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

Ellie asked “How can we change the world through proud alienation? Don’t we have to reach the unwilling to make the biggest difference?”

Here’s my reply.

“The answer is: No. HELL NO. If you try to reach people who are unwilling to hear your message, it annoys both you and the pig. It is a complete waste of your time and the other people’s time.

“There is a myth in modern civilized society, and it is the myth of rational discourse. It’s complete bullshit! There’s this general expectation that when people have a discussion about something, that people are open-minded and willing to listen to reason. People pay lip service to this, but it’s generally not true, especially about things that are important enough to be considered world-changing.

“Instead, what people do is filter out the things that don’t match with what they believe, and focus on the things that do match what they believe — to support whatever their paradigm is.”

So ignore those who are unwilling to hear your message. Either preach to the choir, to help them accomplish the goals you already agree on, or write for the fence-sitters, to help them see your point of view.

Before Kyeli’s surgery, we had our first professional photo shoot with the lovely and talented Trisha Renae, who does family photography in Austin. It was a lot of fun, and I think the photos came out great! See for yourself, then scroll down to the bottom, because I have an important question for you. I’m having a lot of trouble making up my mind, and I could really use your help.

Pace

Here are three professional-looking ones of me and one of my cleavage. Don’t say I never did anything for ya. (;

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Kyeli

Kyeli is so beautiful. I am totally bookmarking this post.

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Pace & Kyeli

And here’s the two of us together. A mix of professional and sweet (just like us).

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Pace’s icon conundrum (and how you can help)

I love our illustrated icons. Kyeli, however, wants her icon to always reflect how she actually looks in real life, so whenever her hair, piercings, or glasses change, she wants her icon to reflect that, and it’s too hard to keep updating the illustration. That’s why she changed her icon on most sites from the illustrated one to a recent photo of herself.

One of the reasons I loved our illustrated icons is because they matched. Now that they don’t match anymore, I’m considering changing my icon all over the internet.

On the one hand, I want to keep the illustrated one because it’s cool, memorable, it stands out, and people are used to it.

On the other hand, I want to have a photo of myself because I think I’m cuter in a photo than in the illustration, and also, the Freak Revolution is all about being authentic — maybe that will come through more clearly with a photo?

Pace’s illustrated icon
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I’d love to hear what you think about my pros and cons, and which of those icons you like best.

Thanks so much for your help!

Another installment in the series of posts of the WCWW scholarship contest winners and runners-up! Today’s post is written by Sarah Smyczynski, one of our scholarship runners-up. Enjoy!

Have you ever wandered around, combing through things, making a mess, pulling your hair, only to discover that what you were looking for was right there the whole time?

I’ve been doing something like that for the last ten years. Only in the past couple of months have I finally realized that writing is what I should have been doing all along.

Creative fiction has been an interest of mine since I was old enough to be left alone with the word processor on the family computer. I’m not saying that what I wrote was any good – one of my first stories, called “The Merciless Trail” featured five girls all named Mercy. Once I hit my teenage years, my passion spiked, and by then I was using a variety of character names. Through my high school years, I read and wrote like I needed to devour and spit out words in order to live. In my small school, my short stories circulated around the halls, and everyone said that I should be a writer. However, I lacked the self-confidence to make a go of it. I listened to my parents when they told me that I couldn’t make a career out of writing. I don’t think that they were wrong, mind you, but I wish that they had encouraged me to try harder rather than find a career track that matched my level of ambition at the time.

In the last six years, I’ve gone through a parade of careers in an attempt to find something that I was passionate about and was also respectable. I don’t regret anything I’ve tried, because I’ve gained far more life experience this way. Most “kids” my age finished up college only a year or two ago. I’ve been a graphic designer, cake decorator, pampered chef consultant and a wedding photographer. I’ve also lived five different places, moved across the country and gotten married. But for one reason or another, no career ever clicked for me. Certainly there were things that I liked about each of them, but at the end of the day they were all lacking.

If I didn’t already think I was crazy for wanting to do something I love, my husband’s family certainly never helped. See, he was talked out of doing what he loves (music) in favor of getting an English degree, which led him to his current job as an underpaid, overworked software tester. He’s possibly the best husband in the world because rather than sit around moping about his regrets, he’s actively encouraged me to make things happen for myself.

But what does any of this have to do with changing the world?

When I was fourteen, I wrote in my diary that I felt that I would either die really young, or that I would do something to change the world. I never stopped feeling this way, and I just turned twenty-four last week and it looks like I’m not dying any time soon. I’ve spent all this time searching for what I’m passionate for, for what I want to be when I grow up, and it’s been right here all along. In my heart, I’m a writer. I have a lot to learn before I can change the world, but the thing is, I believe that I can.

Sarah Smyczynski is a writer, photographer and geeky wife living in Michigan. You can find her website at sarahski.com.

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

Amusingly, Truant‘s tiny tasty treat isn’t a Johnny original. He stole it from Derek Sivers. But it’s the concept that resonated the most with the class, so it’s the one you get.

Proud alienation.

When carving out a niche for yourself, don’t try to appeal to everyone, and don’t even say, “I guess it’s kinda sorta okay that I don’t appeal to everyone.”

Instead, proudly alienate everyone outside your niche. If you come across as proud of who you are and what you do, regardless of what others think, that’s a strong call-to-arms for your crowd.

Hell yeah, Johnny. We didn’t found the Let’s All Be Friends And Change The World Club. We founded the Freak Revolution, which is about as proudly alienating as you can get.

Really, how does one blaze through butter? Is it like slicing a stick of butter with a flaming sword?

I can’t help myself. That is a phrase that begs to be illustrated.

And it’s at exactly this moment, after I’ve drawn the silly thing, that I recall the phase “like a hot knife through butter”, which would have obviated the whole thing.

Pace begins to slowly meander toward the point

I blaze through fiction like butter. I sometimes stay up late to read a good book. I read fiction before bed. I squeeze in a few chapters here and there during my down time.

But I don’t do the same for nonfiction. I wait until I’m in the exact right mood, in the exact right environment. If it’s a book I want to post about on the blog, I want to take notes, so I want to have note-taking paraphernalia handy. If my circumstances or my mood don’t make it easy for me to take notes, I won’t read nonfiction.

Up until today, my plan for making this better (because I do want to read more nonfiction) was to make more time for it in the middle of the day, when my environment and my mood are conducive to it. That hasn’t been happening, and to be honest, it’s not likely to start happening anytime soon. I have too many other things I want to be doing, and I want to be doing those things even more than I want to be reading.

An epiphany lurks in wait… at… THE LIBRARY!

It hit me yesterday at the library. I was looking for some good fiction to read, because my fiction to-read list is woefully short. My nonfiction to-read list, on the other hand, is a mile long.

I enjoy reading nonfiction, so I’ll start acting like it.

I’m going to start reading nonfiction like I read fiction.

I’m not going to take notes.

I’m not going to concentrate and study it like a school textbook.

I’m going to read nonfiction for pleasure. Because really, that’s why I’m reading it. I’m reading it because I enjoy it.

As for writing reviews and blog posts, if it’s important enough to write about, it’ll be important enough for me to remember afterwards.

Why can’t something be both productive and fun?

Society teaches us that work must be separate from fun. This is very important to keep the control paradigm in place (the job culture, in particular) because it gives us a rationalization for why it’s okay to hate your job. Of course work can’t be fun. That’s just the way it is.

Bull. Shit.

I had fallen into the trap of “This is useful and productive, therefore it can’t be fun.” And I’m an entrepreneur! It’s kind of my job to do things that are both productive and fun. How embarrassing.

Now for the part where you make your life a little more awesome.

What do you do that’s both productive and fun?

What if you started treating it like it was simply fun, and let the productive part take care of itself?

Another installment in the series of posts of the WCWW scholarship contest winners and runners-up! Today’s post is written by Diana Rumrill, one of our scholarship runners-up. Enjoy!

I knew for years that my aspect of world changing is how the world approaches music. I just didn’t know how it could possibly be done, and in college, I thought I had to make the classic choice of any artist: love OR money? I majored in physical therapy.

Before then, I loved to sing and play musical instruments more than anything in the world. I was in every musical ensemble I could manage. Music taught me life. I learned the power of community through singing in groups of women, doing a fundraising concert for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan after September 11th. I learned how singing a song from South African freedom fighters could connect me to their struggle. I learned how to imagine beauty and bring it to life when I finally could play “Spring” from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I learned that music could hold and express feelings I never knew I had when tears streamed down my face learning the words of “Danny Boy”. In the darkest times music made me feel the possibility of beauty and joy, listening to Paul Simon or Leonard Bernstein or TLC.

For a few years, I did study voice at a conservatory. It was truly like a love relationship that I couldn’t let go – I knew I had to somehow make music work. By then, I was an outsider to the music world, and I noticed some things about this system I was trying so hard to be a part of. Music students considered it a badge of honor to spend hours upon hours each day in a practice room, alone, repeating passages so that in a performance they would sound perfect. There was scarcity and fear everywhere. Success meant needing to be flawless with harder and harder pieces, to impress judges at competitions and auditions for a limited number of prestigious and high pressure jobs in orchestras and operas. I saw many musicians get repetitive strain injuries and have to quit altogether, or suffer secretly. People got terrified instead of excited before performing on stage. Drugs or alcohol were one answer, and many, including myself, decided they couldn’t take the stress of repeated performances.

Looking around, we all know it definitely isn’t confined to classical musicians. It’s a cliche in the rock and popular worlds to enter rehab for all the substances that help musicians get out on stage and keep up with the grueling pace of success.

A pianist, successful at a very well-known music school, told me that many musicians he knew ended up hating the instruments they loved so much and ended up sacrificing everything else in life to be successful at playing. Is this where the music we love so much comes from?

Now, I’m a physical therapist who helps musicians who do get injured as a result of the repetitive strain of playing. My baby business, Harmonious Bodies, is just over a year old. But I think it’s people’s thinking that needs to change in order to bring music back to power, joy, and connecting. I want to know why success in music needs to be a competition, why practice has to equal painful and lonely repetition, and why opportunities for those who love music need to be scarce and unattainable.

For that matter, why do we love to see people’s musical imperfections ripped apart on American Idol? Why is the thought of performing in public as scary or worse to most folks as public speaking? Why is “talent” a prerequisite for making music when every five year old knows they can sing? Why is most people’s enjoyment of music restricted as a result to listening to highly produced recordings of other people only? Why couldn’t anybody at all reclaim their connection to the Great Musician by being one?

We are all touched by music, every single day. It’s what gets us through the workday, our drives and commutes; we dance, chill out, perk up, do yoga, exercise, and hang out with loved ones to it. It’s time to examine what it really is and could be for all of us.

Diana Rumrill plays a variety of instruments, sings, and is a physical therapist who loves to work with musicians to play and sing with freedom. She took the World Changing Writing Workshop in order to rewrite the stories the world tells about what it takes to be a musician. At her website, you can find out more about working one on one in the DC area, workshop opportunities, or simply stop in to listen to a variety of podcast interviews on musicians’ health!

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

Jennifer Louden says, “The main difference between a productive writer who is grounded in self-kindness and has a foundation of well-being and a tortured one is that productive writers understand that they rarely make an exact translation of what they’re feeling or seeing or hearing, and they keep writing anyway.”

Take comfort in your imperfection. You’re in good company.

I used to think that I would jump at the chance to reconnect to all my old high school friends. I miss them, and think of them, and wonder what their lives are like now, and all the things most of us probably do with old friends from long ago.

Now, here I sit, looking at the profile of my best friend from my entire high school career; we were close for over five years. I’ve seen as much of her profile as her privacy settings will let me; enough to know that she still lives where we grew up. Enough to have seen her face; enough to feel nostalgia wash over me in waves, a kind of homesickness.

But I’m not jumping.

My former very best friend for years is right here, one simple click away. I’ve searched for her for ten years; I followed leads, checked friends-of-friends, asked around. I was nearly desperate to find her – and find her, I finally have.

And yet, I’m not jumping.

As I looked at her profile, a sense of peace swept over me. I took a deep breath. I realized that somewhere along the way, I forgave her for the traumatic way our friendship ended. And more, I realized that I don’t need her to know me now. I don’t need her to not know me, but I don’t feel that sharp desperation I once had for her approval, for her to see me now and tell me how awesome I’ve become.

I can tell myself how awesome I’ve become. I don’t need it from the outside anymore.

We spend a lot of time these days finding and reconnecting with people from our past. Sometimes, that’s a good thing; old friendships rekindled, common ground found where time and distance once separated us.

But sometimes, it’s good to reflect on our motives for that reconnection. It’s important to make connections that fuel and heal us – and equally important to steer clear of connections that drain and deplete us. Reconnecting brings its own mixed bag: old wounds reopened, regret, behavior and thoughts and feelings we thought long buried.

Before you next click that connection button, as easy as it has become, pause. Breathe. Make sure the connection you’re creating is healthy for both of you. Make sure you’re connecting because it’s what you want, not because it’s expected – and not because of what you once had.

If you met this person now, today – and didn’t share history – would you become friends?

In my case, my heart said no. I gave her a silent farewell, sent her wishes of goodness and waves of forgiveness, and closed the tab.

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

Marbles

We’re on the floor in my bedroom, shooting marbles. My 9-year-old is beyond glee as he teaches his mother the nuances of how best to aim, whether to use index finger or thumb to shoot, how to angle properly for the target. This is his dream come true, to teach his mother something.

Twice, he ‘forgets’ to tally his own points so that we stay neck and neck. (I stink at marbles.) He is amazed that I’ve never played and asks if my siblings ever did, then if I played any games with them at all.

“How much older are you anyway, Mom?”

Too much older, I think to myself. “Eight years older than your aunt and 10 years older than your uncle,” I said.

I adjust my angle on the floor, line up my finger and send the marble neatly across the rug, where it passes through the others untouched. I am nearly 40 and it is patently obvious that this is not my game of choice.

I do remember playing cards though – lots of card games. Those, I was good at. But that was after Mom left.

She didn’t physically move out, but she may as well have. By the time I was 12, my mother’s mind had disappeared as sure as if she have driven down the winding dirt road of my youth, passed the fields and onto the highway.

That long familial haul was accomplished in cycles. One cycle of maternal devotion, perfect braids and a bright pink raincoat. One cycle of new siblings, learning to be Mom’s best helper, changing diapers and cleaning the house. A third cycle of breakdown and avoidance, brought on by my mother’s new best friend: mania.

My son shoots his marble hard, smacking several into disarray, a grin on his face. “I read a book at school about a girl who was a marbles pro,” he tells me. “No one could beat her. She used to squeeze a pencil eraser, like this (he pretends to grip one inside the lower half of his thumb) for an hour every day. Her thumb was ripped. I bet it was one giant muscle. . . But it was just a story.”

I smile, shoot my marble and manage to knick another. One point.

Sometimes, when we play games, he asks me about her, my mother. Why she talks so much, all the time, at warp speed. Why she’s so needy. Why she can’t sit still.

How best to answer?

The truth is that my mother let her disease take over long ago. That she chose to be manic rather than be a parent. And it was her choice. Her prescription was never filled.

I read an article a few years ago where the author likened the disorder to a glutton, a greedy friend who craves thrills, action, attention, and will do anything to live on. It described life with a manic to perfection.

The result is that my mother behaved then – and does now – more like a child than her children. It meant that her oldest (me) took care of her. It’s a pattern she continues to expect, even as I approach my fourth decade, and she her sixth.

I was 11 years old when I noticed something wasn’t quite right. She would rise at dawn and clean non-stop. Paint the house, on a ladder to the second story, while 8 months pregnant with my little brother. Mow the lawn, prune the roses, grocery shop and make dinner. All in one day.

In my family, as in most, explanations were not offered. Deny, deny, deny, until you can figure it out on your own.

It took me 15 years. She had to go faster, do more. Eventually, she had to serve herself first and screw the rest. She couldn’t help it. Mania is a bitch that way.

Friday through Sunday, she would hit the bars, or the beach, or whatever exciting place the men half her age wanted to take her. She shopped, spending far more than she had in the bank. She worked, and worked, and worked – up to three jobs at a time. She did everything in excess, which is precisely what is expected.

Mania is irresistible, and will always lead you down a path of regret.

At home, a typical Friday night meant Dad and his friends played cards. Sometimes, as a special treat, he would let me join in. This was after I put the “kids” to bed, of course. Sometimes, I would win a hand or two. But mostly, I would just smile, happy that his grown-up friends still treated me like a kid. Because I was a kid. No one seemed to remember that any other time.

The marbles smack on my bedroom floor, bringing me back to the present. My son hit his target for a big five points. He is trying not to grin. “It’s okay, Mom. You can still catch up.”

I smile, wondering how anyone can choose not to be there for their children. How they can turn their backs without yearning for the moments like those I am fortunate to share with my son right now.

My next shot miraculously hits its target, then catches a groove in the braided rug and disappears under the bed. Fetching it out of the dust-bunnies, I’m surprised yet again to be so suddenly filled with grief. It’s heavy. The tears are coming and I am glad my face is hidden. My crying scares my son, mainly because I can’t offer him a believable explanation.

The same thing used to happen on weekday mornings, at home, when my brother and sister had to be dressed and fed before school. And sometimes on Saturdays, when the house needed to be cleaned and the laundry done. Or on Wednesday nights, when Dad would drop me off at the grocery store with money for the shopping.

I was just so tired, and angry. Why couldn’t I play with my friends? Go to the mall? Flirt with boys at the library?

In the end, I would will myself to just get it done . . . try not to hate my mother so much, and get it done.

I used to fantasize that some morning she would wake up as her old self, and be proud when she saw how well I’d managed – the cooking, cleaning, caring for the kids. Hope dies last, as the saying goes. I didn’t give it up until I moved out 10 years later. In the confines of my one-bedroom apartment 80 miles away, I still sometimes wished she would call and say thank you.

To my father’s credit, we never lacked for anything, the kids and I – except our mother.

My son is too young to understand, or so I tell myself. More likely it’s that I still don’t understand.

“You can still catch up,” my son’s words about our marble game echo in my mind. I wish I’d had that chance, to catch up with my mother. But she was always going too fast.

Once, about four years ago, she called to tell me about a new medicine she was taking. Although she couldn’t bring herself to recognize the sham that was my childhood, she seemed almost apologetic in tone – reserved, quiet.

Definitely not manic.

And for the first time in a very long time, the hope I’d held onto for far too long began to stretch and rear its head. All I ever wanted was for my mother to care, instead of asking to be taken care of. I needed her.

Of course, I should have known she would give up the meds eventually. The ugly truth is that mania is her drug of choice.

Back in my bedroom, I find my marble, put on a brave face, and take one last shot. Five more points for me and we are tied. My son decides we should end here.

“Good game, Mom. Tomorrow night, can we play cards instead?”

“Sure,” I said.

I was always good at cards.

ThinkingTooHard is a blogger, freelancer, graphic designer, mother, daughter, and damn good friend. She was once a badass journalist, but retired for her two kids. She is now a stay-at-home, and spends most of her time working on a memoir about her relationship with her manic mother. Some day soon, it will rock the universe. Seriously.

ThinkingTooHard writes here. You can also follow her on Twitter.

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

Colleen Wainwright, aka the Communicatrix, is our accidental resident storyteller. Her little gem: You don’t have to terrify yourself on a daily basis.

Be open, be vulnerable – but take baby steps. Start small. Share something little, tell a story about running out of gas or that time you took the pie off your grandmother’s window. Be sure to inject your personal experience into your writing, be truthful, and let it go.

We give you permission to build up your storytelling muscles at whatever pace works for you.

Also, seriously, check out Colleen’s Boulder song – most assuredly not safe for work, but utterly wonderful.