The most important skill of a storyteller is the ability to re-vision the world we inhabit.  Author Saun McNiff writes “everything is subject to reconstruction and renewal. The ‘re’ factor is the basis of resurrecting, reshaping, regenerating, reviving and rejuvenating.”  Memoir writers live in a a state of daily search and exploration to mine their lives to  create a compelling and teachable story.

What happens to us in life that breaks us is the catalyst for a new life and a transformation. It’s also what makes a great story, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way at first, because often we have to relive a challenging time and make it work on the page. We bring our personal darkness into a story before we allow the light to enter. 

As writers, it’s our job to take readers on a whole journey, and to do this successfully, we have to explore the whole of the journey.

“When we deny the story, it defines us.
When we own the story, it becomes a brave new ending.”

– Brené Brown

– 

Perhaps your story begins at the moment we learn someone we loved died, someone let us down, we left a relationship we loved or someone left us.  Maybe you discovered you had an illness you might have to live with your whole life, or that your parents weren’t your birth parents.  Perhaps it starts with a move across country or a new job.  Either way, in every story, near the beginning, something happens, and it triggers a series of events and reflections as we look back upon them, forever learning and reframing the story as we gain new perspectives.

This is the most essential part of your story to lay the foundation for what is to come.

Writing is at its most rich when you share the darkness.  

“Light needs much dark in order to dazzle.”

– Rosemary Waldrop

Don’t Stay in the Darkness – Every Story lets in the Light

After writing about this change in your life, the event, it’s just as important to show a balanced view of the perpetrator, of the person or people or institution, or illness that wronged you, perhaps by putting yourself in their shoes or its shoes.

Did you wrong yourself?  If that is true, it’s also important to see yourself in that role!

When we are stuck in our story, it’s often because we haven’t explored the circularity of the story – what Greeks call the Kairos of time, and explore the deeper wisdom that is there for us that circles us back.

What a writer does AFTER allowing themselves to write to the anger, the pain, the betrayal, is also critical to the story, because they must learn to write through it in a balanced way for a story to progress, to let in the light, the air and the hope.

“In a world dominated by images, the reality is always mediated, filtered, pre-selected.
Every frame is part of a larger frame,
in turn, part of an even bigger one…
and every frame has its truth, that’s reframing.”

– Claudio Bindella, Milan artist

Intimate talk with Author, Actor and Activist Kimleigh Smith

In addition to four small group live online sessions and one night in my living room, writers taking this course will have the opportunity to talk online with actor, writer, playwrite and author Kimleigh Smitth, who reframed her college rape story for an engaging and often very funny, liberating solo show –  T-O-T-A-L-L-Y.  I had the honor of bringing her show to Kauai years ago, and since then she has performed it hundreds of times to standing ovations, receiving multiple awards. Kimleigh will discuss how reframing her story, playing with time in the story, and speeding up certain scenes helped bring her to the end of the story, when she literally wears a cape, has superpowers and is living her best life.  How does a rape story bring the light and wisdom in? Kimleigh will show us how.

Television credits include, “Shameless”, “9-1-1”, “Criminal Minds”, “Scandal”, “Castle”, “Bones”,” “The Mentalist”, “Parenthood”, “Law and Order: LA”, and “Heroes”. Kimleigh has written and continues to perform her Inernationally Acclaimed Multi-Award Winning solo show, T-O-T-A-L-L-Y! She is grateful that her career is always flourishing in theatre, commercials, television, and film.

One hour talk students taking this course, with Q & A – December 5TH, Sunday  |  4 p.m. PST / 7 p.m. EST

What a Story is by Laura Lentz

In 4-weeks writers will practice shifting from Trauma to Hope to Magic:

WEEK ONE:  WRITING WHAT HAPPENED / WARNINGS TO YOUR PAST SELF  

This week is the moment we explore the darkest part of what happened to us.  If we were a victim, we claim our victim moment and write deeply into it.  We will also explore what your future self would have said to your past self.  

WEEK TWO:  BREAKING: EXPLORING TWO VIEWPOINTS    

Writing (2) letters with two separate perspectives to the person or institution or event or illness that was or is shattering to you.  This helps you dive deeper into the story and triggering event and discover new aspects critical to the reframing of the story.

WEEK THREE:  SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE 

This session is the critical week where the writer is asked to explore the shifting perspective of the person who was wronged and the person or institution or illness that did the wronging (Perpetrator explored). The most powerful class of the series, expect a complete shift in your story during this week.  We will also explore the loss of innocence.

WEEK FOUR: LETTING IN THE MAGIC, EMBRACING YOUR SUPERPOWERS

In this final week, we will deeply explore the person you became  – even the mythical creature you may have become in the retelling,  including the superpowers you now possess. This final week,  we will be encouraged and inspired to stand in the strength of our lives, and bring our light into the world.