The Romp Knows Something You Don't

The Romp Knows Something You Don't

Welcome to Flight School: When Heide Island emailed asking for a blurb on her new book Romp, I almost said no. I’d worked with her briefly, years ago, when I was just starting to build what would eventually become The Blackbird Studio [https://blackbirdstudiopdx.com/mission-vision-value/]and this fabulous tributary: Blackbird’s Flight School. She was a science writer. I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. But she was insistent. So I read the book. And I wrote her a blurb: Heide Island brings a Jane Goodall-like patience and wonder to the world of otters, observing with both scientific rigor and deep reverence. Romp! is an intelligent study that never loses sight of its heart, written in prose that’s as playful and engaging as its subjects. This is a book that will make you feel both smarter about the natural world and grateful to inhabit it ~ Jennifer Lauck Romp! (Tarcher/Penguin) is the kind of book that sneaks up on you. It’s about otters, yes — all fourteen global species, anchored in one family on Whidbey Island. But it’s really about community. About how nothing survives alone. About how the same thing that’s true in a Pacific Northwest estuary is true at a writing desk. Heide is now a published author with a second book already in proposal. She teaches at Pacific University. And she got here, not through luck (though there’s a great Cinderella moment in this conversation) but through years of showing up, building a platform, learning to take critique without flinching, and finally, finally, asking for help. I wanted her on Flight School because her story is your story. Or it can be. Enjoy this conversation. Time Stamps: * [3:00] What it means to muscle it alone * [17:00] The Cinderella publishing story —> and why she resists it * [20:30] Critique vs. criticism: the rolling out of bed analogy * [26:30] Crisis in Higher Education 🤔 Your turn: * Heide talks about the difference between criticism and critique. One is a judgment about you. The other is someone pulling the toilet paper off your shoe before you walk out the door. This is one of the best framings I’ve heard for what we do in this community. How are you with feedback? Does it hurt? Can you take it? What have you learned about the two and the difference? * Where are you still muscling it alone? Is it the writing itself? The submission process. The belief that you need to figure it out by yourself? See you in the comments, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛ Cover image: Marc Webber/UFSWS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

The Egoic Trap Running Your Hero's Life

Welcome into Flight School: Week 1: What your hero fights for [https://open.substack.com/pub/jenniferlauck/p/is-your-hero-fighting-for-the-right?r=fjvlj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] (and which level your story actually reaches)Week 2: Which plot you’re actually writing [https://open.substack.com/pub/jenniferlauck/p/the-plot-your-story-is-actually-following?r=fjvlj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] (not the one you wish you were)Week 3: The egoic trap you can’t see yet (but your writing will reveal) Over these three classes we had fifty people sign up. WOW. Unheard of. And yet, as you’ll see from the classes themselves, only four to six showed up in person each week. And those who did show up did a great job thinking together. In this last meeting, we had a great conversation that was raw and personal. I shared fresh material from a tiny book called Born Only Once by Conrad Baars, a Dutch psychiatrist who survived Buchenwald. I hope you get a lot out of this group with two novelists and two memoirists who covered the full terrain of story. The question that drove this entire class: What is the egoic trap your hero is caught in? And what will it take to set them free? The Setup: Marilyn Monroe and Hitler Marilyn Monroe: abandoned by her mother, raised in a house of horrors by mentally ill caregivers, never knew her father, beaten with religion. She had spunk, determination, a strong will. But she was the tragedy of the unaffirmed person attempting self-affirmation. Walking around saying “I’m okay, I’m okay” when she had never been shown her basic goodness. Adolf Hitler: raised by an authoritarian father (one shot, that’s it) and an indulgent mother (no limits, no boundaries). Average intelligence, failed entrance exams, years of poverty and unemployment. Emotionally deprived at the key formative years. Also had a strong will. Same foundational wound. Different manifestations. Both destroyed themselves in the end. The six egoic traps Konrad pulled from the text: * Amassing material possessions * Becoming a millionaire many times over * Success in studies, oppressive array of degrees and titles * Reaching the top of the ladder * Attaining fame (or associating with famous people) * Gaining power over others through authority, dictatorship, gangsterdom * Promiscuous behavior (there were actually seven) These are the compensations for feeling worthless, lonely, inferior. And after class, Konrad sent me this terrific chart: The Counter-Example: Pope John XXIII Considered unattractive by the standards of the world, yet anyone who met him walked away feeling their own goodness. Why? He was affirmed. And he carried these qualities: * Sensitive (not discouraged sensitivity, but awareness of what’s happening in every moment) * Open to the goodness of life * Calm, unhurried way of life * Unselfish and humble (the humility to be wrong, to say “I’m wrong and I’m okay with that”) * Moral self-restraint (meeting people where they’re at, not expecting them to be beyond that) I gave my daughter these qualities on a 3x5 card when she was struggling: Be yourself. Stop repressing emotions. Don’t hang on your fears. Be assertive. Don’t put people down to make yourself important. The Example That Landed: Cast Away Tom Hanks. Go-go-rush guy. Time is his God. Gets stranded on a desert island. Talks to a volleyball for years. Wants to take his own life because he can’t control anything (same egoic trap as Marilyn and Hitler: Control). But nature affirms him. Survival tests him. He comes back a quiet man. At the end, he’s at a crossroads. Literally. And it’s enough. He doesn’t need all the answers. He’s been freed from the egoic trap. Then We Worked on Real Stories * David (tragedy): “My hero longs for power. Gets it. Blows it. Betrays himself and everything else. Which prompts the rise of an antagonist who becomes the hero in the second book to defeat him.” Clear when it’s tragic. * Konrad (novel): “My midwife wants to write the first book about midwifery by a woman. Her husband says women don’t write books. So she becomes unaffirmed by her husband and pushes her daughter to become a doctor instead.” I gave him the Jung quote: “Children are driven unconsciously to fulfill everything that was left unfulfilled in the life of their parents.” Konrad: “I never thought of it that way till this piece. Crazy.” * Chrissy (memoir): “I’m befuddled.” Me: “It’s almost impossible when it’s about yourself. The lines will show you. Don’t worry.” * Sarah (memoir about adoption): “My trap was a desire to appear fine. Everything is fine. We were a successful adoptive family. We were fine. We were NOT fine.” * My own trap (from Blackbird): Blind loyalty to the point of self-sacrifice. So loyal to my mother and father that I created truly dangerous circumstances for myself. Why? Years later in therapy I discovered my father tortured me with cold showers if I didn’t take good care of my mother. I was three and four years old. That loyalty was a three-year-old’s interpretation, not a grown woman’s understanding. The Revelation A woman told me yesterday on a podcast: “I read your book so many times and it gives me courage to recontextualize my own experience. I felt like I was the only one.” My heart soared. Because that’s the job. We bring forth the human experience. Truth. Goodness. Or in David’s case, a cautionary tale about abject awfulness—but written in such a human way we go, “I know that guy.” Remember, this is a long-game art form: Your book could last fifty years. A hundred. I just celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary and nothing is more powerful than knowing I wrote something that asked the tough questions and pushed beyond what was comfortable in my era. All handouts and teaching materials below. We Have Room in the Live Bones of Storytelling When: Wednesday March 25 at 5 to 7 p.m. These three classes are a taste. Bones is the full meal deal. A direction-changing class that will inspire you to go the distance. If you’re a subscriber, you get 20% off. Check the footer of your last email. Handouts: ✍️Your Turn: What is the egoic trap YOUR hero is caught in? Don’t panic if you can’t answer yet. The writing will show you. It showed me ten years after I wrote Blackbird. It showed Patricia in this very class. It might show you on page 200 of your draft. But start asking the question now. Watch for it. The lines will reveal it. Drop your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for three weeks of this work. You showed up. You engaged. You’re on your way. Jennifer 🐦‍⬛ Blackbird's Flight School with Jennifer Lauck is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

The Plot Your Story Is Actually Following

Hi and welcome back to Flight School: Class two of our series was so different from class one. We weren’t just learning framework now, we were applying it to real stories in real time. I opened with a review of Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots and asking them to think about: Which plot best fits what I’m writing? Don’t be fooled, these aren’t old-time templates, they’re living structures for what’s happening in contemporary literature and in your life right now. Case in point: James by Percival Everett. This new novel is trying to replace Huckleberry Finn as the foundation of American literature. And it’s a Voyage and Return plot. A close look at the template and it’s a story as old as time. Jim, now James, falls down the rabbit hole of what true slavery looks like when he runs away. The horror. The violence it forces him into. But in the final moment, he grabs his wife and daughter and brings them to freedom in Iowa. He escapes the rabbit hole shocked at himself, at what he’s become, and at this world. He saves his family, which is the redeeming moment, but he’s unable to embrace his identity. This is a Voyage and Return that doesn’t end with the hero transformed and whole. It ends with him fundamentally altered and unable to reconcile who he was with who he’s become. I wrote a whole post about that here. Check it out. [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/p/what-james-gets-right-about-plot?r=fjvlj] Plots are not formulaic. They’re archetypal. And nested within one another: The Quest contains Overcoming the Monster, Tragedy is Overcoming the Monster in reverse, Rebirth is comedy turned on itself. Then we worked on Patricia’s novel Patricia has been studying with me for four years. I know her story inside and out—the tests she’s been through, the companions she’s gathered along the way i.e.,: the “band of merry brothers” she finds in a pantry meeting I mention in the class. She thought her book was one thing. But as we talked, it revealed itself. Her novel might be a Quest. Why? It’s test after test after test. A long journey. Companions. Ordeals. “You have seen so much in my work that I had no idea,” Patricia said. “I just turn around all the time and go, what? what? You just see so much.” That’s the power of having someone who’s done the work, has cultivated great tools (like these about the heroic hero) and who asks the right questions. I’ve been an investigative reporter for years. I’m always going to say, “Wait a minute. Are you sure? Let’s dig a little deeper.” This is a long-game art form. Why this depth of work and these questions matter: Your book could last way beyond you. It could be literature on the shelf somebody picks up in fifty years. I know, I just celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first book. Nothing is more powerful than knowing I wrote something that asked the tough questions and pushed beyond the realm of what was comfortable in my era. All handouts and teaching materials are below. One more shot: Class 3 - From Ego to Other When? Saturday, March 21, 10am PST The truly heroic hero sheds ego and inward hungers for a greater good. Christ. Gandhi. King. What is the egoic trap your hero is caught in? What will it take to set them free? Or if writing tragedy, how can you deepen that trap? I’m bringing brand new teachings from Born Only Once by Conrad Baars—a concentration camp survivor who examines Marilyn Monroe, Hitler, and Pope John XXIII to understand what makes someone truly heroic versus tragically lost. P.S. Bones of Storytelling starts March 25 These three classes are a taste. Bones is the full meal. A direction-changing class that will inspire you to go the distance. If you’re a subscriber, you get 20% off. Check the footer of your last email from me. ✍🏻Your Turn: As you watch the recording, ask yourself: Which plot am I actually writing? Not which one I want to be writing—which one is my story naturally following? Drop your answer in the comments. Thanks for being with me. See you next Saturday. Jennifer 🐦‍⬛ PS, PS: This is a reader-supported site, if you are not a paid subscriber, or just feel moved, tip your writer. She’ll appreciate it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Is Your Hero Fighting for the Right Thing?

Hi and welcome into Flight School: Fourteen writers signed up for this first class and all had one question to ponder: Who is your hero, and what do they want most? The answers came fast: A 19-year-old seeking to assuage existential guilt (Carrie). A 12-year-old girl navigating grief and secrets (Kristen). A medieval midwife fighting for equality in Islamic Spain. An anti-hero chasing unlimited knowledge and power (David). A memoir about survival. Then we asked the harder question: What’s pushing against them? Because here’s the truth: Your hero is only as compelling as the forces of antagonism working against them. Not just external obstacles but the layers that run deeper. * The innermost self (body, mind, emotions). * Personal relationships (family, friends, lovers). * The extra-personal world (society, institutions, environment). This is why writing a big project (novel or memoir) feels impossibly hard. You’re not just telling a story, you’re capturing the extraordinary complexity of being human. The four levels of value progression Most stories operate at level two: hero wants love, faces indifference. Hero wants freedom, faces restraint. It’s conflict, but it’s not enough to carry a whole book. Push to level three (love vs. hate, freedom vs. slavery) and you’ve got real stakes. Push to level four—the negation of the negation—and you’re writing stories that devastate: hatred masquerading as love, slavery perceived as freedom, self-deception instead of truth. Then one of the writers, David, asked about ambition which isn’t on McKee’s list. We worked through it together: ambition → hubris or laziness → indifference → vengeance. Conrad added: “He harmed himself to achieve his ambition. Or harmed those he loved.” That’s when we saw it—the tragic arc, the hero who throws away everything he believed in and joins the evil force. Now the writers were co-creating. The breakout rooms continued this and were where the real breakthroughs took place. Three writers—Chrissy, Carrie, Conrad—all discovered they were working with justice as their core value. “A lot of injustice in the world that we got to write about,” Chrissy said. We closed by looking at examples: Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Till They Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, the films Missing and Big. And I shared a Blackbird Lit Lesson breaking down C.S. Lewis’s value line [https://blackbirdstudiopdx.com/%f0%9f%8e%a7-lit-lesson-39-divine-rebellion-sacred-truth-the-theological-architecture-of-till-we-have-faces/] (truth/wisdom) and introduced the outlier plot “Rebellion Against the One”—for stories like 1984 and Brave New World where a solitary hero confronts an immense power and is crushed, forced to recognize the limits of their perception. All handouts, slides, and teaching materials are below. Do not miss the next class. Get your spot now. Class 2: Seven Heroic Journeys Save the Date: Saturday March 14, 10am PST We’ll map how heroes transform differently across the seven basic plots—and help you identify which journey your hero is actually on (versus the one they should be on). Class 3: From Ego to Other Save the Date: Saturday March 21, 10am PST Christ, Gandhi, King—what they have in common with Marilyn Monroe and Hitler. The egoic trap and what it takes to break free (or if writing tragedy, how to deepen it). Plus: Pope John XXIII through the eyes of a concentration camp survivor. Bones of Storytelling starts March 25 These three classes are the framework. Bones is where you build the complete structure. Ten weeks, live teaching, draft plan for your finished book. If you are subscriber, you get 20% off. Check the footer of your last email from me in your mail box. Handouts: 🤔 Your turn: As you watch the recording, work through your own value line. What’s your hero fighting for? Where does your story currently reach? Where could it go? Drop your answer in the comments. Let’s keep working the problem together. Thanks for being with me and I’ll see you all next week, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛ PS: This is a subscriber supported site, if you are not a paid subscriber, or just feel moved, tip your writer. She’ll appreciate it and continue with this great writer-to-writer service. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

What's Your Image

Welcome to this speedy, but deep, masterclass on the core image that holds your entire story. You’ll be watching an excerpt from an advanced writing workshops at Blackbird, where I share a prologue titled Boxes that opens my new memoir Revert about my three-years in a self-imposed retreat on the wild coast of Oregon escaping not only Covid madness but a long madness of control long imposed on my life. The prologue, Boxes, is a moment at seventeen where I’m drawing boxes on notebook paper in a first attempt to both organize but also control my entire life. I’d lost both my parents by then and was living in a crowded split-level with my aunt, uncle, grandparents, and my niece DM. While Bonanza blared on the TV and life hummed around me, I tried to contain everything—money, school, college, housing, my car, my boyfriend Danny—into neat little boxes with to-do lists. The whole piece is full of details: the cheap laminate desk my dad gave me, the ponderosa pines outside my boyfriend’s house across the street, my niece hopping around outside my door calling,“I’m a bunny. Look at me.” Key teaching moment: After I read the prologue, I explain that I was using it as a prologue because that image of boxes was the singular image that contained my entire life as a woman trying to organize everything into manageable boxes, while fate knocking them over and scattering me and my stuff everywhere. How I know this is a core image? It’s from testing the flow of the following chapters. Does the image fix, can I keep hauling it forward, repurposing and recycling, progressing and escalating. And 13,000 words in the answer is yet. It’s perfect. It’s it. This singular image delivered me a core truth and now I ride the wave of a draft that’s pretty much writing itself. The key image in Blackbird: Yes, there was a similiar thing that happening in my first memoir that we’ve been talking about here on Flight School [https://open.substack.com/pub/jenniferlauck/p/blackbird-a-memoir-going-the-distance?r=fjvlj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web] for the last couple weeks. That image: A house. Open the book and go part by part, and you’ll see the depth of description around each house young Jenny lives in. While I didn’t write a prologue for Blackbird, I did write this opening line: The only house I’ll ever call home was the one on Mary Street. This is also called The Attack Sentence, [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/p/consecution-and-the-attack-sentence?r=fjvlj] as taught by Gordon Lish and is part of consecution. At the time I wrote Blackbird, which is now enjoying it’s 25th Anniversary, that line delivered what I needed. The key image: House. And while writing, it was perfect. Jenny would be moving a dozen times and once would find herself near homeless. Prologue or Attack Sentence? It’s really up to you. Decide what works best but first, start looking for yourself. * Find the one image that defines your whole life * Make it concrete and visual, not abstract * See if it naturally recurs through your writing * Write scenes about your image instead of explaining it My students start finding their images right here in class—the medical caduceus, the hole in the soul, the pack of dogs. It’s pretty magical when it clicks. ✍️ Your Turn: Like the writers in the teaching, have you starting thinking about an image? What’s popping up. Comment in the chat and let’s see if we can suss this out. Thanks for being with me, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛ PS: I’m gearing up for three mini-master teachings, live, titled The Heroic Hero. Interested? Here’s a sneaky first shot at signing up and locking in your spot. More coming soon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe [https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]