6 Essays That Will Change Your Life

6 Essays That Will Change Your Life—Written by You

A recorded online course that gives you courage, time, and 6 writing skills to write your personal story.

You want to write. But getting started is rough.

You’re short on time.

Or your story feels too big to tackle.

Or self-doubt blocks your words from the page.

With so many obstacles in the way. it’s no wonder you tell yourself that you’ll write that story someday. But someday is a future that never comes.

If you feel an urge to write, your story's calling to be written NOW.

So how do you find the time, courage, and energy to jumpstart your writing practice? We’ll show you how. And once we're done, you'll have 6 meaningful essays.

Write 6 life-changing essays in record time.

Our online writing course will give you courage, time, and 6 key skills to write your story. In the recording of a course we taught live, we'll personally walk you through the writing process.

Why 6 essays?

Because writing only 1 essay can get you stuck in perfectionism.

Because you can write more than you think in a short time—and we want to prove it to you.

Because your story is worth writing.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to...

1) Identify which idea is worth writing about right now.

It's easy to have ideas of what to write, but it's hard to know which one to follow through on. When you're not sure, you may end up not writing anything. We want you to know that out of all your writing ideas, one is the most ready to write about right NOW. And we can help you to recognize it.

We'll guide you through a simple process to identify which idea is meant to be your next project and make a deliberate choice that will help you follow through. Once you've done this process, you can repeat it on multiple projects, making you a more decisive, productive writer.

2) Convey emotion on the page so readers can feel it.

It's a funny thing. The words for feelings (sad, happy, angry, excited) don't actually convey those feelings. So when you're trying to represent the emotion of an event on the page, you always risk your efforts falling flat.

Here's the good news: you have many ways available to evoke emotion that you're probably not using. With examples and exercises, we'll help you see ways to build a bridge to your emotional experience for your readers, so they can cross over and feel what it's like on your side.

3) Write an essay that has an arc in just 5 sentences

Your life doesn't happen in tidy stories. So when you want to write about an event (or even about a fictional idea), you have to make choices about where to start, where to end, and how to order everything in between. You might have details, but how do you put them in the right place?

We'll give you a scaffold to give your details form and movement. Story structure can feel intimidating, in part because so much has been said about it. This course will give you a simple way to think of structure and point you to resources that you can look into further.

4) Discover who your writing is meant for.

Writers are often told to define their audience—which is not nearly as easy as it sounds. If your story could help different kinds of people, how do you narrow it down? Or if you're nervous about an audience's judgment of your work, how do you write anything at all?

In this course, we'll guide you through an exercise to zero in on the clearest audience that will automatically make your writing stronger.

5) Represent the passing of time in a few paragraphs

Back story. We've known it to kill a project or two. If writing has ever felt like a drag because you thought you had to write context for the interesting part of the story, then you need one of the lessons in this course.

We'll show you how to deliberately select images that serve your story, without bogging it down in chronology. As you practice with us, moving through time in your writing will feel more manageable, making your writing stronger.

6) Stop getting paralyzed in writing perfectionism.

Do you have a bunch of unfinished stories sitting in a notebook or on your hard drive? You're not the only one! Losing steam in the middle of a piece of writing is pretty common. No matter how common it is, all those loose ends can feel discouraging and make you question why you're even writing.

We'll help you think differently about following through, so you can stop writing yourself loose ends and start finish writing that exists as something complete in the world.

We know how hard it is to find writing momentum.

When we met in an MFA program a decade ago, we wrote all the time. But after graduation, we got stuck. We had no structure to practice our skills or deal with self-doubt. And kids and jobs filled up our time.

It took effort, but we both carved out time and created productive writing practices. Collectively, our writing now includes published books, stage readings, stories, essays, and poems.

Honestly, we designed this course because it's a course we want. Our own writing projects require fresh eyes, technique practice, time, and accountability—all things that we've built right into this course for you.

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What people say about our writing courses

—Marci Lassen

Ashmae and Kathy are the most encouraging teachers and mentors. I have learned so much about writing, and have produced more than I thought possible, but I’ve also learned much about myself. Because of this course, I finally feel confident claiming, “I am a writer.”

—Annie Rasmussen

Ashmae and Kathy are safe, engaging, and inspiring teachers. Their writing exercises and encouragement have pulled words out of me that I feel proud of. Mine to Tell was a wonderful experience!

—Laurie Stradling

I registered for Mine to Tell because I thought it could help me finally tell my own life story, and it did. I'm standing on this side of a finished manuscript because the Mine to Tell writing exercises shook something loose in me. I wrote like I haven't written in years.

—Lara Peterson

Ashmae and Kathy cultivated a beautiful, creative space where we could learn practical skills, explore our voices, and support each other in the process.

—Bailey Bezuidenhout

The knowledge and tools Ashmae and Kathy generously shared are not the kind of thing you can just search for and find. It is knowledge that reaches further, knowledge that made me look at writing in a new way, and that I will return to whenever I write.

—Abby Kidd

I learned to trust myself and have confidence in the important and subversive nature of telling my stories. That seems like an impossible thing to teach, but Kathy and Ashmae have managed to do it.

—Cara Evanson

I love how instructors Ashmae and Kathy the focus on the whole writer; not just on technique, but on the emotional, mental, and physical selves we bring to the writing process. The lessons, writing exercises, personal feedback, and the opportunity to connect with a small writing group have increased my confidence in my ability to write and given me a holistic toolkit for my writing practice.

—Donna Thomas

I registered for Mine to Tell initially because it was a gift from my daughter who has always encouraged me to write. I am taking a course for the third time because I found it so helpful in both improving my writing and motivating me to write more.

If you don’t write your story now, you probably won’t write it someday.

Sounds dramatic, but it's true.

How many times have you said you want to write—but you don't get to it? How many stories have you wanted to record, but now they're forgotten?

The urge to write means that something is calling to be told. Now.

If you don't write it down, it will be lost. That's tragic.

We've worked with hundreds of writers, and we promise that if you join us, we'll help your writing get momentum. You'll finish the course with 6 pieces of writing and 6 writing techniques you can use again and again.

Your purchase today includes...

6 recorded, 90-minute lessons to write 6 essays and learn these skills:

ESSAY #1: Choosing the Idea
ESSAY #2: Evoking Emotion
ESSAY #3: Story Structure
ESSAY #4: Audience
ESSAY #5: 1000-Word Arc
ESSAY #6: Endings

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Questions + Answers

How do I give this course as a gift?

First of all, good job! Anyone who gave us a course like this would win the gift exchange. Ok, now for the details:

Purchase the course by registering. If you want your recipient to receive their gift immediately, fill in their name and email address on the account. If you want them to receive their gift later, register with your name and email, then reply to the welcome email we send you with the name and email address of the person you're giving to.

I want to write a book. Will this course help me do that?

Yes. We want to be clear that this course will not map out your novel or memoir for you. But it will give momentum to your writing. The title of the course is 6 Essays That Will Change Your Life, but you could use the techniques we're showing on any writing project you have in mind.

You said 6 essays, but I'm working on short stories / poems / a full book right now. Will this course help me?

Most likely yes, but it depends. Each of the six lessons focuses on a different writing skill or strategy. These skills apply to all genres of writing. By taking this course, you will add all those skills to your toolbox, no matter which genre you're writing in. By the end of this course, you will have 6 pieces of writing. Whether they are essays, stories, or chapters is a decision up to you.

Are the essay topics in this course assigned?

No. You choose the subject matter. Selecting what to write about is a skill in itself, so our first lesson zeros in on how to select from many ideas.

Is this course appropriate for teens?

This course was designed with adults in mind, so it doesn't specifically cater to teens. However, a thoughtful teen is definitely welcome and would likely feel comfortable with the content. We'd love to mentor your teens and help them find their voice.

What if I find this course is not for me?

We feel so confident about what this writing can do for you that we give you 30 days (the first half of the course) to try it out. If you find it does not offer what you need, contact us in the first 30 days of the course and we will refund your money. We only want you to take this course if it’s useful to you. We’re excited to deliver!