hindsight travel

weekly story work exercise (and last call for book giveaway!)

If you’re new here, Story Work is the name of my current book-in-progress. It describes a process of reflection, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape. Paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et.

Read on for the last chance to enter the Find Your Way Back book giveaway, and read a preview of our weekly exercise.

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Photo by Michael Skok on Unsplash

Book Giveaway

On Wednesday, February 28, from 12 pm - 1 pm et, the Inner Story Writing Circle will be joined by author Javacia Harris Bowser, an award-winning journalist, essayist, educator, and author of Find Your Way Back: How to Write Your Way Through Anything. Through this collection of essays, she demonstrates how she’s used writing to achieve some of her wildest dreams such as being a public speaker, having her own column, and being her own boss. The book also explores how writing, self-love, and faith helped her overcome her worst nightmare: a cancer diagnosis in 2020. We’ll be discussing the book, her creative process, and publishing journey.

If you’d like to attend this session and join our all-access writing group to support your personal story work & creative development, you can learn more about the Inner Story Writing Circle here.

If you are not a member and would like to join us, you can attend by purchasing a copy of Find Your Way Back and sending me proof of purchase. Proof of purchase can be a photo of you with the book, a picture of your receipt, etc.

You can also join us by entering the giveaway. Everyone who comments on this post (or this one or this one) by the end of Monday, February 26, will be entered to win a copy of Find Your Way Back and access to our visit with her on February 28.

Okay, let’s get into this week’s Story Work exercise.

We started our Time Travel theme two weeks ago with the question:

What would you do with the power of time travel?

Last week we experimented with the time loop storytelling device which begged the question:

What is life trying to teach me through these patterns I see in my life over and over again? What do I need to learn so I can move on?

This week let’s look at the concept of time tourism which is when a character goes back in time to to witness a past event as a spectator. The question becomes:

What can I learn from witnessing the past as my current self? How can I let go of the desire to change past events, and instead look back with the power to see things with more open eyes?