TRASH TO TREASURE:
SPIN YOUR ABANDONED DRAFTS INTO WRITING GOLD
Online Mastermind: September – November 2024
Cape Cod Retreat: October 28 – November 1, 2024
Every writer has filed away unfinished work.
Hidden away but somehow still accusing you of
Your failure to finish them.
Notebooks and journals
Scattered in boxes or
Under your bed.
Some is trash
Burn it or bury it or
Put it out to sea.
But some is treasure
To breathe new life into its pages.
When you’ve got unfinished business, when a writing project is incomplete, or maybe barely begun, you get that nagging feeling.
But the truth is you can’t solve this puzzle
by pushing the words around.
Trying to fix it will get you nowhere.
I recently cleaned out my house of thirty years to move across the country.
After weeks of emptying drawers of old photographs and letters, family keepsakes, and costume jewelry, I turned to my writing studio.
I sifted and sorted through notebooks first, throwing away many of them. Next, I took on the hard task of letting go of my library, purging all but those I could still feel beating in my heart. Until finally, there was nothing else to do but empty the drawers where I had stuffed my writing.
It was fun to go through pieces I’d published back in the day when I was an arts writer. Visiting that time of life was sweet. I felt good about what I had accomplished, and complete with it.
Finding unfinished work – short stories left for dead, essays that had begun with gusto but fizzled out due to lack of direction – was less gratifying.
“You like art, and I like fishing,” he had said, offering me a nice chunk of change for it.
I wrote the first ten pages, but found myself stuck in sadness, writing mostly about how fishing had taken my father away from me–the Saturday mornings I heard his car pull away before I was out of bed, the trips he had taken with other children when I said I wasn’t interested in coming along.
I hadn’t been ready to finish the essay, because I was still stuck in an old story.
Still, I’m glad I wrote what I did when I did, because I found an important clue in the first paragraph, where I confessed that the idea for this essay had come from my father.
“I thought it could be a way for us to engage,” he had said. But even as I wrote those words way back when, my father’s desire to connect with me had been drowned out by my resentment.
The narrator had not healed. All I could see was him pulling away.
Now that he is gone, I understand that he was always trying to re-engage, to heal our relationship. With a shift in perspective, I could see a new direction for the piece.
Most writers leave old manuscripts in drawers indefinitely. Even the ones they know they are done with.
The problem is it festers, leaving you feeling like a failure.
But there is an alternative, and it’s more fun than revising, more thrilling than re-vision.
It is clearing the old hurts and shifting into a bigger vision, a wider perspective–for yourself, for your lineage, for your readers, and for this planet we live on.
We’ll meet as a community online and pour over our pasts together.
We’ll sift and sort through drawers or closets or wherever you’ve stored and stuffed letters and photographs or family memorabilia to see what’s hiding there or whatever you’ve been hiding from.
We’ll go through unfinished writing next – whether that be stacks of journals, unfinished drafts, or the notes you once made toward that novel or memoir or book of poems – to see what you’re ready to let go of and what you’re ready to go over again.
We’ll search for the clues to what’s ready to heal and what might be the larger message of the work at hand.
This is not Decluttering 101.
We are not asking,
What objects and old ideas bring us joy?
We’re asking,
What does this mean to me?
We’re asking,
Why am I still holding onto it?
We’re asking,
Is there a gem hidden between
the lines of these pages that is
ready to shine its light?
We’ll gather on Cape Cod, and facing east, will release our old stories to the ocean, let the energies of the waves carry away what no longer serves us.
And we’ll write, receiving the energy that comes in with the tides, letting that move through us and through our pens.
We’ll cozy up on couches and window seats and write wants to come through us. We’ll listen for the words, take dictation from the sunrise and the sky.
Every morning we’ll come together for meditation and intention setting. And every afternoon, we’ll come together to share.
We’ll eat delicious, nourishing foods, drink hot cocoa, curl up under blankets, walk on the shore.
This is joy.
This is deep pleasure
This is why you are here.
It is who you are and
What you came to do.
- You have drafts, journals, and/or notes tucked away on your hard drive or in drawers, under your bed, or in the far corners of your closet.
- You detest the idea of a huge decluttering and would simply like to open a drawer and see what messages might await.
- You have a story or a poem or inspiration you know you are meant to bring forward and share with the world.
- You love to curl up in a cozy chair on a foggy day and write.
- You enjoy long walks on the beach before and/or after getting to the page.
- You desire a connection in a community of trusted writing friends.
- You have a writing dream you are ready to step into.
- You are content letting those sleeping drafts lie.
- You don’t mind living with unfinished work.
- You don’t like the ocean.
- You are ready to give up on your writing dream.
The Facts and Figures:
WHEN DO WE MEET?
Online Meetings will take place on:
Wednesdays, 10 – noon ET
September 11, 18, 25
October 9, 16, 23
November 13
Retreat Dates:
October 28 – November 1
WHERE WILL WE GATHER?
On the Cape, by the sea, in a location that will be revealed when you register.
We have space for seven writers in private rooms, most with private bathrooms, with easy access to the beach.
INVESTMENT IN YOUR WRITING LIFE.
Early Bird Price: $6500 through August 11.
($7200 after August 11)
BONUSES!
Into the Words
Two 60 minute sessions, plus one 30-minute follow-up phone call where we dive deep into your writing, looking for clues as to what’s keeping you from your writing dream and finding the heart of your work. $1500 Value.
Tear Up the Rulebook
(December 6 – 8, 2024)
Access to Saundra’s signature online retreat, where we explore old ideas about writing that no longer serve you, reclaim your inner compass and your authority as a writer, so you can write true and clear. $1200 Value.
HOW DO I REGISTER?
Because this is an intimate group, the first step is a conversation. Let’s see how good it feels and then commit to transformation.
You can schedule time with Saundra here.
Working with Saundra helped me to develop a clear voice, and most importantly, to trust that voice. I learned, beyond writing and reading, how to explore the energy behind my writing. I learned how to connect to myself first, shift the energy from a stuck to a connected and flowing space, and then let the truth of my words flow from there.
The experience of writing in Saundra’s program changed me. It helped me to feel more connected to myself, what I want, and what is possible for me and my future. I’m so grateful for my mentor and friend Saundra, who holds space so beautifully and through sharing her own gifts, awakens the gifts in us, her clients.
When I began working with Saundra, I was trying to get the writing out of the notebooks to a stage of visibility. Very quickly, I realized that what I had been reaching for beyond myself was all there and available to me in my very being.
Saundra is inspirational, guiding with encouragement, generosity, joy and a sense of wonder. I never felt that I was being instructed to do something in a certain way. What I realized early on was that Saundra was indicating the way to Self. In her program, I gained a sense of confidence, purpose, clarity, possibility, and amazement. The sheer pleasure of writing, rather than a duty or a slog.
I loved the program and would do it again with Saundra tomorrow.