You know the old adage, If you want a job done right you’ve got to do it yourself? Okay, in some cases it’s true. But you probably wouldn’t perform open-heart surgery on yourself no matter how fervently you buy into the idea. Instead, you’d search diligently until you found a surgeon whose hands you’d trust to touch your heart.

Hiring a storytelling partner is a bit like that (in the most metaphoric sense). You need someone with verifiable skill and experience, someone Read the rest of this entry »

In the creative world, there’s often a stigma against paying for help to build your dream. The art loses authenticity, some feel, or you’re simply less of an artist if you need to hire out to get a job done. Writers, for example, sometimes feel it’s “cheating” to hire a collaborator, or to pay a company to publish their book instead of struggling blindly through the murky channels of commercial publication. I can’t stress enough how counter-intuitive this is! In any creative endeavor, the odds are stacked against your success as it is and you have to be willing to constantly evolve and work hard to give your art every possible opportunity to find life in the world. And you can’t Read the rest of this entry »

When readers go to their favorite bookstore (or, you know, Amazon) and lose themselves in the quiet pleasure of choosing a book, they’re probably not thinking, “I want to find a book that doesn’t change me through reading it.” By and large, readers want to change through the process of reading. They want to see a part of the world they’ve never before visited, or gain a perspective that challenges their preconceived notions about the way we live. Booklovers read because they want to feel themselves transform through the journey of the story and come out the other end Read the rest of this entry »

Most books have only one author’s name on the cover. And most people think of those authors as solitary creatures working alone in a dim room, surrounded by books and clutter and haloed in the glow of a computer screen. Although a bit clichéd, this idea is often untrue, as this type of creating works for few people. Our clients come to us because they are too busy, not writers, can’t find the damn words, or just can’t seem to get the job done—that approach it isn’t working for them. So we’ve created a different process, one that is constantly evolving and always Read the rest of this entry »

Many people are under the impression that with creating always comes joy. Wrong! Most of the time, the emotional journey of creating starts with agony. Agony at not getting it right, at not finishing on time, at not remembering every nuance of the story you want to convey, at bad first reviews.

Some people never get past this first agony. But if they do, then comes catharsis—the big, body-shaking, “Ahhhh” that comes when finally, finally the words on the page match the story in their hearts and, in some ways, help Read the rest of this entry »

Well, when they’re good, catharsis.

See, if it’s written, it’s real. Maybe that’s oversimplified, maybe it’s exactly right, but that’s the operating principle behind business, politics, law, religion, journalism, and the list goes on. A handshake, a story told out loud, a rumor spread, a verbal contract—these things are all ephemeral, subject to the shifting claims of their participants. But when it’s written? There for anybody who cares to read? Watch out: It’s on!

This is the supreme and almost mystical paradox for anybody wishing to tell his or her story—whether nonfiction or fiction—on paper. Until that story is written, it’s just Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the rudest, cruelest awakening to telling your story in writing: Most of the time, you will feel like you’re failing. Like what you’re spewing out onto paper (or screen) is the lamest, most cliché, least thought-provoking material any moron could dream up. Like the unenlightened folks in Plato’s cave allegory, you’ll be writing shadows when what you want to write is all the distinctions and realities of flesh. You’ll read your words and feel like crap. This will happen a lot.

It’s the most painful thing about creating. Whether your creation is a memoir, a novel, a dance piece, a fashion design, a piece of music, or anything in between, it will often be the dimmest representation of what you can see and feel so clearly in your mind and heart. And—in case you missed it the first time—you will feel like you’re failing. This is a fact. The question is: Read the rest of this entry »