The Writing Life

It’s the weirdest thing, free-writing. When you do it consistently, you discover so much more inside you than you ever imagined.

Using free-writing, I’ve seen students access memories, stories and insights that they didn’t realize they were carrying. It’s crazy. It’s like the pen (or keyboard) is a key to accessing your fullest self.

Even though I have seen this happen many times over decades, it still amazes me. It’s incredible how much free-writing can give us.

Prompt: I’d love to discover…

This is part of a 30-day series focused on how free-writing can change your life. Start from the beginning here.

In my writing classes, people often come to terms with what’s truly important for them. Often, they sign up to work on a project. But before they can get into the material, some clearing away the underbrush is called for.

OY! You’re saying now. I don’t want to do personal journaling and I don’t want to do therapy. (Unless like me, you do.) But trust me, accessing your truth and knowing your priorities will inform your writing.

The cool thing about being a writer is that it all counts. It all contributes to the work. You knowing yourself and knowing what you want leads to you being a better writer.

Prompt: What’s important to me now…

This is part of a 30-day series focused on how free-writing can change your life. Start from the beginning here.

When you’re sitting on the sidelines of your writing, there’s lots of room in the stands for your fears to crowd around.

But once you get in the game, the fears can’t keep up with you. Fear hates a moving target. When you’re writing, even imperfectly, you gain confidence.

You have this writing impulse for a reason. You have something to say. You enjoy writing, if you can remember that.

You’re going to love the glow of confidence and creativity that writing regularly gives you.

Prompt: With more confidence around writing, I will…

This is part of a 30-day series focused on how free-writing can change your life. Start from the beginning here.

So little time, so many ways to write! If you’re like me, you have a long list of things you want to write – short stories, personal essays, poems, books…where to find the time to explore all these genres and styles of writing?

Free-writing offers an invitation to experiment without risk. No need to master anything right away; free-writing allows you to explore and discover genres that you’ve always been curious about.

One way to jump out of your normal writing mode is to slip into third person point of view. Jumping into another perspective makes it easy to write in new ways and styles. My students love shifting gears this way for the freedom and fun it gives them.

Prompt: I’d love to explore…
This is part of a 30-day series focused on how free-writing can change your life. Start from the beginning here.

So much of the information and inspiration out there goads us to GO BIG! And to MAKE A DIFFERENCE! That’s all fine and good, and sometimes those well-meaning encouragements just add fuel to the inner critic. The inner critic loves to say “Who, you?! You can’t even keep the kitchen clean, let alone change the world!”

I believe in all kinds of power. I believe in the quiet power of changing the world with a gesture, or a smile, or a one:one conversation. Change doesn’t have to be MASSIVE to be powerful. I learned this while writing my novel, and I believe it’s true for the real world, too.

So it was with some trepidation that I put ‘world-changing’ into the title of my book. I see how it can feel like just another too-big promise.

I grappled with this and considered leaving it off the title. But I couldn’t. First, now more than ever we need help with the world’s problems. And it’s never been easier to step up and offer our solutions to spark change. Writing is one of the power tools that can make a difference. Now is not the time to play small, dumb it down or dilute our passion for the things we care about deeply.

Second, I believe that the works we make work us. Embarking on the process of writing a book is guaranteed to change the author. I have seen every single one of my coaching clients transform as a result of stepping up and into their writing power.

Each book is different, but writing – any kind of writing – has changed my students and clients profoundly. They have gained:

• Confidence about their message.
• Clarity about their work and the need for it in the world.
• Satisfaction from capturing their ideas in one place they can share.
• Feeling of having put into place a legacy work that will live beyond them.
• Honoring a life-long dream of writing a book.

If that’s not enough to encourage you to finally get started on your book, I don’t know what is. So, remember, you don’t have to be big and loud to change the world. You can change things by changing yourself, by picking up your pen, and writing what is waiting inside you.

And guess what? You don’t have to be writing a book to get these world-changing benefits. Students in Impulse Writing Club experience profound changes even in the first week of our class. Free-writing every week brings so much confidence and power, it’s hard to believe such a simple practice can do so much.

Enrollment is open for The Impulse Writing Club. Start changing your world one writing session at a time in this life-changing online writing class.