Yes, those are my notebooks.

First, I’ll tell you how this book came about.

A friend who was reading my memoir Love Child asked me, “How did you make the child’s point of view so authentic?” Off the top of my head, I replied, “I couldn’t have done it with Navé’s training.” That’s James Navé, co-author of this book and my creative collaborator in developing the Imaginative Storm method.

We realized that if the 15 years of workshops we’d taught together constituted my “training,” we ought to be able to create a writer training course. So we did: first this book, then an audio course and an online video course. Our original title was “Imaginative Storm Writer Training—but then we realized the core concept of what we do is writing what you don’t know.

But how can you write what you don't know? Think of it this way: when you're living life, you don't know far more than you know. You don't know what other people are thinking. You don't know how the story will turn out. But when you sit down to write, you know what happened--or if you're writing fiction, you know the story you're writing. And that's why, when you just "download" what you know onto the page, the writing doesn't have the tang off life.

When you write in the Imaginative Storm, you surprise yourself. You're curious about what will come out! So you're energized, and your writing is energized, because you're generating images, thoughts, perceptions, insights, that you've never put into words before.

As you explore the Imaginative Storm method, you will:

• Train your rational mind to dance with your imagination—and let your imagination lead the dance

• Train your inner critic to be helpful rather than harmful

• Discover and develop your own voice

• Overcome writer’s block

• Bring playfulness and emotional depth to your writing

• Train your intuition to craft a strong, compelling story

• Gain new insights and perspectives on yourself, other people, and the world around you