Dear Reader,
TODAY, I'm sending you the Set-Up video for my new 3-Day Adventure writing prompt sequence. I call this my Shiny Objects Set-Up; it's how I start every writing prompt.
This 3-Day Writing Adventure is actually five days, because after the three prompts that follow, I'll send you a Wrap-Up prompt that stages your next simple steps to build on the traction. Officially the writing adventure starts tomorrow.
ANYWAY. I invite you to check the video out. I'm not going to send the whole sequence to everyone for the week, only the people who ASK to receive them; opt in here to give it a try.
Here's the video:
In the video, I mentioned my example of a "writing" teacher who wasn't a writing teacher at all, but who helped me to see myself as a writer. I said I'd share my essay as an example, but remember, this is later than a first draft.
Or scroll down for the call to action.
Here it is:
I've been living this life of a working creative out loud in public for several years now. But... first I let myself get a sense of what it was to be a writer in private, for me.
One time, I wrote essay on vacation in Big Sky when I sat in front of the fire rather than skiing in the afternoons while my kids were busy in ski school: I profiled Jillian Rae, my violin teacher, regarding a show she staged at the Minnesota Music Café that featured her students.
Back then, Jillian was co-owner of the Music Lab, in a walkup studio near Lake Nokomis.
To be clear, I didn't play in the show (my two kids did) because I was only taking private lessons violin to work out some things. During my kids' lessons, I wrote realizations on notebook paper in the lime-green lobby, sitting on a reclaimed wooden pew.
In some ways, violin lesson days were my first WRITING lessons, like a DIY case-study. In many ways, my first therapy too.
(Thanks, Jillian, for your indulgence.)
Do I understand how lucky I was that my father-in-law paid for the ski school? Absolutely. And I randomly, luckily ended up with Jillian after the first private teacher I hired moved on.
Jillian loved the article. But somehow it never got submitted anywhere, because I was saving it for a special occasion.
Thus it wasn't published. I don't think that's unusual.
It was a trial run for something much bigger, which eventually, years later, became Courageous Wordsmith.
The fact that I didn't have an author platform made me anxious (that platform is required, they'll tell you), whereas watching Jillian become a rockstar, up close, gave me hope.
Jillian was this Millennial artist I got to call friend.
Taking violin lessons was me getting my mind around what it might look like to become the author / life coach / editor that I now have become. Back then, I took violin lessons as an escape while teaching German full time and being a GenX mom and only had this inkling of writing a book someday.
Driving kiddos to Minneapolis violin lessons was plenty.
It felt amazing that a real, honest-to-goodness recording-and-performing musician read my writing and thought I could do the kinds of things she was doing.
Most of the time, I was writing grammar explanations—legend only among my students. So that essay?
A big deal for me.
Now. Who was the teacher you thought of?
Better, make a whole list and see who surprises you. This is just the beginning of the prompt. Sign up here.
Love, Amy
PS—This is a new experiment for me, sending a video this way, so please let me know if you experience glitches. Thanks for being on my adventures.
