Story Work Exercises
Story Work is the title of my upcoming book and the approach I use to guide individuals as they write about their lives. It blends self-discovery with the craft of storytelling, using writing techniques and literary devices as pathways into the stories we carry and the wisdom they hold.
Story Work involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape. Through this process, you are nurturing a creative mindset as you uncover meaning, break free from painful patterns, and reclaim the story you tell about your life.
The weekly story work topics in this series cover universal life themes with references from literature, philosophy, science, and spirituality, offering perspectives that spark ideas for personal growth and creative expression.
Paid subscribers receive story work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et. The following is a limited archive starting with the most recent, and it’s categorized by theme. You can find the longer, unsorted archive here.
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against the grain
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus
This theme emphasizes that self-discovery is a courageous, ongoing process that calls us to step beyond our comfort zones and lean into discomfort. We explore how small, intentional acts of defiance like writing an unspoken truth, holding space for uncertainty, or voicing an unpopular perspective can be powerful creative choices. These moments of boldness help us honor our authentic voices and begin to unravel the internal and external pressures that keep us stuck. Through writing, we find ways to embrace the tension of becoming and uncover deeper layers of truth, healing, and transformation.
against the grain
the road less traveled
telling the truth
doing less to receive more
defying scarcity
“We’ve been taught to believe that our creativity is like a canteen of water—we need to conserve it. But the truth is that creativity is more like a river: if you keep it blocked out of fear, it stagnates.” - Julia Cameron
The scarcity mentality is what keeps many of us from believing our dreams are possible and taking the aligned actions needed to bring them to life. In this series, we will examine the scarcity mindset: how it affects our creative work and our lifestyles. Instead of following the familiar assumptions and fears that scarcity thinking presents, you can ask yourself questions like: What else could be true? How can I turn this obstacle into an opportunity? How can I shift my perspective from lack to gratitude?
defying scarcity
chasing time
reclaiming your attention
the cage of comparison
worldbuilding for self-discovery
“The world is always ending for someone. Every step we take is a new beginning. The map is not the territory—it is the story we tell to make the land our own.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
Usually, worldbuilding refers to the art of creating a fictional world with imagined characters, landscapes, myths, and magic. But every writer, no matter the genre, has the challenge and the opportunity to share their stories and ideas through the worlds they build on the page. Worlds with histories, characters, relationships, atmospheres, settings, landscapes, and languages. You don’t have to create a futuristic or fantastical world, or even a fictional world in order to recognize the choices you have in framing your real-life experiences.
Weekly exercises:
worldbuilding for self-discovery
same theme, different world
creating the mood
a world you don’t remember
life as a creative process
“Work your day around the creative process, don’t work the creative process around your day.” — Ann Wylie
The creative process is happening every moment of the day. We are consuming, connecting, fueling, and acting on ideas whether we realize it or not. The purpose of this series is to become more intentional about this as we reclaim our energy and efforts.
In this series, we are taking an ’inside out’ approach to exploring the different factors that affect our creative callings. We are laying the foundation to stay committed to our creative well-being throughout the year, no matter what form that takes.
Weekly Exercises:
Life as a Creative Process
Soulful Intentions
The Deeper Why
Creative Embodiment
The Power of Vulnerability
The Power of Habit
The Art of Self-Observation
The Magic of Community
Commitment that Sticks
storyteller types
“Stories are a communal currency of humanity.” ― Tahir Shah
Getting clear on why you want to tell your story will lead you to what stories to tell and how, when, and where to share them. For this series, we will be walking through eight archetypes we can use to access a deeper understanding of our motivations for writing and ideas for channeling our callings into our work.
Weekly Exercises:
storyteller types intro
self-healer
survivor
gamechanger
teacher
explorer
scribe
observer
entertainer
the creative journey
“The goal is to live your life in the service of art.” ― Rick Rubin
This series of exercises are to awaken, affirm, and reinforce your creative identity. Writing is a journey of self-discovery. It doesn’t have to follow a specific course for you to believe that your adventure is valid. Have you allowed yourself to imagine all the places that writing could take you? Have you taken time to reflect on how far you’ve come?
Weekly Exercises:
the creative journey
the heroine’s journey
think like an artist
everyday creativity
the duty to create
emotional labor
friendship matters
“This is the unique love of friendship at work, love that leads to a shared table and invites other loves to experience its joy.” - Joel Faber
Think about the childhood friend that you don't talk to anymore. The college friend who betrayed you. The sister who held your hand when you miscarried or stood beside you as your best man. The ride-or-die squad that grew apart. Partners in crime. Companions in discovery. Writing about friendship can be a healing and rewarding part of your writing journey, but it can also be complicated. Ultimately, it is an opportunity to take advantage of the continual growth that friendship offers.
Weekly Exercises:
friendship matters
writing friends
kindred spirits
a sturdy ladder
ordinary people
“Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.” ― Neil Gaiman
As writers, we know that every ordinary person has a unique story that made them who they are and that no ordinary person is all good or bad. Our needs, fears, desires, and passions all intersect and bounce off of each other in this web that we call life, and how we complicate each other is a natural place to look for themes and situations to write about. Through this series, we are exploring what can we learn about life and ourselves by observing the people in our lives as interesting characters living a complex life experience.
Weekly Exercises:
ordinary people
character work
actions speak louder
real people grow
tree of life
“A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. — Herman Hesse
The Tree of Life concept is designed to help individuals of all ages process life experiences in a generative, hopeful way. It’s a twist on the familiar concept of a family tree, where the tree is a visual metaphor representing life and the various elements that connect a person’s past, present, and future.
The insights we discover from the memories, narratives, and stories that come up through this exercise are full of context for our healing, discovery, and growth. We’ll take this exercise step-by-step over the next few weeks, journaling about the stories that come up as we go.
Weekly Exercises:
tree of life
trunks and branches
leaves and fruits
the flowers we give
clouds and compost
masks we wear
“We spend our lives crafting masks to fit the roles we are expected to play, but in doing so, we lose sight of who we truly are.” ― Fumiko Enchi
Let’s look at identity through the context of the masks we wear and the modalities we use to transform ourselves. The personal and social masks we wear are defense mechanisms. We put them on and take them off to keep us safe from harm, or sometimes to cause harm. To reveal and repress our secrets. And they can serve as a source of limitation as well as freedom. In this series, we will do writing exercises to explore the parts of ourselves that are sheltered within these masks.
Weekly Exercises:
masks we wear
the courage to unmask
find your alter egos
three faces
body language
“Making peace with your body is your mighty act of revolution.” - Sonya Renee Taylor
Let’s consider our next theme, body language, as more than the posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures we use to communicate and interpret unspoken feelings. Let’s get uncomfortable and explore the underlying stories that create the outer expression. Let’s write about lived experiences that are centered in a meaningful physical/body experience. By dissipating the avoidance that often fogs the lens when we start thinking about our bodies, we can discover new truths, insights, and freedoms.
Weekly Exercises:
body language
movement as creative practice
pain and pleasure
at home in the body
five senses
“The more mindful we are in our daily lives, the more we can bring that mindful experience to our writing.” Karin Lefranc
Writing from the five senses offers numerous healing and craft benefits. It gets us out of our heads and into our bodies so we can capture the moment we’re describing from a raw and unbiased perspective. Focusing on each of your senses is an effective way to quiet your inner critic and become a non-judgmental observer, which is healthy for your nervous system and expansive for your creativity. This month we will use the five senses to practice mindful writing, a creative practice that nurtures attention and well-being.
Weekly Exercises:
the five senses
a delight a day
scent, emotion, and memory
facts, feelings & healing
a certain distance
time travel
“Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully.” ― Ted Chiang
In personal narratives, we write to share our point of view. Sometimes we can feel limited by writing from the perspective of me, myself, and I, and we want to zoom out and give our readers a broader context. Diversifying points of view in nonfiction can be just as powerful as it is in fiction. In this series of exercises, we will explore different ways to approach point-of-view in our writing, exploring the “truth” of experience from different angles.
Weekly Exercises:
time travel
ending the loop
hindsight travel
déjà vu and memory
point of view
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” — Walt Whitman
In personal narratives, we write to share our point of view. Sometimes we can feel limited by writing from the perspective of me, myself, and I, and we want to zoom out and give our readers a broader context. Diversifying points of view in nonfiction can be just as powerful as it is in fiction. In this series of exercises, we will explore different ways to approach point-of-view in our writing, exploring the “truth” of experience from different angles.
Weekly Exercises:
point of view: we contain multitudes
how to talk to yourself
how view changes voice
voice of innocence
the makings of courage
“But most of all, I think, we fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live.” — Audre Lorde
Creative courage is deeper than feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Stagnant energy in our bodies impacts the way we experience life and express ourselves. One way or another, to access creative courage, we need to address the pain and shame that blocks us from fuller expression. Many of us don’t realize that our creative blocks are energy blocks, and through intentional practice, we can open them. This series of exercises will explore different approaches to this unblocking.
Weekly Exercises:
the makings of courage
the right invitation
a form of constancy
dropping into the moment
the myth of too much
the art of conflict
“The most profound truths are hidden in conflict.”
— Joseph Campbell
Our next theme presents many layers for us to explore for healing and storytelling. We’ll be looking at internal and external conflict factors and how we identify them in our own lives, and make meaning from them in the stories we tell. We will look at examples to observe how conflicts on the surface of a story lead to insights about the inner worlds of the characters.
Weekly Exercises:
the art of conflict
making the personal universal
main characters and their conflicts
fate and freewill
beginnings and endings
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” — attributed to Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher
We explore the concept of beginnings and endings from multiple angles. There is the existential tension that lives within all of us and how we transmute it into creative expression. There is the hope of possibility and the fear of the unknown that exist simultaneously within our creative journeys. And from a process perspective, we will practice ways to craft compelling beginnings and endings in our stories.
Weekly Exercises:
new beginnings
giving birth
the afterlife
unfinished business