On launch day for the World-Changing Writing Workshop, Pace posted a link to the video we made the day we started the Freak Revolution.

I watched the video, which I hadn’t watched in a year.

I was really struck by my face. I watched myself talk, watching my lips, my facial expressions, my own eyes – all with this surreal feeling. Something felt very odd, not quite right.

Then it hit me.

This video is only a year old – but I look much, much older now, especially my eyes. My eyes are stormier, sad, somehow less. As I sat watching my own video, tears slid down my face and I thought, “I’ve lost something. I’ve lost my innocence.”

When I look at pictures and videos of myself from only six months ago, I get the same feeling. When my uterus collapsed, I started dealing with very intense physical trauma – followed immediately by very intense personal trauma, and it hasn’t let up.

This has been one of the hardest years of my life. I’ve spent months in a deep depression. I’ve undergone a massive spiritual crisis. I threw myself into the creation and launch of the World-Changing Writing workshop so I wouldn’t think about it.

But still, this has been here, in my core, swirling around and changing me. Whether or not I admit it, whether or not I deal with it, I have changed.

I have lost something.

And I don’t yet know what I’ve gained.

But, for the first time since this whole thing started, I know I have gained something. Somehow, my life has been enriched by this experience. Somehow.

I just don’t see it yet.

Another installment in the series of posts of the WCWW scholarship contest winners and runners-up! Today’s post is written by Gloria Adams-Hanley, one of the five scholarship winners. Enjoy!

The Dragon at your Door

For someone who has such a profound interest in communication, you’d think I would be properly equipped for… well… communicating with people. My major passions are writing, teaching, and theatre. Each of these fields requires the ability to form sentences, to make connections, to speak up. And when it comes to writing a poem, explaining a theory, or reciting a monologue with feeling – I’m there. I’m your girl. But ask me to give an impromptu speech, or to call someone up to make plans, or to say the right thing to a hurting friend, you might want to scroll past me on your contact sheet.

It’s not that I’m mean. I go out of my way to be giving, caring, and available. Just like it’s hard to tell what direction you’re going in a blizzard, it can be difficult to identify the communication issues plaguing a relationship when you’re the person struggling with it. Everyone thinks differently, in their own internal brain-language that we translate into our human-language and human-behavior. For some, translation seems effortless. They speak fluently and confidently in most situations, respond well in social situations, and develop surface relationships easily (in other words, they network expertly). For others, they stutter or freeze in social situations. They don’t know when to call, or what to say when they get an answer. Some, like me, are so shy they become ashamed of themselves.

Which is why I have developed my interest in communication; I struggle so hard to be understood that the struggle itself has become an interest of mine. I love to read books on conflict resolution and communication techniques. I sit one-on-one and talk at length in meta-cognitive bursts of self-awareness about my issues and needs. And as a result, I’ve gotten better. I doubt I’ll ever be a champion at impromptu speaking, but slowly and surely I have made important strides in communicating with friends and family. And while I might still be awkward on the phone, I’ve found a way to express my voice and communicate what my soul is singing: poetry. I’ve turned my weakness into my strength.

If I had never had the pain of being misunderstood, or dumbfounded trying to resolve a fight with a friend, then I wouldn’t have searched out my patience for poetry and revision. My talent in writing is not the words that come out first- that is in fact my downfall when speaking, that I say things mixed up and wrong. My talent in poetry is in calming down, accessing the intention of my words and figuring out what I’ve said wrong, in analyzing and revising. If I weren’t so awful at saying things right the first time, I never would have developed that reflex.

Because I desperately needed a chance to rephrase my words and make sure they came out right, I found my voice in writing, and even developed a philosophy of writing and revision: It doesn’t have to be right the first time, but it does have to be written the first time. Finding writing has transformed my life. I’ve presented my poetry at a national student convention, had a short play I wrote performed before an audience, and have written a screenplay that led to my co-founding an independent film company. Finding my strength inside my weakness literally transformed my life, my plans, and my identity for the better.

This is not to say that I am already an amazing writer; I have a long road ahead of me. This is not a story of success yet. Right now, it’s a story of process. A story of finding a path and choosing to walk it. A story of taking the ugliest, most painful part of my personality, and learning everything I could about it, taking the weapon used against me and wielding it in my defense.

That dragon beating down your door? It might just be your ride to a better place. Tame it.

Gloria Adams-Hanley, (known to friends as “Green”), is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and mother. She is an English Education Major at St Edward’s University. She has presented original poetry at Sigma Tau Delta national convention, written a short play performed at the 2010 New Works festival, and is currently producing her first screenplay, Hard Bargain. She occasionally jots down stray thoughts on her blog.

Each Friday during the World-Changing Writing Workshop, we’ll give you our favorite tidbit from the class; a teeny tiny tasty treat!

Danielle LaPorte had us bouncing with excitement over this little jewel: do lots of video interviews (or just videos).

You’ll say things in front of the camera that you’ll never write – and you’ll say things that are precious jewels that you can mine for writing later! In addition, you’ll hear your authentic voice, you’ll hear you speak your own passions, and you’ll get to see your body language – which will show you the things that you need to write about (when you light up and get excited) and the things you need to avoid (when you hunch and mumble).

Yeah! Get those cameras rolling!

Kyeli is planning on upgrading her iPhone to the new version, and she generously offered her old one to me.

“Sweet!” I replied. “Sure thing!”

But after I thought about it some more, I changed my mind.

Here’s why.

An iPhone will not improve my life.

An iPhone will not solve any problems that I actually have in my life.

I already have the cheapest-ass cell phone on the planet, and it does everything I honestly need. All my other problems are… not really problems at all.

Bored while waiting? I can read a book.

Want to google something when I’m out and about? I’m almost always out and about with Kyeli, so I can borrow hers. If she’s not around, I can just wait. It’s not that big a deal.

Want directions to somewhere? Again, I can borrow Kyeli’s, or if she’s not around, I can googlemap it at home and write them down.

Want 24/7 access to email and Twitter? No thanks.

If I had 24/7 access to email, I’d stress out way more. If someone emailed me saying “I’m having trouble downloading the World-Changing Writing Workshop Bonus Pack” while we’re out dropping off Dru at his Dungeons and Dragons campaign, then all of a sudden I’m worrying about work instead of spending time with my family. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to resist checking my email if I had an iPhone, so I’m going to avoid that cheese factory, thankyouverymuch.

Also, I prefer to minimize the number of things I feel tied to. The iPhone itself is no big deal, but I’d feel tied to a contract and a data plan, and that would weigh on me.

The benefits aren’t worth the costs — even if it’s free.

Are the products and services you buy solving a real problem or a created problem? In other words, did you have a problem you wanted to solve before you knew about that product or service?

Good products solve an existing problem. Evil products (or to be precise, evil marketers) create a problem you didn’t have before and then sell you something that will solve it.

Do you ever acquire stuff because it’s shiny, free, or on sale? Because you were somehow convinced you needed it at the time, but upon reflection, you really don’t?

Can you let go of these things? Get rid of them? Maybe even get your money back?

Another installment in the series of posts of the WCWW scholarship contest winners and runners-up! Today’s post is written by Ellie Di Julio, one of the five scholarship winners. Enjoy!

Wholestyle is a novel, bordering-on-radical approach to sophistication. It began as a yearning to find a name for the idea that being stylish requires not just trendy clothes, but exploring the world around you, steeping yourself in culture, embracing new ideas, stretching your boundaries, looking inward, reaching out. It was an itch on the edge of my mind, on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be said, but the right words hadn’t been invented yet. I instinctively knew that being stylish is more than what you’ve got on the outside; it’s everything you’ve got inside, too. You’ve got to investigate everything from fashion to politics, art to science, academia to fandom, literature to history, creation to destruction, outrage to glee. Then one day, like a comet crashing to Earth, the word was there. It was so obvious! Sophistication of this caliber means you need a whole-world approach. Whole-style. It’s a philosophy, a movement, a way of life.

Its application could revolutionize women’s worldviews. Armed with a depth of knowledge and a broad spectrum of ideas in hand, they will better understand themselves, each other, and the world they live in. It’s vitally important that they do. I can feel my heart rise, my spirit stir, my eyes brighten when I think of how desperately modern women need this kind of emphasis on experience and education. Yet I’m stuck in a mysterious quagmire of angry frustration as I try to get the word out.

When I was in elementary school, you couldn’t stop me from writing. My mom brought home blank books that I filled with nonsense stories and abstract pictures because I absolutely had to pour out all the wonderful things that filled me up before they threatened the safety of my brains. I had so much to say to the world, and it flowed perfectly from imagination to crayon to page.

When I was in high school, English was my bitch. I could crank out witty, detailed, engaging, reasoned essays faster than most people could read the prompt. I sailed through every course that needed me to tackle any kind of creative composition. Only very occasionally did I get stuck – usually when required to write on something I didn’t like or agree with. And the private poetry I madly scribbled at home was not to be trifled with.

When I was in my junior year of university, I hit a wall. Subjects I could normally talk about for hours in conversation were daunting as I stared at the blinking cursor. I’d always break through it eventually and feel that delicious warm rush of free-flowing prose. This resulted in some of my best work, but the nagging feeling that I’d slipped somehow coloured the victory.

When I started blogging last year, I was full of ideas. I’d struck upon a novel worldview for women and honestly believed that it needed to be shared with the world. I could make a difference! But I soon found that I’d regularly burst into frustrated tears when I sat down to write. Not just a few tears down my cheek; we’re talking huge, gulping sobs punctuated with near-screams. I wanted so badly to share my thoughts, but I couldn’t get it out. Literary constipation fits here.

It’s not a lack of inspiration – I’ve got an amazing idea.

It’s not a lack of drive – I can’t wait to share it with the world.

It’s not a lack of talent – I know I’m a good writer.

I know what it’s not, but I don’t know what it is. And I have to name it so I can conquer it. The fear that I’ve lost something ineffable between my high school days and the lecture hall, the fear that it’s unrecoverable, keeps me awake at night and threatens to bring on tears of shame.

I want to rhapsodize!

I want to sing praises!

I want to unstick!

Wholestyle can change the world. It’s the first time in my entire life that I’ve really, truly, deeply believed in the positivity of something I’m undertaking. Never before have I been so concretely certain that anything I’m doing is right, that it will succeed. The entire project feels like I’m reaching out my metaphysical arms to embrace women everywhere, to guide them on this journey to understanding, to hold them close and whisper the secrets of real style.

If only I could put it into words.

Ellie Di Julio is a blog reader extraordinaire, freak kid, pompom shaker, and founder of The Wholestyle Network. Her life has taken her all over the Western world, filling her up with grand ideas about society, culture, and people. She’s got a BA in Psychology, an English-teacher-mom/librarian-dad-inspired love of books and writing, and big, devious plans for how to change the way women look at themselves and the world.

Each Friday during the World-Changing Writing Workshop, we’ll give you our favorite tidbit from the class; a teeny tiny tasty treat!

I can’t even condense the awesomeness of this week’s tasty treat from the WCWW wrestling match call with Jonathan Fields. I tried, but I flat don’t do it justice.

So, I present to you the power of persuasive storytelling: a two-minute audio clip of the story Jonathan regaled us with that had us ready to whip out our credit cards to buy the product in question – even though it was just an example he made up on the spot!

Kyeli and I just finished our second song! (This is our first song, in case you missed it.)

It’s called Soup Lazers, and it’s in a completely different genre from The Second Sunrise. The Second Sunrise is, what, electronica/acoustic guitar pop? Soup Lazers is straight-up techno. I don’t know what subflavor of techno it is because I’ve never been able to figure out those genre conventions. (If anyone else knows, please leave a comment.)

Listen to Soup Lazers (DDR Mix) by Sweeter Than Lazers (MP3, 1:48)

Pace: composition, arrangement
Kyeli: vocals

Software used: Renoise, Audacity, The Levelator

Lyrics:

soup
lazers
we can shoot ‘em out over the crowd

The name and the lyrics come from a very silly conversation Kyeli, Dru and I had while driving around Galveston talking about our new band.

This is the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) mix. We’ll probably create an extended mix later, but my first priority was to make a very short and danceable mix so I could create DDR steps for it. It is ridiculously fun and fulfilling to dance a song that I wrote both the music and the arrows for.

If you have Stepmania (it’s like open-source DDR that you can play on your computer) then you can dance to Soup Lazers too!

Download the Soup Lazers StepMania file (SM) 4/6/8 singles
Download the Soup Lazers song select image
Download the Soup Lazers background image

We can shoot ‘em out over the crowd!

Greetings and welcome to Mad Props Mondays! This is a series of posts of the WCWW scholarship contest winners and runners-up, coming at you Mondays for the next several weeks.

Today’s post is written by Megan Potter, one of the five scholarship winners.

Change the world… What do I have to say about changing the world?

Oh God, I want it so bad; I want to be a world-changer. I want to say, “When I was twenty-something it was like this, but now, now look at it.”

I just recently saw the Dalai Lama speak (did you know he was 75 years old? I didn’t know that) and he told a story about meeting the Queen Mother (Queen Victoria). I don’t know how long ago this story happened, but he told us that he’d grown up with images of her around him and when he had the opportunity he finally requested an audience with her.

I love the Dalai Lama’s mind; I love how inquisitive, how light and natural he is – real, that’s the word that best describes him. So, he requests and is granted an audience with her and, he tells us, that he’s slightly surprised she’s so “small and chubby”, but he asks his question. Seeing as she was born in 1901 and has pretty much seen the entire century go by, he wants to know: “Is the world better or worse?”

We hear all the time about how terrible the world is. About how much worse illness is, violence is, war is. Ask the average person on the street and I’m sure they’d tell you that the world is getting worse; we’re suffering from a severe case of nostalgia.

But not Queen Victoria. “Better,” she said. The world is getting better for sure, compared to the turn of the twentieth century. We have equality, freedom, and human rights – concepts our ancestors a century ago were hardly familiar with. It may not be perfect, but the world is definitely getting better.

When I’m old and wizened, I want someone to ask me, “Seeing as you’ve been alive this long, can you tell me, is the world better or worse?” And I want to tell them, in all honesty, “Better,” and know in my heart that what I did with my life, everything I poured out into the community, that the small amount I played had a part in making the world better.

The funny thing is, I don’t need to tell my questioner the part I played. Do you think that Queen Victoria than proceeded to narrate all the actions she participated in that qualify her for claiming a part in changing the world for the better? Of course not. It doesn’t matter to me if you know I changed the world, it only matters to me if I, in some small way, helped humanity out.

Years ago, I read the book Cheaper by the Dozen (by Frank B. Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey). It’s a quaint memoir of a father’s life as recorded by his children. Their dad was the very first “efficiency expert”; he was obsessed with it to the point of making specific, step-by-step directions for bathroom usage (like brushing your teeth) for his kids. He was an average man who very few people have ever even heard of (and if not for the book, he’d be nothing more than an obscure mention in an encyclopedia or two), but he changed the world. He invented dozen small and simple things, like touch typing, that we use everyday to make our lives easier. I remember sitting back in shock as I noted the list of his contributions to society. This man changed the way that I live my life, and I didn’t even know it.

When I work through books like “The Fire Starter Session” or other life purpose things, I always answer the questions: What do you want to be known for? What do you want to do with your life? with something like “Change the World!” But even though I say that and tell you all this, something inside me says, change the world? That’s huge. The whole world? That’s… that’s an insurmountable task, don’t you think? There’s just one little-old me, with only so many years of work available to me; if we get down to it, I’d have to say that I’ve probably already wasted a good 30 or so of those years on silly things like simply “getting by”. (Where’s the world changing in that?) How could one little, uneducated, inexperienced me hope to change the entire world?

So, when that completely practical, freaking out voice tells me to put my hand down, sit back in my seat, and put my nose to the grindstone, I remind it of something I learnt in church (yep, church – every now and then they do have a brilliant idea or two). The idea went something like this:

What if I never reach more than three people? What if I get to share my full-out, passionate, nothing held back heart with only three people and I revolutionize their lives? What if I help them rediscover the Feminine Divine in them, or peel back their layers till they see their true core of potential and power? What if, their lives changed, they each reach out to three more people? And those nine people, their lives unadulteratedly changed, each reach out to three more people. I’d have changed 100 people’s lives in no time, and 100 so quickly becomes 1000 and then the whole world. It might not be me touching them all directly, but it’s that heart that I opened and exposed and breathed life and inspiration into that reached out to them.

And hey, if one humble Jewish guy can be declared the Son of God and take over the entire Western world for 2000 years then me – one little, uneducated, inexperienced 32 year old woman, mother, wife, and life changer can honestly expect to sit back at eighty, to see all those threes, multiplied by three, by three, and three again and she’ll know that yes, she did change the world. The world is better because she helped to invite the shift in.

What do I have to say about changing the world? Give me three, full-on, hard-core, committed people and set me free, I know I can do it.

I’m Megan Potter, and I’m a Pagan, New Age, Metaphysically minded, homeschooler (into high school, now that’s freaky!), and a Goddess Worshipper (with a Christian foundation). I believe in a magical, miracle filled world, that Divinity is immanent in everything (including you, your dog, and that tree over there), and that each of us has the power to create our own reality. That, in fact, we have a shared purpose of coming to self-possession, through personal and spiritual development and self-responsibility, for the sake of making a better world. I believe in intuition and divination and that the Limitless Divine both communicates with you and I, but is actively engaged in our lives.

I’m a life-coach, a tarot reader, and a spiritual guide. My business, Limitless Living is all about teaching Beautiful and Courageous women to Honour their Selves, Nurture their Spirits and see their Souls Blossom. You can find me at LimitlessLiving.ca

Each Friday during the World-Changing Writing Workshop, we’ll give you our favorite tidbit from the class; a teeny tiny tasty treat!

Yesterday, we talked with Chris Guillebeau.

The tastiest treat from Chris was simple: “Once you stop judging yourself harshly, it becomes a whole lot easier.”

We concur – and this applies to everything in life, not just writing! Apply liberally, use wisely.

Today is the last day to register for the World-Changing Writing Workshop.

We’re flattered and honored by the response we’ve gotten; 110 people have registered so far! Apparently the world is hungry and ready for this work. It’s been fun to get to know some of the students who are helping each other out at the WCWW forum — we’ve got quite a diverse and interesting bunch.

Anyway, we’ll keep this short, because we’re off to prepare for Chris Guillebeau’s session tomorrow — we just wanted to make sure you knew today was the last day to sign up. Registration closes at midnight tonight, Central time.

Take care!