We often think of blog posts as being just a few paragraphs long, or being a "less serious" kind of writing. Not so! In this challenge, we'll focus on writing longform pieces that are equally at home on your blog or in a magazine. Whether you have trouble organizing your thoughts in longer pieces of writing or simply want to challenge yourself as a blogger, Writing 201: Beyond the Blog Post can help.

What is Writing 201: Beyond the Blog Post?

Writing 201: Beyond the Blog Post is a four-week course to help those beginning to explore longform writing (or who are frustrated with their past attempts). Each week, we'll focus on a different kind of piece, working our way from interviews -- one of the easiest ways to get started with longer pieces -- through instructional pieces and opinion pieces, ending with a personal essay. It's the product of a range of writers and editors, including the founders and editors at Longreads -- folks who know a thing or two about high word counts.

The course doesn't have "assignments." Publish a draft on Monday, a work-in-progress on Thursday, a new post on Saturday, or even commentary on the writing process. Don't publish at all, or submit your piece to an online magazine. What you publish and how is up to you.

For those who've never worked with other writers before or are scared to open your work up for feedback, don't worry! We're a friendly bunch, and we'll offer tips on workshopping before getting started.

The most important part isn't our advice, but the feedback you offer one another. As with all Blogging U. courses, you'll have a private community space, the Commons, where we encourage you to workshop your writing. Workshopping is all about collaborative brainstorming: share excerpts from pieces you're working on or links to your published pieces, ask focused questions, and provide critique. You offer specific, constructive feedback to others, and they do the same for you.

The nuts and bolts

  • Writing 201: Beyond the Blog Post begins on Monday, December 1.
  • New workshops are published at 12:00 AM GMT on Mondays. Each one helps you create a new longform piece of writing -- interview, instructional, opinion, and personal essay/memoir. (And since you'll get your final workshop on December 22, you can wrap up in time for the year-end holidays.)
  • What "longform" means depends partly on you, but we use it to denote writing that's 1500 words or more.
  • There are no posting requirements; the emphasis is on exploring new forms and workshopping your material. Publish your work when and where you'd like.
  • Participants will have a private community site, the Commons, for workshopping, chatting, and connecting with others. Daily Post and Longreads staff and WordPress.com Happiness Engineers will be on hand to answer questions and offer guidance.
  • This course is completely free and open to bloggers and writers from any platform.

Note: this is not a course about blogging, it's a focused writing workshop. If you're interested in learning to blog or developing your existing blog, you'll want to try our Blogging 101 and 201 courses -- Blogging 101 will be back in January.

How to register

Want to join? Fill out the form below to register. You'll receive an email before the course begins with instructions on how to access the Commons. Thanks for joining us!

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