Need Help Finding All the Puzzle Pieces of Your Story?

Plotting Workshop: 


Learn techniques for effective idea generation, plot and scene creation through a series of individual and group exercises. As well, participants will examine story structure, generation of conflict and tension, and techniques in collaborative plotting. This is an interactive workshop. Each participant will be asked to bring a germ of an idea for development during this two day workshop. There will be orphan ideas available for those that don’t generate that germ in the days leading up to the workshop. The use of myth and everyday life will be examined as sources that will help the writer find new ideas for fresh work.

This workshop is appropriate for writers of all levels and enrollment is capped at twelve participants.

Dates: September 23 and 30, 2017
Times: 10:00 am - 4:30 pm (45 minute break for lunch)
Location: 618 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC
Instructor: David Blinkhorn

Cost: $110.00 Register before August 24, 2017 and receive 15% off your registration costs

To register or for more information, email David at fvwschool@gmail.com

Find the Fuel for Your Creative Fire

Creative Pursuits:

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Pablo Picasso

Picasso's right. The hardest thing for an adult in any creative project is to bring a child's creative energy to their artistic pursuits. In this ten week workshop, participants will return to play as they learn new and interesting ideas that will help them find their way to fulfilling artistic and creative lives. Over time, the workshop attendees will learn about:

1. What creativity is and how our brain operates when being creative,
2. The various successful processes to becoming more creative including the nine basic types of creative thought,
3. Ways to maximize your creative potential,
4. Techniques for defeating your inner critic,
5. Methods to maintaining a creative life in the face of the ordinary one,
6. Ways to work collaboratively with other artists, and
7. Creative techniques to find and mine your personal creative gold including skill development in the use of observation, empathetic thinking, playing and imaging.

Each workshop will focus on exercises to help the participant develop the skills in the various topics discussed each week. It is interactive and participants will be expected to work as individuals and in groups. There will be a weekly project which focuses on that week's creative technique. Notes of the discussion/lecture will be provided each week as well. This workshop is appropriate for creatives and artists of all levels.

While each workshop is self-contained and can be attended in isolation, all workshops build on skills developed each week. The final two weeks follow a four week hiatus during which time attendees will work on a creative project of their own choosing for presentation to your fellow creatives during the final two workshops. Pre-registration is required for the final workshops.

Dates and Time: Wednesdays from 6:30 -9:00 pm commencing September 20, 2017 and running to November 8, 2017. Final two workshops are on December 6 and 13, 2017 
Times: 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Location: 618 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC
Instructor: David Blinkhorn

Cost: $25 per session or you can purchase a card for classes in the following denominations: 4 workshops: $95, 6 workshops; $135, 8 workshops: $170, all ten workshops: $190 (cards are non-transferable). Attendees who wish to attend the final two workshops must register for a minimum of four workshops before qualifying to attend in December.

Register prior to August 24, 2017 and receive an additional 10% off. Registration for this workshop is capped at fourteen individuals.

To register or for more information, email fvwschool@gmail.com

Here's what attendees have said about David Blinkhorn's Creativity workshops:

“Take this workshop. It's creative, thoughtful, encouraging. It'll loosen up your brain, free it from its rut. You'll laugh and learn.”

“Take David Blinkhorn's class: You'll learn handy and thoughtful tips for writing (and living as a writer). The activities are fun and you get some useful handouts to remind you of what you can do- because you laugh so much, you might forget some 'nitty gritty' important detail.”

“This workshop was so much fun! We laughed and there even some tears as we wrote about being certain objects. David Blinkhorn always presents with so much fun and creativity of his own to help us with our own “Creative Pursuits”! It is so helpful to know now that becoming an object or what we see around us can open up our creativity and help us write more openly and freely.”

Learn to Create Better Scenes in Your Writing

Scene Creation

To be an effective fiction or creative non-fiction writer today, you need to write effective scenes. The vehicle for a writer to advance their plot and reveal character, the scene is cinematic writing and is defined by its continuous action regardless of that action's size, shape or intensity. Without the "Walk" of the scene, the reader is left with the "Talk" and the writer risks losing them to more interesting stories.

During this fifteen hour course, you'll examine:

1. story and scene structure;
2. techniques for bringing conflict and tension into the scene;
3. the purposes of a scene;
4. methods for beginning and ending a scene;
5. transitions between scenes; and
6. various writing tools that help advance your scene including but not limited to setting, dialogue, and character development

This course is a unique way of advancing your writing education as it focuses on story-telling from day one. Students can expect to learn many techniques in a fluid fashion that are normally compartmentalized in most introductory courses. The course is presented as a series of talks, discussions, exercises and critiqued writing assignments.

Dates: Saturdays, October 14, 21, and 28, 2017

Times: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm (1 hour break for lunch each day)

Location: 618 Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC

Cost: $175.00 Register before August 24, 2017 and receive $20 off your registration costs

For more information or to register, email. fvwschool@gmail.com

Introductory Course for the Emerging Writer

Introduction To Creative Writing

Do you have a story rambling and rumbling around in your head and don't know how and where to start? This introductory course starts your creative writing journey and provides you with some tools and techniques to get your words on the page.

Through a series of talks, discussions, in-class exercises and weekly take home assignments over eight weeks, you begin to develop knowledge in topics including writing with your senses, scene creation, character development, setting, dialogue, and overcoming the voice of your inner critic and writer's block.

Cost: $135 if you register before August 24, 2017

$160 for registrations after August 24, 2017

Dates and Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm Mondays commencing September 18, 2017 until November 6, 2017 (no class on October 9, 2017 for Thanksgiving)

Location: 618 Columbia Street, New Westminster ( a block up from the Columbia Skytrain station)

To register or for more information contact David Blinkhorn at fvwschool@gmail.com