TRIAL BY FIRE

My class is a GYM, not a GALLERY.  We work out our writing muscles to strengthen them, not to exhibit them.  Whether you're a screenwriter or playwright, or poet or journalist, the exercises will show you how to deepen your craft and enliven your art.

My writing workshop is also a playground.  It's a place to play, to fall, to fly.  It's a place to fail.  A place to swing out wide and miss.  I encourage my students to write in ways that feel strange and even frightening.  I want you to meet some of the myriad of writers residing within you and try something you've never tried before.

The paradox is that you will be finding your own voice in the process.  Finding the aspect of your writing self that feels most aligned with who you believe yourself to be.  You'll strengthen your ability to shift tones, perspectives and the style of your writing.  They will become accessible tools in your writer's kit.

Advanced or beginner, you'll be thrown into the fire.  And you will discover the fire within.

Life moves in all directions.  Past, present and future exist simultaneously in our minds.  As you write, you can create from the past or from the future. There is a magical meeting point that is pushing and pulling us and if we can free ourselves it will flow through our words.  I believe we can access wisdom, stories, and emotions beyond anything we may have known previously.  I will introduce exercises that will tap into this mystical source of storytelling - fed perhaps by the collective unconscious and by our own unconscious mind.


   VERACITY

    Merriam-Webster’s Definition:

    1 : devotion to the truth : truthfulness
    2 : conformity with truth or fact : accuracy
    3 : something true


   I believe that the difference between good writing and GREAT writing is veracity.  We naturally recognize authenticity of expression.  It's another way of saying we know the truth when we see it - the truth being, ultimately, emotional honesty.  The characters in a detective novel are believable because they express the author's deepest emotional and unconscious truths.  There's a certain veracity to their being.  This, though challenging to teach, is at the root of my work with writers.  I strive to help them elicit the truth of their feelings and thoughts, to express their inner voice via their writing.

   In my world, writing often feels uncomfortable, if not dangerous.  My heart sinks, my limbs tremble, I am aghast at what I'm spewing on the page, swearing that I will never let anyone read it.  I usually find the courage to hand it over to the world.  The fear subsides as people acknowledge the work.  The reward comes when someone tells me that they've discovered in the honesty of my writing courage for their own journey.  I want to give this tool of transformation to others.  I want to empower others to write, whether it's comedy, drama, non-fiction, journalism, or poetry, with joy and abandon, even when they enter the darker waters of their humanity.