
Every Human Emotion
If emotions are hard for us to access in our lives, they become even harder to apply to our stories in a way that makes the reader feel the emotion. Yet, creating a wide emotional highway is essential for your reader. When you connect with the myriad of your emotions, the reader connects with all of your story. Emotion is what makes memoir believable, it’s what drives poetry and essays and blogs and movies.
Author Sam Keen reminds us that when we tell our stories “real journeys begin in the mud, the desert, the swamp, the wasteland, not in the seventh heaven.”
The best way to a technicolor life is to tell the whole technicolor of your Journey – your willingness to write about the full spectrum of life through the full sepctrum of your emotions. We all know there are no rainbows without the rain!
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.
“Emotions help us determine what is of value and importance.
This involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood,
and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives.
Grief itself bears the traces of your entire history.”
– Martha Nussbuam
Emotions shape our mental and social lives, and the narrative direction of every story we write. Revisiting and rediscovering emotions in our bodies and our stories help us access the main artery of every story, and bring life into all the stories that make up our lives.
“There are three things men fear –
the sea in a storm
the night with no moon
and the anger of a gentle man.”
– Patrick Rothfuss
All Your History is in Every Emotion
I had a dream last night that I was moving from room to room, and a big party was being planned. There were holiday trees and menoras and wrapped gifts – it was very disney, even small talking figurines under trees everyone was photographing on their Smart Phones. I kept saying, I don’t like big parties anymore, I like small groups of people. A very, very tall man turn around and said “Are you triggered?” And there it was, that word. Triggered. Every emotion we have in our lives is part of our emotional history. Emotion triggers smemories and memory triggers other memories. By exploring the landscape of our emotions, whole, complete stories emerge where we make the reader feel.
I have carefully ripped the pages of my life from my spine, my knees and my thighs.
Through writing, my spirit has come to know flight.
But when I keep still and deeply listen to writers in our community,
every emotion they write comes alive in my body too.
All their hope and whispered bedtime prayers of their childhood
become my prayers too.
This is the act of giving and receiving story, and I am certain it’s a Holy Act.”
– Laura Lentz, STORYquest
Guest Teacher – to be announced!
EMOTIONS EXPLORED IN THIS CLASS INCLUDE:
FEAR
blockade to our dreams | a teacher
Fear is the first part of the Hero’s Journey. Fear has a paralyzing effect on us and also helps us by warning us of dangers. Fear of change and refusing to change is the first part of our stories.
Writing Technique studied:
Repetition & Chants
ECSTASY
Rapture
Jack London said ““There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive”. In this class we will explore the joyous moments in life when we feel the most infinite.
Writing Technique:
Place
COURAGE
– Taking on the World –
There is an online museum to celebrate courageous acts. So often in life we don’t speak up, but these are not times for silence. Truly living takes courage. We will explore corageous acts in our past & present
Writing Technique Studied: Repetition
THE BLUES
People who are happy all the time always make me nervous. As writers, it takes a special magic to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. We may like stories with happy endings, but that happiness in story is always earned – first we have to take our readers by the hand and have them weep with us.
Writing Technique:
Blessings in Grief
RAGE
.Anger makes us aware of injustices in the world and promotes survival. Moshe Ratson reminds us that “Anger, like a fire, is a primal force. When left unchecked, it can be destructive – when managed and used wisely, it can be a powerful instrument that leads to enlightenment.
Writing Technique Studied: Metaphor
LOVE
& PASSION
There is no love without passion – passon drives our stories forward and our writing has to be infused with passion to make a reader stay. We fall in love every day with people, places and poetry. Love is the primary ingredient that connects us with our passion and purpose.
Writing Technique:
Writing through the Body
Emotional Connection brings Memoir to Life
By participating in this live 4-week class series, you will learn how to bring hope into dark times, turn curses into blessings through deep writing exercises designed to expand the way you look at your past experiences.
While in this discovery, you will learn the art of writing by practicing, deeply listening, reading out loud and hearing what is good in your story reflected back to you.
LEARN IN A SMALL, LIVE GROUPS
Writers work closely together for six weeks, deeply bonding and supporting each other’s creative leaps. Writers who must miss a class may audit another live class on the schedule.
If you have to miss a week, you can audit the class with another live group on another day, or receive the class via Keynote. Writers learn from the curriculum, but also from the positive feedback received from other writers. When we focus on what is good in writing, we develop an ear for inviting more of what is good.
CREATE CONTENT FOR A LARGER BODY OF WORK
This four week course is especially compelling if you are working on a book, blog, poetry or a series of essays. It’s a wonderful way to explore an event and learn how step by step to be in a deeper discovery for yourself and the readers.
Many of our students have gone on to publication through this process of writing every week, and many of our writers are authors often writing beside writers who are new to the practice. We all learn from each other’s work each week, and this course will help every writer go deeper to gain new perspectives for the sake of healing both the writer and the reader.
INSPIRATION TO REFRAME YOUR STORY
Emotions are the most important part of any journey. I have expanded it into a comprehensive workbook – STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey. This course is a quick way to reframe any story you are writing, any essay or any chapter in a book.
Pre-writing exercises often lead us into a longer stories.
After, we share our stories and deeply listen with positive feedback. Writers become part of a private Facebook writing community with other writers taking the same curriculum. Throughout the weeks, writers share and comment through the Facebook community..
Educator: Laura Lentz, author
Laura Lentz is the author of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey and the soon to be published Grace of the World, an anthology to honor earth. Laura is a writing coach and developmental editor, teaching creative writing workshops online and on the north shore of Kauai for ten years. Her workbook helps writers write to every stage of their story inspired by the Hero’s Journey through 12-weeks of writing prompts and examples out of best selling memoirs and poetry. Laura helps writers create content and expand their body of work through unique methods – offering challenging and thought provoking writing prompts inspired by poetry, mythology and segments from literature.
Laura creates the curriculum for the 6-week writing workshops also taught by Guest Teachers.
Laura’s 6-week workshops are online and on the north shore of Kauai. Laura serves on the faculty of The Kauai Writers Conference, Covid willing… and is conducting a Master Class for writers who want to write in sacred places on Kauai and allow Kauai’s beauty to influence their work.
Educator: Robin Gadient
Robin Gadient, teacher of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey has developed a following as both a writer and a teacher. Robin has been writing in Laura’s writing groups creating poetry and heart opening stories for several series. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher right before your eyes. Robin graduated from UCSB with a BA in literature. Robin has the uncanny ability to hold space for all writers and respond in a way that creates the needed energy to create her community within a larger community.
If the class you are requesting is full, contact Laurawriter@me.com with your requests – NEW CLASS ADDED SATURDAY 1/15
Thursday Online –
Sold Out
w Laura Lentz
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 13th, 20th, 27th
Feb. 3, 10, 17,
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Sunday Online –
Sold Out
w/Laura Lentz
– 6 sessions –
JAN. 16, 23, 29,
FEB. 6, 13, 20th
10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Monday Online –
Sold Out
with Laura Lentz
6 sessions
Jan 17, 14, 30th
Feb. 7, 14, 21
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Tuesday Online –
Sold Out
w/ Laura Lentz
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 18, 25,
Feb. 1, 8, 15, 22
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Wednesday –
Sold Out
w/ Laura Lentz
Kauai & Online
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 19, 26,
Feb. 2, 9, 16, 23
5:30 pm Hawaii /7:30 pm PST
Class series is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Classes Taught by Robin Gadient or Elizabeth Becker
Friday Online
with Robin Gadient
Sold Out
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 14, 22, 29
Feb. 4, 11, 18
11:00 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Saturday Online
with Robin Gadient –
Sold Out
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 15, 22, 29
Feb. 5, 12, 19
10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$220.
Saturday Online
with ElizabethBecker
NEW CLASS ADDED!
– 6 sessions –
Jan. 15, 22, 29
Feb. 5, 12, 19
10:30 a.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours