AUTHOR NOTE, 05/20/14: Wrong? I was wrong?! A friend pointed out that the narrator in The Book Thief is not God, as I--I can only say--hoped, but is the Angel of Death. I'm leaving my original post as is, because A) it's not the first time I've been wrong, and it certainly won't be the last, and B) I think it brings up an important discussion about art and interpretation. Each of us appreciates and interprets what we, as individuals, need to receive when we take in art. When we put something out there for the public to consume, it becomes theirs to read into what they will and what they need.
Clearly I need to watch The Book Thief again. Better yet, I need to read the book!
Knowing the truth, hope still lives for me: I mean, if we can make Death appreciate life, then writing books is something we need to keep doing. Which is--I could be wrong, but I suspect--what the story is all about.
Writing has become my way to salvation--my way to myself. I can no more imagine my life without writing than I can imagine my life without my family, or without an appendage I've been accustomed to using my whole life.
For those of you local to southwest Michigan who have followed my journey as a writer and thought, "me too ... someday." That day is here.
Editor, full-time working writer, and friend, Ami Hendrickson, and I are here to support you, inspire you, light a fire under you—to help YOU make someday today.
We're holding a free, no obligation informational meeting to introduce you to our joint endeavor, #Write2TheEnd Writers Workshop™. On Wednesday, May 28, at 6:30 pm, in the old Masonic Temple, downtown St. Joe, at the corner of Elm & Main (420 Main St.), we will give you an overview of our syllabus and answer any questions you may have. In addition, you will leave with a small sample of what's to come; a mini-tool you can employ immediately to help move your writing from parked to forward.
I've overcome and come to own the permission and the soul pieces of writing for myself, and I believe I can help you do the same. I can assist with transformational writing, with essays, persuasive writing, blogging, and memoir. I can also help you see the value in being open to coaching, which I believe is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. It’s difficult to be objective about our own creative endeavors. It’s easy to fall in love with our own words. Someone who truly has our best interests at heart—who believes in us—is invaluable in helping us see our goals to fruition. And seriously, Ami blew my mind when she introduced me to our first get-it-done tool. The tools, the HOW, the discipline, the next steps, that's what I need and I look forward to digging in to what Ami has to share, right beside you.
If you're thinking, "this summer just isn't the time," then perhaps you need to either give yourself permission to let go of your dreams of being a writer and move on to something else wonderful & fulfilling—but please do move on and actually do something else—or give yourself permission to take this course and see what you can accomplish right now. Chances are, if this opportunity appeals to you and you let it pass, someday will never come. The excuses only get better, believe me.
But consider this: how many summers have gone by since you first dreamed of writing that great American novel or memoir or screenplay or stageplay, or since you’ve let a completed project fester in a drawer? This is the summer you could turn dreaming into finishing--into writing to The End--Your End. If you could do it yourself, you would have by now. You need a team, a tribe of like-minded individuals to help you succeed in the goals we share.
Is your life worth less than mine? Is it worth less than your mother's, your father's, than your child's? There are many ways to support and to parent and to care for others. Ami and I agree that caring for ourselves—that leading fulfilling, joy-filled lives—is an important way to care for those we love, and provides a beautiful example for our children, and the joyful lives we hope they grow to lead.
Nowhere else will you get such a powerful combination of tools, know-how, practical and functional writing advice, combined with the coaching and inspiration that will help you overcome your writing hurdles. There's a reason Ami and I have found one another. We each fill the other's gaps in ways that can help turn YOU into a powerful FINISHER where your writing goals are concerned.
We want this for you. We want this for you badly enough that we’re willing to give you back $100 at the end of the eight weeks when you meet the goal you set on the first night. But we can't want it more than you want it.
Have you seen the movie, The Book Thief? I strongly recommend it, particularly for writers.
"She was one of the few souls that made me wonder what is was to live"..."The only truth I truly know is that I am haunted by humans." –God, “Himself,” as a truly omniscient narrator in, The Book Thief.
If we are to believe the story, God's effort to know all life’s ups and downs lives in our suffering and comes alive in our writing. It is only through our words that He can know the sun on His face, the persistent ache of losing a loved one, the consuming bliss of loving, being loved and making love. God can only feel the wretchedness of love lost through our writing.
Our compulsion to write, then, serves God--or the Universe, or whatever you wish to call it—or not. Regardless of any higher power, through our story we gift others.
God giveth and He taketh away. We suffer and we write: to help God know what it is to live and to help others navigate their lives through their struggles, to fully experience and relive and lend a frame to their joys. Or perhaps we write purely to entertain, but that has value, too.
I can't recall watching a movie that moved me as much as The Book Thief. Framed in the expected horrors and the unimagined gifts of Nazi Germany, it tells the story of a girl who experiences so much loss and death, but in whose writing humanity lives. The acting is as glorious as the writing, and they play together, haunting and true like a cello in the hands of a master.
The Book Thief celebrates books and writing and it makes me wear the title of writer like a badge of honor, like a testament to a life lived. It makes me eager to keep doing both.
Liesel was meant to write for Max. You were meant to write for someone. I was meant to write for someone. There will always be those with more experience, more education, or someone loftier for whom the words appear to come more easily. That's fine. They will write for their someones. Don't let that keep you from writing for yours. Know that it is only through writing for ourselves that we can impact, transform, and truly haunt others in all the best ways.
The human experience is rife with layers and levels, with soaring catastrophe and bottomless joy. It is our duty as writers to paint our understanding for others—for humanity to experience through us. I hope you will consider completing your dream project with #Write2TheEnd this summer.
Join our Facebook group, even if you’re not local to southwest Michigan, for free writing tips, engaging discussion, and inspirational posts. And please, if you’re able, join us in person on Wednesday, May 28th. We look forward to welcoming you, and any writer friends you’d like to bring along.
Here’s to writing to The End. Your End.
--Kim Jorgensen Gane, (c) 2014, all rights reserved
#Write2TheEnd Writers Workshop(TM) is a MuseInks / GANE Possible Production, Copyright (C) 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Join the Facebook group for writerly info & free writing tips: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Write2TheEnd/
Check out the #Write2TheEnd Blog: http://write2theend.blogspot.com
Clearly I need to watch The Book Thief again. Better yet, I need to read the book!
Knowing the truth, hope still lives for me: I mean, if we can make Death appreciate life, then writing books is something we need to keep doing. Which is--I could be wrong, but I suspect--what the story is all about.
Writing has become my way to salvation--my way to myself. I can no more imagine my life without writing than I can imagine my life without my family, or without an appendage I've been accustomed to using my whole life.
For those of you local to southwest Michigan who have followed my journey as a writer and thought, "me too ... someday." That day is here.
Editor, full-time working writer, and friend, Ami Hendrickson, and I are here to support you, inspire you, light a fire under you—to help YOU make someday today.
We're holding a free, no obligation informational meeting to introduce you to our joint endeavor, #Write2TheEnd Writers Workshop™. On Wednesday, May 28, at 6:30 pm, in the old Masonic Temple, downtown St. Joe, at the corner of Elm & Main (420 Main St.), we will give you an overview of our syllabus and answer any questions you may have. In addition, you will leave with a small sample of what's to come; a mini-tool you can employ immediately to help move your writing from parked to forward.
I've overcome and come to own the permission and the soul pieces of writing for myself, and I believe I can help you do the same. I can assist with transformational writing, with essays, persuasive writing, blogging, and memoir. I can also help you see the value in being open to coaching, which I believe is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. It’s difficult to be objective about our own creative endeavors. It’s easy to fall in love with our own words. Someone who truly has our best interests at heart—who believes in us—is invaluable in helping us see our goals to fruition. And seriously, Ami blew my mind when she introduced me to our first get-it-done tool. The tools, the HOW, the discipline, the next steps, that's what I need and I look forward to digging in to what Ami has to share, right beside you.
If you're thinking, "this summer just isn't the time," then perhaps you need to either give yourself permission to let go of your dreams of being a writer and move on to something else wonderful & fulfilling—but please do move on and actually do something else—or give yourself permission to take this course and see what you can accomplish right now. Chances are, if this opportunity appeals to you and you let it pass, someday will never come. The excuses only get better, believe me.
But consider this: how many summers have gone by since you first dreamed of writing that great American novel or memoir or screenplay or stageplay, or since you’ve let a completed project fester in a drawer? This is the summer you could turn dreaming into finishing--into writing to The End--Your End. If you could do it yourself, you would have by now. You need a team, a tribe of like-minded individuals to help you succeed in the goals we share.
Is your life worth less than mine? Is it worth less than your mother's, your father's, than your child's? There are many ways to support and to parent and to care for others. Ami and I agree that caring for ourselves—that leading fulfilling, joy-filled lives—is an important way to care for those we love, and provides a beautiful example for our children, and the joyful lives we hope they grow to lead.
Nowhere else will you get such a powerful combination of tools, know-how, practical and functional writing advice, combined with the coaching and inspiration that will help you overcome your writing hurdles. There's a reason Ami and I have found one another. We each fill the other's gaps in ways that can help turn YOU into a powerful FINISHER where your writing goals are concerned.
We want this for you. We want this for you badly enough that we’re willing to give you back $100 at the end of the eight weeks when you meet the goal you set on the first night. But we can't want it more than you want it.
Have you seen the movie, The Book Thief? I strongly recommend it, particularly for writers.
"She was one of the few souls that made me wonder what is was to live"..."The only truth I truly know is that I am haunted by humans." –God, “Himself,” as a truly omniscient narrator in, The Book Thief.
If we are to believe the story, God's effort to know all life’s ups and downs lives in our suffering and comes alive in our writing. It is only through our words that He can know the sun on His face, the persistent ache of losing a loved one, the consuming bliss of loving, being loved and making love. God can only feel the wretchedness of love lost through our writing.
Our compulsion to write, then, serves God--or the Universe, or whatever you wish to call it—or not. Regardless of any higher power, through our story we gift others.
God giveth and He taketh away. We suffer and we write: to help God know what it is to live and to help others navigate their lives through their struggles, to fully experience and relive and lend a frame to their joys. Or perhaps we write purely to entertain, but that has value, too.
I can't recall watching a movie that moved me as much as The Book Thief. Framed in the expected horrors and the unimagined gifts of Nazi Germany, it tells the story of a girl who experiences so much loss and death, but in whose writing humanity lives. The acting is as glorious as the writing, and they play together, haunting and true like a cello in the hands of a master.
The Book Thief celebrates books and writing and it makes me wear the title of writer like a badge of honor, like a testament to a life lived. It makes me eager to keep doing both.
Liesel was meant to write for Max. You were meant to write for someone. I was meant to write for someone. There will always be those with more experience, more education, or someone loftier for whom the words appear to come more easily. That's fine. They will write for their someones. Don't let that keep you from writing for yours. Know that it is only through writing for ourselves that we can impact, transform, and truly haunt others in all the best ways.
The human experience is rife with layers and levels, with soaring catastrophe and bottomless joy. It is our duty as writers to paint our understanding for others—for humanity to experience through us. I hope you will consider completing your dream project with #Write2TheEnd this summer.
Join our Facebook group, even if you’re not local to southwest Michigan, for free writing tips, engaging discussion, and inspirational posts. And please, if you’re able, join us in person on Wednesday, May 28th. We look forward to welcoming you, and any writer friends you’d like to bring along.
Here’s to writing to The End. Your End.
--Kim Jorgensen Gane, (c) 2014, all rights reserved
#Write2TheEnd Writers Workshop(TM) is a MuseInks / GANE Possible Production, Copyright (C) 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Join the Facebook group for writerly info & free writing tips: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Write2TheEnd/
Check out the #Write2TheEnd Blog: http://write2theend.blogspot.com
 Follow @MuseInks on Twitter |  Follow @KimGANEPossible on Twitter |
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