Join The Community - Be the Writer You Were Born to Be

YOUR PATH
BEGINS HERE

Commit to Your Calling to Write

Next Session Opens in Fall 2020

YOU CAN’T PUT OFF THE
CALL TO WRITE ANY LONGER

YOU CAN’T PUT OFF THE
CALL TO WRITE ANY LONGER

You’ve wanted to be a writer who shares her wisdom for what feels like forever. The call has been a constant hum, but now that hum has become a roar you can no longer neglect. You want to honor it, but you feel stuck.

Every time you try getting into a rhythm with writing, something stops you—an illness, a life transition, wracking self-doubt. Or you get stuck in some old, interior pattern.

Maybe you’re worried that if you invest time in writing, nothing will come of it. Or no one close to you understands your calling.

Or you feel like it’s selfish to take your writing seriously.

You might lack confidence in your craft.

Or if you write professionally for others, when it comes to your own writing, you’re aching to retrieve your own voice.

WHAT IF YOU HAD A DEEP, INTENSIVE PROCESS TO HELP
YOU BREAK THROUGH THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
OBSTACLES KEEPING YOU FROM YOUR WRITING DREAMS?

IT’S TIME TO CLAIM THE
SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY YOU
DESERVE SO YOU CAN SHARE
YOUR WISDOM.

IT’S TIME TO CLAIM THE
SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY YOU
DESERVE SO YOU CAN SHARE
YOUR WISDOM.

Commit to Your Calling is a six-month intensive open to four to seven committed wisdom writers who feel called to share their experience through memoir, wisdom books, essays, or blogs. Together, we walk a middle path that combines writing as a spiritual practice with a deep study of craft and literature. As we work together, taking the time and space your writing deserves, you will learn to write from your inner authority.

Over the course of six small community retreats and six private mentoring sessions, you’ll go deeply into all aspects of the writing life: practice, process, routine, craft, goals, time, obstacles, fears, and care of body and mind. You’ll move through your most stubborn sticking points towards your true calling as a writer. The program is customized for wherever you are on your writing journey. The group is intimate (four to seven wisdom writers) so that you receive ample personalized attention.

By the end of the six months, you’ll be writing regularly and well on your way to whatever project is calling you. You will have created space for your writing that fits into the life you have right now, not some idealized version of what you think a writing life should look like. Writing will be at the center, not at the periphery. And you’ll know how to read like a writer, which will deepen your craft and expand your confidence.

Most importantly, you’ll have integrated practices into your life that bring you back to yourself and your writing every day. Writing will become your own safe harbor, your true home.

MY PROMISE TO YOU

Dear wisdom writer,

As someone who has written professionally for thirty years, I know how easy it is to get stuck and ignore the call to write. Everything you’ll learn during Commit to Your Calling I have gleaned from years of wrestling with my own inner and outer obstacles.

As an art historian for twenty years, I used my intellect and powers of observation to write about what was in front of me, connecting what I saw with how I felt, both physically and emotionally. During my twenty years studying meditation and writing practice with Natalie Goldberg, I unlearned how to write as an academic and embraced writing as a more organic process. Our work during Commit to Your Calling integrates these two ways of writing and being in the world: product and process, intellect and spirit.

I understand that this is tender work. It’s something you have wanted to do for a long time and the reasons why you haven’t can make you feel vulnerable. Two decades of living grounded in mindfulness practice equip me to meet you where are right now. I promise to listen deeply and not ask you to be someone you are not. I promise to help you to follow your inner guidance, not my idea of what you should be or do. I promise to lead you back home.

It is an honor to walk this road alongside you.

~ Saundra

Sign Up for Early Notification
“I’ve worked with Saundra for more than a decade. She has been the answer to my writing woes. She’s intuitive about what’s behind my resistance to writing and offers proven methods to help me discover and overcome those obstacles. Spending time in a session with Saundra is delightful and inspiring. I credit her wisdom with helping me to write and publish my four books.”
“I’ve worked with Saundra for more than a decade. She has been the answer to my writing woes. She’s intuitive about what’s behind my resistance to writing and offers proven methods to help me discover and overcome those obstacles. Spending time in a session with Saundra is delightful and inspiring. I credit her wisdom with helping me to write and publish my four books.”

~ JENNA MCEACHERN, AUTHOR OF DKR: THE ROYAL SCRAPBOOK AND LONGHORN NATION: TEXAS’ GREATEST PLAYERS TALK ABOUT LONGHORNS FOOTBALL

COMMIT TO YOUR CALLING IS FOR YOU IF:
  • You are a committed wisdom writer who is ready to put her calling at the center of her life and embark on a writing project (e.g. memoir, wisdom book, essay, or blog).
  • You are ready to make space for writing. Even if your life is full, you are willing and able to make changes that honor the call to write.
  • You have a new understanding that there’s no more time to waste, whether you’re changing careers, sending your kids to college, going through a big break up, moving, retiring, coming out of an illness, or experiencing some other life transition. The time to commit to your calling is now.
  • You understand the basics of meditation and writing practice and are ready to go deeper and further. All Commit to Your Calling students must have attended at least one daylong retreat with me before entering the program.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

SIX DAYLONG RETREATS

Every month, you’ll take time away for your writing as we gather as a community at a retreat center in Austin, TX. Details provided upon registration.
SIX PRIVATE MENTORING SESSIONS
Each month during our seventy-five-minute mentoring meeting, which can take place by Zoom or in person, you’ll receive compassionate feedback on five to ten pages of writing, reading recommendations to strengthen craft, and tips to break old patterns.
DEEP STUDY OF LITERATURE AND CRAFT
In advance of each retreat, you’ll be assigned readings to discover different elements of craft. We’ll take our time studying these texts when we gather together.
DEEP STUDY OF WRITING PRACTICE AND MINDFULNESS PRACTICE
Over the six months, you will experience how regular practice supports both your daily writing and the longer journey of your writing life.
INTIMATE COMMUNITY SUPPORT
You’ll be part of a small group of committed wisdom writers who understand the challenges you’re facing, because they are going through them too. Weekly check-ins in our secret Facebook group will keep you connected between retreats.
SELF-CARE SKILLS
As a wise writer, you are the instrument and the talent. You must take care of yourself. You’ll learn how to incorporate daily self-care and self-compassion practices into your daily life.
PERSONALIZED WRITING ROUTINE
Building on your daily writing practice, you’ll create a writing routine that works for your life as it is right now. By the end of the program, you’ll have designed and experienced your ideal writing day.
A SPECIAL BONUS
As a member of Commit to Your Calling, you’ll receive complimentary admission to one of my pubic daylong retreats in Austin, TX.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS
YOUR CALLING

The next Commit to Your Calling session will open in the fall of 2020. Only four to seven writers are included in each cohort, so space is limited. Join the early notification list to learn when the next session begins.

Once registration opens, you’ll be invited to sign up for a free, twenty-minute private consult with me to discuss your writing challenges and whether the program is a good fit for you.

Sign Up for Early Notification
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IF I’M NOT A GOOD ENOUGH WRITER?
It’s not a matter of being good enough; it’s a matter of showing up. If writing is your calling and you’re not heeding that call, your unmanifested potential is trapped inside you. It needs to get out. It’s not your business to worry if you are successful or not. It’s your business to show up and do the work you were born to do in the time that you have.
HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE?
A. It’s flexible and based on the life you have right now. It’s less about how much time you spend on your writing and more about how regularly you show up for yourself. During the program, you’ll also learn how to create time to write.
Do I have to have a project in mind already?
No. Projects tend to arise naturally when you are writing regularly, which you’ll be doing during the program. Once you slow down enough to hear what wants to be said, the form of your next project will become clear.
Do I need to live in the Austin area?
No. The six monthly retreats are held at a retreat center in Austin, TX, but mentoring sessions can be done by Zoom. If you can get to Austin once a month for each retreat, that’s all that matters.

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW
WHEN COMMIT TO YOUR
CALLING BEGINS

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW
WHEN COMMIT TO YOUR
CALLING BEGINS

SIGN UP FOR EARLY NOTIFICATION

Be the Writer You Were Born to Be

 

Subscribe to receive weekly encouragement and tools from Saundra to guide your journey as you Write the Wise Way Home.

You’ll also get a copy of Say Yes to Yourself and No to Your Loved Ones: A Writer’s Decision Guide to Starting Your Path Home + an invitation to join the Continuous Practice Community.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Be the Writer You Were Born to Be

 

You'll be among the first to know when we open registration for Write the Wise Way Home Writing Retreat.

Unless you indicate otherwise, you also will receive weekly encouragement and tools as well as a copy of Say Yes to Yourself and No to Your Loved Ones: A Writer’s Decision Guide to Starting Your Path Home + an invitation to join the Continuous Practice Community

You have Successfully Subscribed!