Welcome to the Slow Flowers Creative Workshop: Floral Storytelling – an introductory course for floral entrepreneurs who dream of writing effortless content across all of their platforms. I've designed the curriculum to help you accomplish three writing objectives, each of which is covered in a module with several lessons. 
Here’s what the course entails: 

1 – ENHANCING YOUR WRITTEN LANGUAGE with Floral Adjectives, Color Descriptions and Simile/Metaphor. This section expands on the mini-course I recently taught for Fleurvana with several lessons to develop your floral language fluency.

2 – INTRODUCING YOU AND YOUR STORY on your About Page. Let’s break down the do’s and don’ts and craft a personal “about” bio for you to use on your website and for other purposes. We'll cover the best elements of your media kit and how and what your lecture page should include.

3 – DRAFTS, REVISIONS AND FINAL PIECE. Complete a fully-developed article, blog post or memoir-ish essay, suitable for publication. We'll cover useful outlines you can use to jump-start your blog, or expand your content, such as a personal journal, article or essay.

As an experienced journalist, book author, editor and features writer, I have an unique skill set to teach writing to floral designers, farmer-florists and growers who want to stretch their creative muscles. 
I have decades of experience writing about small business topics, home and garden features, and now, of course, about floral agriculture and sustainable design. I have worked professionally in fashion, textiles, retail, interior design, architecture and horticulture. I’ve been an adjunct professor at the community college level and I’m the past president of GardenComm, the association for gardening communicators. 
And I believe that like artists in any genre or discipline, floral entrepreneurs need a set of creative writing tools in their marketing toolbox. 

Introduction:  Welcome to Module One of the Slow Flowers Creative Workshop -- Enhance Your Language.

This module will give you the core resources that you will draw from every single time you put your fingers on a computer keyboard or on that tiny touch-pad keyboard on your smart phone.

Lesson One: Once you begin to master flower and plant adjectives, you can more confidently describe what you grow and what you design using beyond-ordinary language that elevates your message. Add wow to your descriptions -- in a proposal, post, journal entry or other written communication.

Lesson Two: Yes, we love the colors of the rainbow -- r-o-y-g-b-i-v -- but the universe of language offers us so many beautiful and more invigorating ways to describe floral color palettes. Ways that make a hue unforgettable. Why say yellow when you can say buttercream? or canary? Why get stuck in the generic word-trap limited to just seven ordinary rainbow words when you can draw from infinite other ways to describe color and enhance and emote a deeper connection with your flowers?

Lesson Three: Beyond color, once you experience how fun it is to write my other favorite literary tools -- simile and metaphor -- you will begin to really love communicating in a new way. Describing a floral recipe in a proposal will be as enticing as walking through a fabric store with thousands of textiles to choose from: prints, stripes and dots to cut and stitch a quilt. See - that's a simile - I compared making a quilt to making a floral arrangement.

Lesson Four: Finally, we will spend a lesson on sensory words. How do we convey a topic or idea that connects the reader with all (or some of) the senses? We know that fragrance is a trigger, but how many ways can we describe scent. We know that texture is super important in the floral world, but what does touch mean to the written word? Sound, taste, imagery -- all our senses can be wooed by the way a writer acknowledges the character of the senses. And we're going to play with this. 

Welcome to Module Two of the Slow Flowers Creative Workshop -- Your Story and About You. This module will equip you with the building blocks for what some might argue is your most important piece of writing ever. In a world of website templates, Canva graphics and logos, and surprisingly similar branding for flower farms and floral studios (and you know exactly what I mean, thanks to square space, Wix and the aforementioned Canva), the one variable you can control about your brand is you and the biographical description you write about you, your farm, your studio, your process, your design aesthetic.

Once you craft the authentic narrative that truly reflects what you want to present to the marketplace, everything else will fall into place as hold the mirror up to that "about" paragraph.

My goal is to give you the core resources that you will draw from every single time you put your fingers on a computer keyboard or on that tiny touch-pad keyboard on your smart phone.

There are Three Lessons in Module Two:

Lesson One: All About You. Who You Are and What Defines You. Now we begin the "digging deep" portion of this course. This is the heart of things. And it can't be rushed.

Lesson Two: It's All About MISSION and PASSION: Finding What Makes You Tick?

Lesson Three: All about Character, Actions over Words
Writing and Rewriting Techniques.

Introduction: Welcome to Module Three, as we put your writing muscles to work crafting finished pieces you can publish on your website. Why do I encourage you to devote time writing original pieces that will "live" on your website?
 I am a lifelong writer, so I believe strongly in writing about what I experience, observe and know to understand myself, my values and my place in the world. As a child, I always had pen pals with whom I would exchange long letters. As an adolescent, like many, I kept a diary, complete with a tiny lock. And pre-internet, I continued letter-writing with a number of family members and friends. I started my blog at debraprinzing.com with my first post on March 29, 2007 - can you believe it?  The medium of a blog -- which originated with the term for an online journal -- web-log, weblog, blog -- is now the single-most versatile tool you can use as a creative individual.

Lesson One: Your Writing Framework
Get out your notepad, fire up your laptop, and work your way through the outlines and prompts I have created just for you. Each template is designed to help you write and complete a blog post that's ready to publish.

Lesson Two: Edit, rewrite. Rinse and repeat. Self-Editing Techniques. Before I share some self-editing strategies, I want to discuss why this step is an important way to strengthen your writing. Let's face it, getting your thoughts down on paper is hard enough. But the chance to fine-tune what you've written is like getting a do-over on a floral arrangement you're not initially happy with. I talked earlier about taking time to step away and let some time pass before you return to your work to see what you've written.

Lesson Three: Creating a theme and topic editorial calendar
My desire for you is to evoke and express your personal story as a creative person, a maker, an artist, a farmer. A framework, outline or calendar for your creative writing turns it into a marketing tool that is useful and strategic. Remember when I said I was a plodder, not a planner? 
Well, I have to revise that statement. Depending on the goal, I am a bit of both. And I am convinced that having a consistent presence on one's blog is one reason to break out the planning skills. 

Mary-Kate Mackey is the author of Write Better Right Now—The reluctant writer’s guide to confident communication and self-assured style, a book inspired by her 14 years of teaching at the University of Oregon’s Journalism School. She has conducted her popular writing workshops at conferences around the U.S. She’s also a multi-award-winning garden writer, whose work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Fine Gardening, Horticulture, and Country Gardens. Online, she writes for Hartley-Botanic Greenhouses. Her upcoming book, The Healthy Garden Book, co-authored with Kathleen Brenzel, will be published by Abrams in 2021.