FALLING IN LOVE
WITH WRITING

A conversation in 50 chapters

cat·a·lyst
noun: a person or thing that provokes or speeds significant change or action

Do you wish you could write as easily as you speak?

Do you write blogs? Do you want them to be really good, or just good enough?

Is there a book in you, wanting to be written but trapped inside because you don’t yet trust your writing?

Steve Chandler and Michael Neill are both bestselling authors who between their work as writers, coaches, and editors have contributed to over 50 books with sales over seven million copies around the world. (Add in thousands of blog posts, multiple screenwriting clients with major movie credits, and a few popular Country & Western songs and you’ll have some idea of the scope and scale of their work!)

They’ve designed this online program with one end in mind – to get your most inspired and exciting ideas out of your head, onto paper, and into the world.

The path to great writing is paved with inspiration, love, and practice. Each lesson will guide you past any insecure or critical thinking you may have and into the heart of all great writing: loving the work as much as the product and the product as much as the work.

As Vincent Van Gogh said:

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

Ultimately, as you move beyond your psychology and into the creative source, you’ll find yourself writing more and more with less and less effort. With a bit of patience, practice, and humor, mastery of the process will begin to occur.

The program is made up of a combination of live seminar footage and in studio conversations, taking a light-hearted but thorough look at every aspect of the writing process from getting inspired ideas to developing your craft and from overcoming writer’s block to getting your work out into the world.

As you watch and listen to these 50 sessions again and again, you’ll find yourself not only falling in love with writing but falling in love with YOUR writing. Your books, your songs, your screenplays, your blogs, and even your emails will begin to take form and make their way out into the world…

Falling In Love with Writing
Table of Contents

This workshop was breathtaking. To explore with the two men whose books reach way beyond all concept of self, writing, success and failure was the greatest privilege. It was magical, lit up, profound and inspiring. My book REAL wrote itself almost immediately afterwards.

Clare Dimond

VIDEO: What's on Offer

Dear Michael and Steve,

Through this process of writing every day, something deeply buried has awoken inside of me. This creative force that had been cat-napping in the closet of my mind these past few years.

It is finally a pure energy, detached from all of the extra trimmings that I used to clothe it with. In the past, my creativity was bedazzled with pressure like it has to be perfect, or will this get published? Such heavy accessories to add on to this light and willowy slip of a garment.

Or, I would cover up this thin wisp of creativity with a down jacket and snow boots, making it overly clunky and cumbersome with my insecure thoughts that I’m not a good writer, or who am I to say this thing?

Now, it’s free. This idea of creativity.

It is champagne-colored silk that shifts and transforms with the slant of light. It is both slippery and strong, light and grounded, quick and steady.

When unencumbered by my accessories, it glides in on a breath and sparks light into my entire being. Ideas as sentences as words as letters as keystrokes flow through my fingers. Both of me and not me. Coming through me, not from me.

Once I dropped all of the stories I was clinging to about my writing, the writing became pure and unadulterated fun. It spilled into my life beyond writing. I taught more creative yoga classes. I actually wrote a story for storytime instead of reading a book to the preschool kids at the library. I played the ukulele more and sang louder. I came to work with a bounce in my step instead of the usual heel-drag shuffle.

Right now, though, I’m writing for someone else. In my head, I’m thinking maybe I’ll show this piece to Steve Chandler or Michael Neill and they will read it out loud on the live call today and everyone will love me and I will get oohs and aahs and I will be famous.

That’s what stops my flow. Stops my creativity. Shoves that fine piece of silk back in the closet with the camping equipment covered with spider webs.

The creativity has been adulterated by my ego.

But I see it. I name it by writing it down. And, it frees up. The wisp of silk slides back out of the closet from the crack underneath the door. It wraps me up in its pure delight.

The silk doesn’t need compliments or accolades. It is beautifully astonishing with or without viewers. It delights in its own existence, not contemplating its purpose or its craft. Whether stuffed in a closet or shining on stage, it just is.

I have read every writing book under the sun, and no book has ever motivated me to produce so much actual writing than this course. I made a goal of writing 30,000 words before this arbitrary date that Steve and Michael are hosting the last ‘Q and A’ session for the “Falling in Love with Writing” course.

An arbitrary goal, really. Not that many words, really. But more words than I have ever written toward one project in my life. That’s on top of a full-time job, teaching yoga twice a week, building a coaching business, taking coaching courses, playing the ukulele, eating out with my husband since nobody is cooking, and taking my dog on abbreviated walks.

Through this course, I did fall in love with writing. So thank you both.

I found myself waking up earlier than usual, skipping down the stairs to my writing desk. Some mornings, the words were like stuck gum on the bottom of my shoe. Other days the words were careening out of me like a toddler hopped up on Gatorade before I even sat down to write. Either way, I “clocked in” by setting my 30-minute timer and I wrote.

This course was a perfect blend of inspiration and ‘do the work’ attitude. By understanding where creativity comes from, combined with a blue-collar ethic, I accomplished my goal, as of this keystroke.

And tomorrow?

I will wake up. I will write some more.

Sarah Kostin

VIDEO: Handling the Inner Critic

Here’s what Steve says about working with Michael on this program:

In the foreword to Michael’s The Inside Out Revolution, Dr. George Pransky says, “Michael Neill is a very gifted writer. He writes in a very conversational, personable tone, as if you were sitting in his living room and listening to him share some ideas and stories.”

Although Michael is indeed a “gifted” writer, he was not born with that gift. (No one is.) He gave that gift to himself over time by devoting himself to the craft and then, over time, falling in love with it – the ultimate path to mastery.

But no matter how well they write, not everyone can also teach the process. Having been with Michael as he teaches and coaches writers, I can say that to my ongoing delight, he does so with mastery, humor, and heart.

I read my first Steve Chandler book over twenty years ago and it changed the way I approached my life. Since that time I’ve had the privilege to get to know Steve as a gifted teacher, a skilled coach, a prolific writer, but above all as a really cool human being.

Over the years I’ve watched his work evolve, deepen, and begin to exhibit an added richness and depth that is only occasionally obscured by the fact that he’s one of the laugh out loud funniest people I’ve ever met.

To get the chance to co-create this program with him has been a gift, and I know that anyone who takes the time to watch, listen, and put it into practice will be rewarded with both a more enjoyable experience of writing and more influence and impact in the world.

Here’s what Michael says about working with Steve on this program: