Because in a world that has become even crazier than I can remember, and I hear myself telling friends how busy and tired I am, when making a date with someone can take me weeks, and texting is the new talking, when losing my phone feels like losing an arm, and scrolling the internet is the way I fall asleep at night, and my next romance happens because I swiped right, it’s essential for me to be able to sit down with people knee to knee, to let them see the whites of my eyes and for me to see theirs, as we remember how to use our words and find our voices.

It’s true that my Instagram account documents slices of my life, and my Facebook page is seen by my “friends,” but there’s something soul healing for me when I gather around a table with other people, putting our phones away for two hours, and pulling out our pens to tell our stories so we can document what it feels like to be a human being.

I Wild Write because not all stories have a beginning, middle and an end and I’m interested in getting to the heart of things quickly, and because I’ve watched hundreds of people zip line their way straight into the core of what matters in 10 minutes. Wild Writing trains us to get out of our own way, to untether ourselves from the masthead of formality and pleasantry and to tell the truth, write it raw, and let go of what other people will think.

In Wild Writing, we know that the smallest moments, the tiniest stories are the important ones, like the night last week when I walked alone into the forest, lantern in hand, to find my tent, which sat at the edge of a field over-looking a valley, and how walking alone in the dark was something I’d always avoided, but here I was, one foot in front of the other, making my way in the dark. That was just a moment, but it’s a gateway to a story about being alone in the world.

Or the woman I met in a wheelchair who said that she just wanted the strong love of a man, but all she got were crumbs and that she’d been eating those crumbs her whole life, and how she was going to start making her own damn cake, and eating it too. And how what she said stuck to me like thick cake batter on a spoon, and how I’ve been licking that spoon and thinking about what she said for weeks.

I Wild Write because I want you to know what it feels like when I look away from the guy standing on the corner holding the sign that says, “even the littlest bit helps.” And how that’s not just a story about poverty or city living, but a story about things I don’t want to look at and what it’s like living in a world with so much trouble and the overwhelm of not knowing how to help.

Wild Writing at its core is a freedom practice, an intuition practice, a saying Yes to what’s coming down the pike without filtering or making yourself sound smarter or more clever practice. And while clever is cute, it doesn’t bring you closer to other people or to yourself. And that’s what we’re aiming for when we write: Intimacy, connection, truth.

I Wild Write because there is not enough time to get these stories right, or make them perfect. And so Wild Writing becomes our practice, our brave and beautiful writing practice that connects us to ourselves and to each other and shows us how to live.

Friends, if you’re looking for one last spat of creativity before your summer begins, if you’ve been curious about Wild Writing but don’t know if it’s for you, consider joining our shortie-pie, 5-week Wild Writing series starting next week, Tuesday May 22. We meet live here in Northern California, or on video with a small group of kind people just like you and me. There are still spaces left and I’d love to have you check out this life changing work.