blog

Reboot Your Memoir

May 7, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

Community and Support for Your Memoir One of my big takeaways from the pandemic is the importance of community, especially for us writers. Today, I’m excited to share two offerings that have come out of this challenging year. First up is Reboot Your Memoir, a 4-week class I’m offering this June to help you reboot and reinvigorate your memoir. (Keep reading for more info). I’ll also be offering a beautiful new Writer’s Circle community for accountability and support designed to support the serious writer. Priority will be given to Memoir Mastery alumni, and we’ll start in July. More info coming soon! Reboot Your Memoir Writing your memoir can be an especially rewarding journey. At times, it can also be quite challenging. On bad days, it can feel like you’re shooting at a moving target. There’s a reason so many memoirists get stuck, particularly once the initial […]

Which Creative Seeds are You Planting?

April 26, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

Change and transition seem to be my watchwords these days. Spring, the Covid vaccine and pivotal birthdays have been going on in my corner of the world, inspiring me to think about ritual, thresholds and what inspires real change. All the more so after Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict here in the U.S. last week. It was a drop in the bucket, to be sure. But finally, a bit of accountability. Let’s keep it coming, folks. We have so much work to do with Black Lives Matter, climate change, gun reform and anti-Asian violence, to name a few of the shifts we’re currently navigating. With biracial children and a Japanese American husband, the recent spate of anti-Asian violence has hit especially close to home. (See a list of anti-Asian violence resources here.) All of which has got me thinking about what enables change and […]

How to Motivate Yourself to Write

March 20, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / 2 Comments

How to Motivate Yourself to Write If you’re like most of us, you’ve probably had some challenges getting motivated to write and/or sticking with it. Inspiration and motivation can be challenging on a good day, and all the more so during a pandemic. I get it! When things got tough, I used to hunker down. Try harder. Should myself into being. Can you relate? We could do anything, we think, if we only had enough willpower. Determination. But what if I told you that willpower isn’t the solution? What if relying on our willpower is actually part of the problem? And what if we’re setting ourselves up by relying on this overly-simplistic equation? Instead of white-knuckling yourself into submission, what if you could approach your creative work with curiosity and excitement? What if you could approach it with a sense of expansion instead of […]

Spring 2021 Offerings

February 15, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

If you’d like support for your writing, here are my spring 2021 offerings: Memoir Mastery (a 9-week comprehensive course) and the Writer’s Circle (a small, 3-month writer’s group). Both offerings start in early April; descriptions are below. If you’re not sure where to begin, I recommend starting with Memoir Mastery. It’s my flagship course and will give you everything you need to know to write a compelling memoir. MEMOIR MASTERY In this comprehensive 9-week course, you’ll go from feeling alone, confused and overwhelmed to feeling excited and supported in the power of your story, clear in its scope, and confident in the craft and technique of creating a compelling memoir. With 6 online modules, 6 live coaching calls and a private community forum, you’ll get plenty of support and accountability as well as laser-focused coaching within a wonderfully supportive community. You’ll leave this […]

When the World is Burning, Is Art a Waste of Time?

February 8, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

Last week, I watched this incredible TEDx talk by R. Alan Brooks, one of my colleagues at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop. Wow! I hope this talk will be shown to teens everywhere. And adults, too, for that matter. As you’ll see in Alan’s talk, it’s never too late to follow your dreams. Especially in these intense times, when there’s so much at stake. (Spoiler alert: Brooks quit his day job in insurance to write comic books. Wait until you hear what happened next.) Here’s a short excerpt: “If art really has no power, if it’s really a silly waste of time, then why are dictators afraid of it? Why were Nazis burning books and paintings? Why was McCarthy so dedicated to blacklisting artists in the 1950’s? Why was Stalin’s government so focused on censoring artists in Russia?” I hope you find this talk as […]

How to Write with Ease

February 1, 2021 / Tanja Pajevic / blog / No Comments

How to Bring Ease to Your Writing For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about the concept of parenting from an open and spacious place vs. a stressed and constricted one. After hearing Tara Mohr apply a similar concept to work, I decided to apply it to writing as well and it was a game changer! So I wrote this post to share this insight with you. I hope that this helps you shift the equation from stressed to spacious in your writing life. Write with Ease (instead of Stress) The other day, I listened to Tara Mohr talk about the possibility of bringing relaxation to everything we do. Since Mohr’s definition of “relaxation” was built around the difference between ease and spaciousness vs. stress and constriction, I’ve translated her use of “relaxation” to “ease” for the purpose of this post. Let’s […]