made the leap from unpublished to published by pushing themselves harder than they thought they could and by following my advice.

Want to learn more? Download my FAQ, and if you’re ready to take your freelancing career to a new level in 2012, sign up here. If you need some extra hand-holding, I also offer this class with phone support. For an additional $150, you get three :30 minute phone sessions that you can spread out over three weeks so we can talk through your ideas over the phone.

Look forward to having you join me for a stellar 2012!!!

On Monday, July 11, I kickoff a new component to my three-week Become an Idea Machine class. I’ll be offering three spots with telephone mentoring! ETA: Three new spots are opening up for the October 10, 2011 class!

How it works: You sign up, get your weekly workshop, and get all the e-mail support that the premium-level gives you. However, you also get three 1/2-hour telephone mentoring sessions — a half-hour of personalized, kick-butt advice each week to help you get your hot story ideas into the hands of editors. We can brainstorm ideas, as well as talk about freelancing issues that don’t directly pertain to the class. All for $150 plus the cost of the workshop ($299 total).

So sign up today!

ETA: The May class is sold out. I’ve been limiting my Become an Idea Machine workshops to five participants each month, but I’ve decided to open it up to 10 starting with the May 2, 2011 session. I’ve got six students now with four more open spots. Sign up today!

Mark your calendars … on Monday, May 2, 2011, I’ll be starting a new session of Become an Idea Machine workshop. I’ve been limiting registration to five students each session; the last three sessions have sold out so if you want a space, register now. Read more about the workshop here, as well as download the FAQ from that page.

After completing the workshop, one of my students wrote to me to say, “The best part of this program, however, was you, your accessibility, and your willingness to talk to me about what I need to know and do in order to take my writing career to the next level. Thank you so much.” (This student went on to sell a story he’d developed in this workshop to the New York Times’ travel section –  and since then, another one of my students made a sale to the NYT.) Other students have sold their ideas to Discover, The New Scientist, Parenting, Yankee, and more.

If you have any questions about this course, my mentoring style, or how the heck workshopping ideas works, please e-mail me at dianaburrell (at) gmail  (dot) com. Hope to see you in April!

Over the last couple months, freelancers have been writing to me, asking whether I’d be offering my Become an Idea Machine workshop again. I had to put the class on hiatus because of a shift in my career (read: I was working 40+ hours a week offsite).

So good news … I’m finishing up some of the big projects that had me so swamped this fall and can offer this workshop in January, starting on the 17th on February 7, 2011 (the January workshop is now FULL).  You can read more about the workshop here, as well as download the FAQ from that page.

One of my students, after completing the workshop, wrote to me to say, “The best part of this program, however, was you, your accessibility, and your willingness to talk to me about what I need to know and do in order to take my writing career to the next level.  Thank you so much.” (This student went on to sell a story he’d developed in this workshop to the New York Times’ travel section –  woo hoo!) Other students of mine have sold their ideas to Discover, The New Scientist, Parenting, Yankee, and more.

If you have any questions about this course, my mentoring style, or how the heck workshopping ideas works, please e-mail me at diana (at) ninetofive (dot) com. Hope to see you in January February!

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails over the past couple months from writers who wanted to take my Story Ideas That Sell workshop. I had a lot going on in my life, so I pulled the workshop down. It was just too much for me at the time, plus some of my students wanted me to offer one-on-one coaching along with the workshop and I just couldn’t figure out how to fit that all in.

My life has settled down somewhat, and I was able to give the material a second look and figure out a way to provide more coaching and hand-holding. So I’m happy to announce that I’ll be offering my three-week class, Become an Idea Machine: How to (Painlessly) Build Up an Inventory of Story Ideas to Sell to Magazines, starting Monday, May 17. You can take the class with e-mail support ($149) or without ($99), although if you really struggle coming up with salable story ideas, I strongly urge you to sign up for the premium level.

What you’ll get from this course:

• You’ll learn how to generate dozens, even hundreds of possible story ideas, starting with the first week of class.
• You’ll learn how to sift through your ideas for the good ones, the stories that have potential, and learn how to refine and shape them into pitchable stories.
• You’ll figure out how to target your ideas for the right markets
• You’ll never be at a loss when an editor asks if you have any more ideas for them? You’ll have dozens of good ideas, sorted into subject categories.

I’ve reworked the material from my “Story Idea Workshop” for this new course, but if you’ve already taken that class, I’d urge you not to sign up for it again UNLESS you want to do it again with e-mail support. Contact me if you’re interested in doing this; you only have to pay the difference between the Basic and Premium levels, which is $50.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be doing a teleseminar with Linda Formichelli, tentatively titled Five Easy Ways to Generate Story Ideas That Sell. Details TK. In the meantime, you can sign up for my class at the Renegade Writer site.

Greetings! Some updates on my schedule.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer offering my Story Ideas That Sell workshop. Last fall I had a long think about what direction to take my career, which meant ruling out projects that pull me away from my goals. Teaching was one of them. Sorry folks! But I’ll continue posting at the Renegade Writer blog, and in the next few months, I’ll be giving a teleseminar with the fabulous Linda Formichelli on — ta dah! — idea generation. Details TK.

So, that new direction I mentioned. I’ve been working on a book proposal for the last few months, and I’m really, really, REALLY psyched about it. The book’s topic is one that’s close to my heart; the proposal itself was actually a lot of fun to write. Yeah, you read that right … fun! (If you know anything about me, you know that I rarely describe writing as “fun.”) My agent sent the proposal out last week, so keep your fingers crossed for me, okay?

I continue to write for the Boston Globe (I just reviewed the honkingly huge Cuisinart Elite food processor), and Kiwi Magazine just published a story I wrote about all-natural food colorings and flavors. I’m working on another piece for them about a topic near-and-dear to my heart. Let’s just say it’s raw.

As for speaking engagements, Smith College (my alma mater) invited me to speak on a freelancing panel at “A Century of Women in Type: A Conference for Smith Women in the Media” on March 25-26, 2010 in Northampton, MA. I was honored by the invitation, as I’ll be speaking with the Smith alums Gloria Steinem, Wendy Kaminer, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Andrea Cooper (a freelancer I admire greatly), among others. Yay!

Till next time.

In the midst of a creative lull? Want to ramp up your income 2009? I’ll be running my three-week Story Idea Workshop this spring with start dates on March 2 and April 6. Sign up through my classes page.

I really loved teaching my freelance writing classes locally for the past few years. But with my shift to food writing and a kid who has a more vibrant social life than I, teaching was one thing I had to cut out in the last year.

However, I’ve figured out a way to teach online. I think this is going to be great because I can reach beyond Boston. Now it doesn’t matter where you are — you can take my fun 3-week workshop! The other thing I did differently was focus on my favorite part of freelancing — generating salable story ideas for editors. It’s the part of my in-person class I found the most exciting. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has a story to tell sell and I get a kick out of showing my students they have dozens of ideas right in front of them. They just need to learn how to see them.

This workshop came about when, maybe a year ago I was talking to my writer friend Sandra, sharing with her some of my idea-generating tips and she said, “You should really teach a course in this.” It took me awhile to gather my thoughts, tips, and ideas, but finally this week I finished the three-week workshop. And now I’m really excited to share this with the world.

So check out my class page. If you have any questions about the workshop, send an e-mail to diana at ninetofive dot com and I’ll be happy to answer them.

It was a busy summer! As I try to keep up with the glut of tomatoes and chili peppers from my garden, I can’t believe the season’s over. I wrote quite a few pieces for the Boston Globe food section — see my clips page for links — and have another story coming out on 9/26/07 about goats, my new obsession. One story I’m quite proud of … it was about a Concord couple who raises pasture-fed chickens for meat and eggs. The story led hundreds of people to call or write to them about buying their birds … they ended up selling all their chickens for this year and have a waitlist for people who want birds in 2008! I also wrote many food/recipe features for fall magazines, some of which are hitting the stands this month. I did a Thanksgiving dinner story for Oxygen‘s November issue, and ended up having to test the recipes during one of the hottest weeks this summer.

But it’s not all work … I spent Labor Day weekend in LA visiting a dear friend I haven’t seen in awhile, and we went to my husband’s family reunion in Iowa in August. It was held at his great-grandfather’s homestead, which is still in the family — moreover, the reunion has been held every summer since 1918. I thought that was pretty cool! Now we’re off on a family vacation to Munich for a couple weeks, then it’s back to Boston to start planning my November March 2008 trip to India.

In January, my co-author and I are starting a series of e-courses taught through our Renegade Writer website. We are so thrilled with the instructors who are teaching them — they’re tops! Check out our blog as well, which we update fairly frequently.