CASE STUDY

AUTHOR CLIENT WORKBOOK

This past month I had the honour of supporting a previous author client of mine with another worksheet. Susan Ksiezopolski joined the Worksheet Mastermind so she could start thinking about a new worksheet idea for another one of her workshops.

I worked with Susan previously to develop and design a workbook for her Writer’s Workshop. Susan was already presenting her workshop but realized she needed a tool for her participants to use in their writing practice.

I wanted to share how Susan and I first met. Susan tells it so well so I included a quote from her acknowledgments in her workbook, The Writer’s Workshop.

The idea for an actual workbook took full flight when I had the good fortune to come across the great work of Theresa McNeilly. The serendipity of meeting Theresa makes for a fascinating story. One of my writing workshop participants (who attended my workshop twice) gave me a copy of Judy Machado-Duque’s “Life Purpose Playbook: The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting and Daily Planning”. I fell in love with the content and design of the playbook. Shortly after, I ended up attending one of Judy’s workshop and low and behold the book designer was also at the workshop! I knew then that I needed to have Theresa make my writing workshop material into a workbook. Her exquisite design proposal inspired me to write. Her artwork helped keep the momentum going, and here we are. Thank you Theresa, your vision for my workbook coupled with your stunning creativity made this workbook come alive.

The Writer’s Workbook is for the novice writer who is not sure where to start, for the advanced writer looking for new techniques and for everyone in between interested in improving their craft. You become a better writer by writing. It takes both practice and discipline to make that mark on the paper and to keep writing. The more you write the easier it becomes and the better you get at it.

This workbook shows you some new techniques to try out. Begin with an open mind and find what works best for you and just write! The tools are meant to help you tap into your emotions. We had emotions long before we had words to express them. Thoughts are the vocabulary of the mind and feelings are the vocabulary of the heart and body. Writing that captures both your thoughts and your feelings is the most impactful.

This workbook is an exploration to help you develop your writing toolkit and arm you with techniques and ways to tap into your thoughts and feelings when you are feeling stuck or when you don’t know where to start.

In Susan’s Workbook, she shares how..

💬 to harness and apply WORD power for impact.

🎵 MUSIC channels creativity and improves effective expression.

🎨 to explore the power of ART to draw out the writer within.

🧘‍♀️ to tune in through MEDITATION to turn up your creative writing voice.

Working through these 4 areas, Susan guides you to write with her and tap into the power of creativity.

Worksheet Mastermind Session

Susan joined the Worksheet Mastermind to start thinking about how to create a worksheet for another workshop she presents. During the week long session, Susan watched the videos for the course which explained the task for the day. She also joined the Facebook group where she could watch how I worked through the daily lessons and apply them to my own worksheet that I was working on as an example.

Day 1 WHY

The first step is to identify WHY she wanted to create a worksheet. In the course I explain how we can look at our WHY in three specific perspectives and Susan was able to identify these and shared her ideas in the group.

DAY 2 WHAT

The second step is to figure out WHAT her worksheet is about. At first she had trouble pin pointing what content she could use for a worksheet in the workshop. However it was useful in getting her to look at how she could identify and integrate the overall value of her workshop.

DAY 3 HOW

The third step is to determine HOW to make it interactive. Susan decided she liked several tools for creating engagement. She then realized that she had a form which she uses in her workshop for her participants to fill out at the very start of the workshop. So she sent me that to have a look at. We quickly realized this was the content we could focus on for developing a worksheet. So in the Facebook group I shared a special Creative Critique on how we could improve Susan’s form to make in more engaging and supportive for her workshop.

DAY 4 WOW

The fourth step is to WOW your worksheet with design. This is where I share tips on how to design your worksheet with visual principles. I also share how I plan to design my worksheet to help with ideas for the group. Susan appreciates art and design so she thought this day was a particularly fun session!

DAY 5 DO THE WORK

The final step is to crate your worksheet in the a computer program of your choice. Susan and I also meet together in a separate room in Facebook group for any questions and sharing. Susan said she would take my ideas that I shared with her during the week and improve her original form for her workshop participants.

Susan’s Experience.

Here is what Susan had to say about her experience in the Worksheet Mastermind.

It was motivating and inspiring to take part in the Do The Work Books Worksheet Mastermind session to help me to develop and design my worksheet to support my workshop participants.

The sessions were full of interesting exercises that were thought provoking and helped me to rethink my business purposes and how I could improve on the both the impact and engagement of my workshop audience.

The ideas that were generated as part of the workshop will help me to grow my business and better support my audience and help my followers interact more creatively with my content and also be inspired to take action.

Theresa’s simple straight forward approach of addressing the why, what how and wow, helped me to move through from a state of confusion. Before I started the sessions, I felt overwhelmed with were to start, but with Theresa’s guidance I moved quickly to a state of being focused and gained clarity on my own next steps to add additional value to my workshop participants.

My objective was to learn how to inspire workshop participants to complete the exercise given during the workshop and be motivated to be more creative in the process by using a creative worksheet and through the course of the sessions I was able to achieve this. I now have a clear vision of my next steps and look forward to working with Theresa in the near future to design a captivating worksheet that will support my audience to track their progress and their continued wellbeing.

About the Authour

This workbook was developed by award winning writer Susan Ksiezopolski, author of inspirational poetry books “Writing for Change” and “My Words”. She was the recipient of “Bloor Collegiate Institute’s Writer’s Circle Writer of the Year Honour Award” – awarded by Marshal McLuhan. Susan has been inspiring others writers to write through her Writer’s Workshops since 2013.

The powerful ability of words to motivate and change people for the better has been a constant theme throughout Susan Ksiezopolski’s life.

An award-winning poet and published author, Susan spent 32 years in the Ontario public sector as a project and change management specialist. During her tenure, she repeatedly transformed the status quo into vibrant, strategic successes through coaching, relationship building, and effective communications. She regularly shared her industry knowledge by publishing project management articles and papers in professional magazines, and was featured on the South African-based Change Designs website as a guest blogger providing practical change management advice.

Since retiring from public service, Susan has poured her energy into creative writing, workshops and volunteer work. In 2012 she published her first book of poetry, My Words; her second book, Writing For Change, was published in the fall of 2014. Her poetry has been featured in the Canadian Immigrant Magazine and other poetry-related web sites. Her passion for inspiring others to find their voice prompted her to develop creative writing workshops. She has been delivering the workshops in the Greater Toronto Area since 2013.

To find out more about Susan, her books, and workshops visit http://www.mywordsnow.com or you can contact her at info@mywordsnow.com.

I am so grateful that I can continue to support Susan as a client of mine, even after years of working together on her workbook. There is always opportunity to grow and expand your offers — with a workbook, a worksheet or other graphic designs. Even with a simple, yet powerful, worksheet. Continue reading more about Susan and her workbook below.