Hi Loves,
Last Thursday, we wrapped the spring session of Write Your Life at J. Anderson’s Bookshop — and I’m still a little emotional about it.
I’ve been teaching writing since 1998. I’ve read more student work than I ever bothered to count — sometimes the same pages more than once: first submission, revisions, in whatever form my final ask takes, and during workshop shares. By the time the last session rolls around, I have a good idea what’s coming.
And then, last Thursday, I was moved to tears.
First, some backstory.
Over six weeks, we covered a lot of territory. We worked our way through the essential craft elements of compelling personal narrative: story arcs and emotional movement, unforgettable first sentences, active agency — learning where we hide in our own prose and how to come out — the discipline of delay, scene versus summary, and rendering the real people in our stories with nuance and complexity.
But a syllabus is just a container. What happened inside the people using it was something else.
We wrote scenes we thought were necessary, then rewrote them when we discovered we were hiding. We learned to withhold — to let a reader feel something before they’re told what it is. We talked honestly about overcoming the victim narrative: not as a judgment, but as a craft challenge. We asked hard questions about the difference between telling the truth and building a narrative identity around it. And perhaps most importantly, we learned to sit with inquiry.
We learned to get comfortable with letting our questions be our guides into the unknown.
That right there is why I can’t get enough of this sport — that’s right, I just called writing a sport. Because we think nothing of enrolling our children in sports so they can learn the upsides to competition, fairness, teamwork, and how to lose well — but where do we go to learn how to live this life when we can’t possibly know what’s going to happen next?
The blank page has open arms for that.
Before our final session, I asked everyone to choose a piece they were proud of, revise it further, and cut it down to somewhere between a page and a half and three pages.
Real writing happens on the cutting room floor
I know I didn’t make up this turn of phrase — versions of it abound in the film world. On Thursday, I watched my writers learn what it means, in action.
Some writers cut 200 words. Some cut 400. Some cut closer to 600. Some cut more.
Every single piece became more powerful for it.
That’s the thing about excess — whether it’s explanation, apology, or over-contextualization — it doesn’t just slow the reader down. It obscures what’s true. When writers removed the cushioning, what remained had more grace and more force. The humor landed harder. The grief moved freely from one heart to another. Moments that had been buried announced themselves like the badass proclamations they were born to be.
And then there was the being together…the alchemy that can only happen in community.
I’d read and edited some of these pieces three or four times already. And sitting in the room together — I laughed. I cried. I exhaled. So did everyone else.
I felt the particular satisfaction of watching these writers discover the impact of their stories in real time. Six weeks earlier, these same people had wondered whether they belonged in the class, whether anyone would care about what they had to say — whether they had anything to say at all.
Ah, yeah, that last one…it’s not a thing.
Which brings me to this summer.
Write Your Life is returning for a new session — and enrollment is now open.
Thursdays, July 30 – September 3
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
J. Anderson’s Bookshop, Larchmont
Investment: $375
Limited to 12 writers — 6 spots are already taken. If you’re interested, please don’t wait.
Whether you’re sitting on a half-finished memoir, writing essays for the first time, or carrying a story you haven’t yet found the words for — this course is built for you. We’ll work through the craft elements that close the gap between lived experience and compelling narrative. You’ll leave with revised pages, new tools, and writers who know your work. And especially because it’s summer, we’re going to have some fun!
A note onhow I show up in your inbox
Since I founded The Clementina Collective in 2013, I’ve gotten as much business training as I can afford. Some of it has been genuinely useful. Some of it has disgusted me.
The part that disgusts me: the aggressive, extractive, coercive approaches to marketing that treat potential students like targets to be converted rather than people with their own wisdom about what they need. In the past, this aversion has kept me from marketing at all. And that’s no way to bring people the powerful medicine I’m offering. So as part of my own growth, I’ve decided I’m going to market — my way.
Here’s my promise: I’ll let you know when something is available. I’ll tell you honestly what it is and what it isn’t. I’ll remind you (because I mean to do things I really want to do all the time and forget). And then I’ll trust you. Students who get the most from me know what they want, they trust me to deliver it, and I don’t have to beg, badger, or manufacture urgency to earn their yes. Consent is a core value of mine.
I see this as part of a larger way I want to lead — a different way of doing business on the other side of the crucible the world is in right now, the silver lining of the slime. Thanks for being here while I figure out how to do it. And for proving, just by showing up, that another way is possible.
Know someone who’s ready, willing, and able?
If you know someone who will benefit from my work — a friend sitting on a story, a colleague who’s been talking about writing for years, anyone carrying something they haven’t yet put on the page — please forward this email, write a warm intro, or just ask me to reach out and set up a call. The right people find this class at the right time. You might be the reason someone does. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
None of us do anything great alone. And, I always say — it takes a village to raise a Clementina. Thanks for being my village.
Ready to claim your spot? [CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT]
Email me directly at clementina@clementinacollective.com. The class is small by design and more than half full.
I hope to see you there.
With love,
Clementina
The Clementina Collective
clementinacollective.com