Q1 Master Class: Rewrite Your Story

A guided rewrite of your own story from your mindset to your material

Intro to the Q1 Master Class: Rewrite Your Story

Big picture, rewriting your story starts with how you’re telling it, and how you tell it starts with how you’re envisioning it. Lowkey tho: … how you’re seeing yourself in it.

When you tell your story — who you are, what you’re about — how do you begin?

And then, when you think of how you want to tell your story, or what you want to share — how do you begin, then?

Over the past 15 years that I’ve been teaching in Higher Ed, I’ve developed courses that I’ve taught in multiple iterations in multiple schools, where the topics explored broadly cover the Business of Creativity — from seminar to strategy to storytelling workshop. In short, my students and I create a bespoke handbook for surviving capitalism as a cohort, without compromising our creative fire.

In this first Master Class, I’ll share my high-level approach to the Business of Creativity with you. First, we discuss how we define ourselves as artists and creatives, by our portfolio or body of work and then look for holes in that body of work to examine areas for creative and artistic growth. Through this lens, I challenge us — (my students, and myself, heeding my own advice in my own reinvention and refresh/rebrand)— to redefine ourselves as artists and storytellers centering our purpose and perspective as we revise our portfolio. We’ll dive into that process in the Master Class below.

Why? Because I feel like a lot of us have been trained or conditioned to connect our sense of purpose, relevance, and even self-worth to the titles we hold and the roles we claim in our community. And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s certainly a common thing, and I find it to be hugely limiting for so many of us — whether we identify as young professionals ready to launch our careers, mid-career professionals making a shift, or retired professionals going back to explore a passion with renewed interest, in greater scope or depth.

When I say it’s hugely limiting I mean — I hear my students tell me that they’re not writers until they’re getting paid for it, and I’m like nope. That’s some bullshit right there. I didn’t always have the confidence or fierceness to say it so resolutely— when I was 21 and a recent-grad, I said the same thing to Bill Murray, that I was an aspiring screenwriter.

“Are you aspiring to write a script or have you already done it?”

I was like, “I’ve written like, ten scripts. They’re not all good, though.”

And he was like, “If you’re already doing it, you’re not aspiring to do it.”

Like it was so obvious.

When it comes to art and creativity, I think we sometimes use these capitalist constructs and coding to differentiate ourselves, in ways that can be helpful, sure— but also sometimes detrimental to our success. Whether I’m coaching clients from writing for television to writing their first feature, or writing their first pilot or feature without a screenwriting background— we often find ourselves navigating how to overcome some form of imposter syndrome.

And that imposter syndrome is real, and it’s there for a lot of us. I prefer to think of it as humility though, curiosity, that keeps the ego in check.

When we find ourselves in a certain field of professional expertise, and we know what it takes to be an expert and experienced in what we do— a lot of us just want to know what we don’t know. We want someone to help us identify our blindspots. We want a little encouragement from someone “who knows” “who’s been there” — that we’re simply “on the right track”. That kinda encouragement can really keep us motivated.

And I think part of my skill at coaching others through this is because I empathize deeply — I experience imposter syndrome, too. In my own approach to writing my debut novel, I wouldn’t have started it without the professional coaching, support and encouragement of my dear friend, poet and professor Dr. Becca Klaver, who helped me overcome the biggest imposter syndrome hurdle I’ve faced in my 20+ year writing career — feeling like, as a screenwriter and producer, maybe I was too Hollywood, too hack, to dare to attempt literary fiction. Also, I needed help discovering and moving through those blind spots. How do I know what I don’t know? (Thank you, Bex, for illuminating my path as an author by helping me find my confidence in this medium!)

If imposter syndrome is something you’ve flirted with, or maybe even wrestled with from time to time, my first quarterly master class is a guided rewrite of your own story that might reframe how you think about those blind spots that may be fostering limiting beliefs about your creative potential.

Designed to help you to reframe your approach to your creativity, we’ll start with a mindset meditation, practical tools, and tactical advice ideally suited for writers, artists, and entrepreneurs.

While the written content is in the Substack post below, I’ll be re-formatting it as an e-workbook for you to download, savor and enjoy, self-paced and will add that link to the post soon.

If you’re ready to become the author of your next chapter — I’d love for you to join us!

In this Master Class e-workbook, you’ll find:

(1) Mindset Meditations: Big Picture and Micro-shifts
Reflective journaling prompts to explore your purpose and priorities more deeply

(2) Practical Tools: Don’t Just Write About, Be About It
Exercises you can practice to unleash your peak creativity

(3) Tactical Advice: The Material Rewrite
Rewrite Your Material with these 3 key approaches
Bonus: Responding to a Community AMA with Craft Tips on Character Voice

I launched at the end of Q1, so this MC is a bonus made possible by my early patrons.

I plan to release the Q2 MC in late July/August. I hope you enjoy what I’ve put together for you! Let me know what you think in the comments!

With creative fire, Kat

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