Marj Penley, Certified Creativity Coach
Name of Your Course: A Novel Approach to Memoir Writing
About Marj: Fascinated by the many treasures I discovered especially in the fields of psychology and philosophy (both eastern and western)–gems of understanding and insight as well as particular approaches, exercises and techniques, I decided to share this bounty with other people. First as a licensed therapist and then as a certified coach.
What I didn’t foresee was how many people would become more and more creative as a result of working with me. I devote myself to my clients and students and delight in forming wonderful, working partnerships with people who are upward bound–folks seriously interested in becoming more and more creative. I see it as a time for overcoming obstacles–a time for achieving satisfaction and fulfillment.
In addition to over 30 years of experience as a licensed therapist in California, I was a teacher at Golden Gate Language School. I taught adult students from all over the world many skills necessary for writing good English. I have participated in the translation work conducted by the Institute of Advanced Studies in World Religions and I have led many writing workshops and groups in California, Colorado, Nebraska and Vermont.
In the past couple years I have been learning from Dvorah wonderful methods and approaches to working with folks online.
Course Description: This class is about writing your memoir. While we will focus on the parts that make up a good memoir, such as significant characters and events, themes, turning points, and vivid writing, our focus will also be on coping with the difficulties that one often meets in the process of writing memoir.
In this class there will be some sharing by email, but no critiquing. (Do I hear a sigh of relief?) However, as common difficulties or obstacles arise, I will make suggestions for coping with those difficulties.
Here are a few of the problems people encounter when writing a memoir:
For example,
• Making the Time. Do you find it hard to find the time to write your memoir?
• Taming your Wild Emotions. When you focus on writing your memoir, do feelings of anxiety or fear arise? Perhaps a bit of depression begins to take over. Tears could blur your eyes from even seeing the paper.
• Coping with Concentration. Instead of writing, do you find yourself lost in reverie, recalling various events and situations? Remembering, but not writing.
• Coping with Memory Blocks. On the other hand, maybe you have trouble remembering at all.
• Coping with Your Inner Characters or Subpersonalities. What about your own inner characters or subpersonalities? Inner critics and perfectionists, for example, often block attempts to write our memoirs.
This is an email-based class, which means that no one has to worry about “meeting” at any particular time. The class will begin on Monday, June 18 when I will send out the first lesson as an email attachment, and will end on Monday, July 16 (I’m allowing holiday time for American students in the class.) . We’ll proceed at the pace of a lesson a week.
Since folks will probably be at different stages in writing their memoir, there will always be a choice in the exercise section. For example, I may suggest you write about significant people in your life, but if that’s not what you want to do, you can choose to use the option, “what I really want to talk about is…”.
I expect this to be an exciting class, filled with enthusiastic, caring folks. We can support each other on this adventure of writing memoir.
Subtitle of Your Course: Bring your story to life using fiction techniques; get it written by overcoming obstacles
What is the Main Thing Students Will Learn or Gain by Going Through Your Course?: They will acquire approaches and techniques to use for overcoming the various problems that often arise when writing memoir
They will have an opportunity to actually write about various people and events in their lives as well as discovering one or more turning points and themes.
They will learn ways to make their writing more vivid.
They will enjoy the warm, caring support of the other class members as well as encouraging guidance from their teacher-me.
Email Marj for more information or to register for this course. Kreativecoaching@frontier.com
How did D’vorah’s course on Creating an Online Classroom assist you in the process of creating and setting up your course?: I am still in the process of working with D’vorah’s class. That is, I am still learning to create an online course. Therefore, this course is an email course.
I am learning a great deal from D’vorah and I expect to be able to put my next class up on Teachable as a result of learning how to do it from her.
Words of wisdom to those wanting to set up an online classroom: I think the name of the game will be COURAGE. That is, after I study D’vorah’s class a little more, then I shall take the plunge into the waters of Teachable.
I definitely believe her classes make all the difference between only wading in the waters of online work and jumping in and swimming–with confidence!
Leave a Reply