Writers, if you were to run a course in effective writing for people who aren’t very comfortable writing, what would you be sure to include?

Practice. I took several courses but the most impactful was the one which forced me to write (no editing) for an hour for a month. Changed my life.

how did you figure out what you wanted to write on?

You don’t. You just sit down and write down the first thing that comes to mind and continue for an hour. Neil Gaiman said something similar to this, which sounds pithy but is true: to be a writer you need to write. 🤷‍♀️