Your Audacious Creative Life
30 Days
To a More
Creative Life
“Everyone has an urge to create. Its expression may flow through many channels . . . The point is to honour the urge. To do so is healing for ourselves and for others; not to do so deadens our bodies and our spirits. When I did not write, I suffocated in silence.”
—Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No
I’m going to take you on a journey that will help you:
Establish a vibrant creative writing practice that you can carry with you beyond the 30 days.
Revitalize a practice that has become stale or has fallen off.
Lessen your overall anxiety by accessing the ‘right brain’ on a more regular basis.
Reconnect with your creative vitality and make it an integral part of your life.
Feel more alive and connected to your essential humanity, in a time when it can feel like it’s being taken away.
Banish imposter syndrome and feel more confident about your ability to write creatively, no matter where you’re starting from!
I’m Anne Boyd, the author of the Audacious Creative Lives newsletter on Substack with nearly 10,000 subscribers. I’ve built a creative life from scratch after a career in the US as a literature professor and successful nonfiction author. I moved to the UK, earned a Master’s in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the University of Manchester, where I studied with Jeanette Winterson, won the PFD Literary Prize, and have written my first novel. I’ve been through all of the hurdles that held me back from writing creatively my entire life. Now, at 57, I know what works and what doesn’t. Willpower is not enough. We need the mindset and tools that calm our nervous system and get us into a space where creative energy flows. I’m going to share with you all of the best practices I’ve learned.
Doors are open now / We start November 1
You don’t have to quit your day job to live more creatively.
And you don’t have to be a prodigy either!
Creativity is in our DNA.
As Elizabeth Gilbert says, it’s “the hallmark of our species.”
This course is for you if:
You have long wanted to write anything creative—poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction—but you don’t know where to start.
You’re stuck or have writer’s block and don’t know how to get your creative energy back.
You want to feel more alive, connected to yourself, and grounded in the gift of this precious, amazing life!
You feel the pressure of something bursting inside you that wants to be said, but you feel paralyzed when you try to let it out.
You don’t think you’re a very creative person or a ‘good’ writer. (Spoiler: Everyone has the potential for creativity! And ‘good’ writing comes from practice! )
You worry that the time you spend writing will be ‘wasted’ unless you get published or make money from your writing.
You keep telling yourself that someday you’ll write that thing that’s burning inside of you, and you’re ready to make that time NOW.
You want to take your journaling deeper, but you aren’t sure how to do that.
You hear a voice inside your head (or the voice of someone in your past) telling you that you aren’t ‘good’ enough so ‘why bother.’
You’ve started various writing projects, but they never went anywhere.
You’re tired of letting fear win and ready to take the audacious step of writing what is inside you!!
I know what it feels like to be held back by any or all of these blocks and fears. I wouldn’t let myself write something creative because it felt too risky. It might not actually ‘go anywhere’—i.e., be published, become a bestseller, or win a prize.
The thing about creative writing is that it doesn’t actually have to ‘go anywhere’ to be worthwhile. What a radical idea that is! What if it’s just for you? What if it’s the thing you need to feel good for the rest of the day? What if it’s your sacred time and space that allows you to feel more like YOU!
The goal of this is course to help you develop a creative practice that enriches your life—that allows you to connect to your creativity and make it an integral part of your life.
Any new habit—like exercise, meditation, flossing—requires regular practice. And taking a little time each day to exercise your creative muscle is just as important as getting physically fit or keeping your teeth clean!
But doing so on your own can be hard. Distractions take over. Procrastination and perfectionism set up shop. Vague feelings of discomfort or outright terror come rushing in as we look at the blank page.
‘I’m just no good at this,’ we tell ourselves. Or, ‘Who do I think I am, writing a novel?’ Guilt, shame, or imposter syndrome take over. ‘I don’t have the time to goof around like this. I need to be productive!’
But ‘goofing around’ may be just what we need, if that means spending some time most days with the open-endedness of a creative process that nourishes our soul.
It has taken me decades to realize that creativity is not a luxury. It’s a vital part of being human. In my old life, I had become a machine, and I didn’t know who I was anymore. Spending time writing—just for the sake of noticing the beauty around me, or discovering what’s inside me—brought me back to life again!
It also took way too long for me to realize that creativity is not a gene you either have or don’t. It’s a practice that can grow over time, and its rewards are intrinsic and immensely valuable whether or not they translate into a bestseller.
I’ve also learned that creativity is unwieldy, elusive, and unpredictable. It can show up one day and not the next. It can run wild and then run dry. But it arrives most often when we invite it in on a regular basis. And it flourishes when we have some kind of container or schedule to hold it.
I’ve created for you exactly what I wished I had when I was starting my life over and trying to write creatively.
I’ve created a 30-day pathway to guide you around the rough spots and keep you inspired and writing through the whole month.
Here’s exactly what you will get:
#1: Kick-off Call + Introduction to Course and Your Companions on the Journey
This 60-minute session will take place on Sunday November 1, at 7 pm UK / 2 pm Eastern / 11 am Pacific. I will share everything you need to know about taking the course. And we’ll get things started by sharing where we’re starting from and setting intentions for the month together.
#2: Short Videos / Pep Talks with My Best Advice (20 in total)
In these short videos, I will discuss everything from the limiting beliefs that kill creativity to the mindsets that will nurture and sustain your practice. I’ll share the most important things that I’ve learned on my journey and gathered from my teachers (including Jeanette Winterson) and reading over the years. The videos will arrive in your inbox M-F, early in the morning (or overnight for those in the U.S.).
#3: Writing Prompts and Inspiration (20 in total)
With each video will come a written prompt, poem, or exercise for you to try, if you wish, for your writing session that day. Or you may choose to continue with a work in progress. Either way, these are designed to help you connect more deeply with the creative parts of your brain and heart and write what is true for you, which we will always be striving for as we sit down to write.
#4: Three Group Coaching Calls
These 60-minute Zoom meetings will take place on three Fridays: November 6, 13, and 20, at 5 pm UK / 12 pm Eastern/ 9 am Pacific. You will be invited to share how your writing week went, what challenges you encountered, what breakthroughs you’ve had, and whatever questions are coming up. I will also lead the group through exercises to calm the nervous system and clear blocks of energy, which will allow for greater flow and inspiration during the coming week.
#5: Four Weekend Invitations to Get Inspired
After our coaching call on Fridays (and on Nov. 27) you will receive an invitation for a weekend activity designed to get you out of your chair, away from your computer or notebook, and out into the world of ideas and images, looking for inspiration or conversations to enter with your own take on things.
#6: Celebration + Send-Off
We will meet Sunday, Nov. 29, at 5 pm UK / 12 pm Eastern/ 9 am Pacific to celebrate your wins, reflect on your takeaways from the month of practice, and make a plan for how to carry your practice forward. I’ll leave you with my best advice for sustaining a creative life and keeping the writing going.
#7: Bonus—All Course Material Is Yours Forever
Not only will the videos, prompts, and invitations arrive in your inbox, they will also live FOREVER online on our private site (on Substack). Whatever you want to revisit or didn’t have a chance to absorb the first time will be there waiting for you.
#8: Bonus—Build Connections with Others on the Same Journey
You will have the opportunity to introduce yourself on a thread on our private site, share your intentions, and get to know each other. We will also work in smaller groups during our groups calls. And I will also pair you with a buddy (in your time zone or close to it) so that you can connect outside of the course as well. On our last call, I will also share ways that you can continue to support each other.
Live on Zoom / Replay Forever
Delivered to your inbox M-F
Delivered to your inbox M-F
Live on Zoom / Replays Forever
Delivered to your inbox each Friday
Live on Zoom / Replay Forever
PRICING
£235
(or 2 installments of £117.50)
£45 Discount for Paid Yearly Subscribers to Audacious Creative Lives Available
£235 / £190
‘But I don’t have the time to take this course!’
I’m inviting you to watch a short video and write for at least 20 minutes, five days a week, M-F. So a half hour is base commitment. You will start to notice a difference with just that much time, but if you have more, that’s great.
The live group calls and weekend activities are optional but encouraged. And all the material will live online so that you can return to it later if you miss anything.
If you feel that you don’t have a half hour each weekday for your creative life, it’s possible that you are also holding one or both of the following beliefs:
Writing is a luxury or a hobby, not something that really matters.
Actually, creative expression is essential to our physical and emotional wellbeing. A growing number of studies confirm this. Gabor Maté writes, in his ground-breaking book When the Body Says No, that one of the “basic values that can assist us to heal and remain whole, if we honour [it], is our own creative self.”
Taking the time away from my other responsibilities to do something just for me that has no apparent purpose or outcome is selfish. (And underlying that, I don’t deserve to take this time for myself.)
This is a common feeling (especially among women). I felt this for YEARS. But I paid for the neglect in burnout and illness. But remember the benefits. Many people who take the time to write each day also find that they are better able to be there for others because they feel more fulfilled and less anxious.
TWO TIPS:
Most people who make the time to write daily do so by waking up a little earlier.
Another option is to cut out something that is not serving you, at least for the 30 days while you are establishing your practice and seeing what it can do for you, perhaps removing your social media apps from your phone. That alone could save you a lot of time that you don’t even realize you are spending!
“In our creating, we are created. . . . If we give ourselves half an hour a day with our creativity, our dreams, our music, the soul becomes quiet. We are in our body and feel nourished.”
—Marion Woodman, Coming Home to Myself
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Not to worry. I’ll be giving you prompts and inspiration with each video, so you won’t have to think about what you might write about. These will also give you a storehouse of ideas and approaches for carrying on your practice after the 30 days.
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Great! You can certainly work on that each day. When you sit down, you can check your email, watch the video, and then return to your project. I’ll be giving you advice and mindset hacks that will help you carry on when the inevitable doubts and anxieties arise.
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Not to worry! This course is suitable for everyone from beginners to seasoned authors. We all experience the same kinds of hurdles when we sit down to write, and it’s the practice that matters. This course will help you establish one and set you on your writing journey!
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Yes, but not in the usual way. It is absolutely essential that you have a regular practice if you are going to write a book. But MFA’s and other writing courses don’t teach you how to do that. I’ll be holding your hand, so to speak, while you come to the page each day, and I will help you establish the mindset and routines that you need as the basis for any longer project.
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That’s okay. The recordings will be available in our private site for you to catch up with later. And you will still have the opportunity to engage with the other participants on the Introductions thread and in the comments sections for each day’s video, where you can also ask me questions. And you will be assigned a buddy, if you want one.
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No problem. The 30-day container is for the live elements, but all of the content will continue to live on our private site, to which you will have unlimited access, so you can pick up what you missed at any time.
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I do hope to run it again, but I don’t have any immediate plans to do so. However, this initial round is being offered at a special introductory price. The price will go up when it’s offered again.