Mining Truth in Memoir:
Searching For Our Gold - Our Personal Truth
Searching For Our Gold - Our Personal Truth
Early Bird Registration: July 20, 2024
Regular Registration Starts: August 8, 2024
Class begins: Sept.16th, 2024
Pricing: $697.00
Explore the Depths of Your Story on a Prospecting Journey
Have you ever considered a journey so personal that not even you know what the outcome will be? Welcome to “Mining Truth in Memoir,” where we embark on a transformative expedition into the depths of our souls. Just like the old timers who went out prospecting for gold, we’ll be mining the rich veins of our experiences, our truths, in search of our own personal gold.
What Makes Great Memoirs?
Memoir isn’t just about recounting life events. It’s about delving into a segment of our lives that holds profound meaning. If we have lived, we have made mistakes, grown, discovered — and these experiences shape the essence of our memoirs. This class is an opportunity to understand ourselves, our truths and vulnerabilities, and the power of our stories.
Uncover Your “Why”
Join us on a journey to uncover the “why” behind your memoir. Why do you want to share your story with the world? What drives you to expose your faults, dreams, heartbreaks, and lessons learned? Through a series of exercises designed to explore our inner selves, we’ll discover the true meaning behind our writing. As a Certified Creative Writing Instructor, I’ve crafted each exercise to guide us in understanding our motivations.
Discover Your Inner Peace
In this revamped 8-week class, we’ll be exploring the stops along the way of our personal journey. My own memoir-in-progress is a story of my spiritual quest and struggle to find inner peace. Raised without religion, I embarked on a quest to understand spirituality. What started as a search within the confines of a church led me to unexpected places. Your journey might be different, but the quest for truth is universal.
The Healing Power of Writing
Some may say they write to help others, and indeed, our honesty can be a beacon for those navigating similar paths. But let’s also acknowledge the profound healing that writing brings to us, the writers. Through exploration on the page, we not only illuminate our truths for others but also find healing and understanding within ourselves.
What to Expect:
- A Prospecting Journey: We’ll load our “jeep” with the tools needed for exploration — all online, of course!
- Discover Your “Why”: Uncover the core motivation behind your memoir.
- Exploration of Truth: Through guided exercises, we’ll explore the depths of our emotional truth.
- Honest Feedback: We have a one-hour Q&A session each week on Wednesday at 10:00 A.M. Mountain Time. Receive supportive feedback and guidance throughout the 8-week journey.
- Transformative Experience: Expect to emerge with a clearer understanding of your story and the confidence to share it authentically. And, we have a two hour Writers’ Workshop on the last day of class.
Meet Your Guide:
Hello, I’m Susan Nunn, a Certified Creative Writing Instructor with a passion for helping writers uncover their truths. My own journey of writing has led me to understand the profound impact of storytelling on both writer and reader. I’m excited to guide you on this introspective and transformative journey into the heart of your memoir.
Ready to Mine Your Truth?
Our “Mining Truth in Memoir” class is for those ready to dive deep, explore the nuances of their experiences, and uncover the “why” and the truth behind their stories. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting your memoir journey, this class offers a supportive and enriching environment for growth.
Class Details:
- Start Date: Sept. 9th, 2024
- Duration: 8 Weeks
- Format: Online Sessions and Writing Assignments
- A two hour workshop about everything we covered/writing
- Investment: $697.00
Limited Spots Available!
Spaces are limited to ensure personalized attention and a supportive atmosphere. Reserve your spot today to embark on this transformative journey into the heart of your story.
S
My Story
I had been working on my writing for years. After earning my BA at Vermont College, I continued writing and working on the craft of writing. Then finally I applied to an MFA program and was accepted at Antioch University Los Angeles.
When I arrived on campus, I was such a novice. I had a completed manuscript in my hands as fragile as it was. I was so proud of myself for finishing it. I can’t even tell you how long I had worked on this, or how many revisions I had done. My professor read it and sent me home to rewrite it, saying it was more like a movie script, and he wanted me to write it as a novel. Whew!
That was the best thing that ever happened to me, thank you Leonard Chang, but I didn’t know it on that day. My heart fell to my feet. I was devastated, but I didn’t quit. Instead, I set out to figure it all out.
I decided to go for a dual concentration, both in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, and then when I graduated, I stayed another term to get certified as a Creative Writing Instructor. That is what brings me to you today. I have been writing since I was about 14 years old, starting with a teen column in a Nevada newspaper, the Tonopah Times Bonanza, and went on from there, but I had never been taught what I am about to teach you.
My book, Song of the Earth, was/is about the US/Mexican border crisis. I had been living this at the time but had since moved to Missouri to care for my elderly parents and to finish my book there. When I got back to my parents’ home from LA and was trying to figure out how I was going to put this book together, I wrote something about the Border. Just two or three pages, and sent it off to a friend of mine, a Mexican diplomat, in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. I asked him for his opinion, and I certainly got it. He was livid! “Susan, my dear, this isn’t Mexico and the Border, you’ve missed the essence of it all.” And that was when I realized what this was all about. I was standing back, writing about it from a distance.
On that day, I fell off that perch I had considered a safe place to write from, where I could see and document things, but not get involved. I knew if I got too close to it, my emotions would get the best of me. So, I moved up closer, figuratively speaking, and wrote the story from the inside, from my heart. My life and my writing changed forever.
The writer’s struggle that hits so many of us, doesn’t have to be such a struggle. In this class, we will explore the Emotional Center where most of the great writing is ‘unearthed’.
Students will be guided to a deeper level of writing, one that will cut out several rewrites with techniques that will help them get to the meat of the material early on, instead of writing around and around the core of your work.
Remember, readers are smart. They need to be engaged on an emotional level.
The students will find this course filled with new and creative ways to open themselves to a deeper level. Remember: If you write or speak from your head, no one will hear you, but if you write or speak from your heart, the whole world will listen. Also remember, if you unlock the door to your emotions, you will then be writing from your heart.
Here's what you will experience in this course
THIS IS AN 8 WEEK CLASS, SO WE CAN DO SOME WRITING!
This Module introduces us to our Emotional Center, Robert Olen Butler, author of From Where We Dream, says, “His self-declared obsessions have to do with the descent into the dreamspace of the unconscious in order to discover the yearning that is at the center of every person and therefore of every character, and with the moment-to-moment sensual experiencing of that character’s story. He proposes fiction as the exploration of the human condition and yearning as its compass.”
- What Butler calls the Dreamspace, I call our Emotional Center. Where is this center located?
- Why is it so hard for us to access?
- How accessing this Emotional Center helps us build well defined characters and brings our stories to life.
I have taught, in the past, that we need to get out of our heads, set them aside, so we can speak or write from a deeper space,
So, why do we say, get out of our heads?
But Science is now saying something different, and we will be exploring this avenue.
Let’s look at what Science says about our hearts. I’m not a scientist but am intrigued by their findings.
Gregg Braden says, “When we get a thought, we can only invite that thought into our lives when we breathe the power of emotion into it. If we don’t bring emotion into the thought, it is meaningless.
Emotions and feelings, and how they affect our writing. Without emotion, we have no feeling. This is a huge problem with writing. The same goes with character development.
Thoughts respond to the emotion we unleash on them creating a feeling. If we apply that to our writing, we can now see how our writing can come alive.
I will introduce you to our delightful fictional character, Sensei who will be with us as I introduce you to a different practice. He cannot understand a word we say unless we are speaking or writing from our deepest emotional center. I call the practice “The Old Shed”.
Awareness – Leaning Into Silence is a mini-class that I am offering and some of you may have already taken it. Here we are going to use that technique to understand Awareness, through listening and seeing.
This module will be used for a two-week period to write. Let’s look at the power of Awareness through a writer’s eyes.
First, we will write about our experiences with Sensei, how his inability to understand a word we say if it isn’t spoken or written from deep in our emotional center caused us to be aware and to dig deeper into ourselves for the emotion that creates feeling.
Using the same tool, we will then explore the difference between hearing and listening and give ourselves time to write about it.
Let’s work first on experiencing feeling.
Now we will explore tasting, and the memories it brings forth.
Here we will share our old way of writing scenes and paragraphs with our new style.
This is a great overview of all that we will cover.
What Others Are Saying
It's more than a course, it's a community
My Goal
You will be welcomed into a like-minded, intimate group, all working towards one goal, that of making our writing the best it can be. This group, a mixture of three classes, all a part of A Writing Journey, Parts 1, 2, and 3 will stay active and attendees of each class (Parts 1, 2, and 3) will be able to join in as we go through the year, and move forward into the next year.
It will be set up as a Private Facebook Group, so you know your writing and your information will be safe. When I notice there are questions that need to be answered for all, not just the one asking, I will do Facebook Live to answer these questions.
All gatherings will be recorded so no one will miss anything.
When you register for A WRITING JOURNEY: Part 1: UNLOCKING YOUR EMOTIONAL CENTER – LET THE WORDS FLOW you will become a part of our group. I welcome you all with open arms and can’t wait for the diverse forms of creativity to flow. I will be with you every step of the way.
- 8 – Week Course, Hybrid Style: Online Classes to Work Through at your Leisure)
- Several LIVE Lectures (All recorded for your convenience)
- 8 – Weekly LIVE interactive group coaching sessions and Q&A (Recorded for your convenience)
- Practices and Reflection Questions for each course session
- Access to our private and interactive course website
- Special Bonuses to add to your course experience
BONUSES
For those who sign up during the 4-week pre-registration period, you will receive:
BONUS #1: A FREE MINI-CLASS
Leaning Into Silence – Building Unforgettable Scenes – (designed so you can take it at your leisure.) A simple but priceless technique.
$97 VALUE – FREE97
BONUS #2: Upon finishing the class, you will receive three months FREE of our:
A WRITING JOURNEY – ONLINE WRITER’S WORKSHOP
This class meets weekly and is designed to help each of you finish your writing. If you want to continue beyond these free three (3) months, there will be a nominal monthly fee.
$200 Value – FREE
NOTE: This class opens July 13th (at the end of A Writing Journey – Part 1 Class)