Course Overview
Overview
Most writers default to sight. Some include sound. Almost nobody writes smell, taste, touch, proprioception (the body’s sense of itself in space), and the seventh sense — weather. The reader feels the gap. Five weeks of sensory drills, scene rewrites, and a sensory audit of your current draft. By the end you’ll write with all seven senses in active rotation, without making the sensory work feel performative. Most students stop overusing sight by week two. The course is drill-heavy, drafting-immediate, and embodied throughout.
What’s inside
- 5 modules, 25 lessons + sensory drills — embodied, drill-heavy
- Mindset Maven Test that names YOUR specific sense-default pattern
- 5 guided meditations averaging 10 minutes — paired to sensory drills
- Toolkit: the Seven-Sense Audit Worksheet + the Sensory Drill Workbook
- Lifetime access, unlimited retakes — sensory skills compound
- Companion blog post per module — public, perfect for the writer whose prose is ‘visual to a fault’
Who this is for
- Novelists
- Memoirists
- Poets
- Screenwriters
FAQs
Why six senses, and what’s the seventh?
We use six because proprioception (your body’s sense of itself in space and orientation) is a distinct sense most writers ignore. The seventh — weather — isn’t technically a sense; it’s the environmental sensory context that affects how everything else registers. Weather work is the under-rated craft move.
Will this make my prose feel overloaded?
Module 3 covers calibration. Sensory writing isn’t ‘add all seven to every paragraph.’ It’s ‘choose two-to-three per scene with intention.’ The calibration is the work.
Does this work for poetry?
Yes — module 4 covers poetry-specific sensory work, including the compression senses are subject to in tight forms.
What about the synesthetic effects (smelling colors, hearing textures)?
Module 5 covers synesthesia as a deliberate craft choice. Useful in specific contexts; overused in many drafts. The course teaches the calibration.
How is this different from the sensory advice in workshop?
Most workshop sensory advice stops at ‘use the senses.’ This course goes deeper — which sense per scene, which sense per character, which sense per genre. The depth is the difference.
Can I retake?
Yes. Unlimited. Sensory skills compound.
What one student said
★★★★★
“I work as a perfumer. My memoir is about scent — the family business, my grandmother, the eight notes I’ve spent thirty years trying to recreate. Sensory writing should have been easy for me. It was not. This course gave me language for what I could smell but couldn’t render on the page. The ‘forgetting the senses’ framing in the title sounded weird until I realized I had been writing scent as taste, which is a different sense, which is the very mistake the course corrects. I am eating my words about courses for writers.”
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Curriculum
- 5 Sections
- 20 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Module 1: Your Default Sense (Which One Do You Over-Use)Week one we diagnose your default. Most writers over-use sight by a factor of 3-5x. Some over-use sound (audiobook listeners, screenwriters). A few over-use touch (poets, romance writers). The default6
- 1.1Module 1: Overview20
- 1.2Mindset Maven Test: What’s YOUR Sense Default (Honest Audit)?2 Questions
- 1.3Meditation: The Body-Scan Audio (Trains the Ear for the Other Senses)11
- 1.4Writing Prompt: Module 130
- 1.5INSPIRATION: The Year I Audited Every Sensory Default and Wrote a Smell Book on Purpose15
- 1.6Companion Blog: You Have a Sense Default. Most Writers Are Sight-Heavy by 3-5x. Audit Yours.10
- Module 2: Smell and Taste (the Two Most Under-Used Senses)Week two installs smell and taste — the two most under-used senses. They carry the most memory (smell is the most memory-bound sense; taste anchors physical bodily presence). We cover the install move6
- 2.1Module 2: Overview20
- 2.2Mindset Maven Test: Which of Smell or Taste Is Most Absent From YOUR Draft?2 Questions
- 2.3Meditation: The Smell-Memory Audio (Trains the Nose for Writing)12
- 2.4Writing Prompt: Module 230
- 2.5INSPIRATION: The Five Scents That Carried a Whole Memoir15
- 2.6Companion Blog: Smell and Taste Are the Two Most Under-Used Senses. Install One Today.10
- Module 3: Touch and Proprioception (the Body Senses)Week three covers touch and proprioception — the body senses. Touch is the sense of contact (between, self, environment). Proprioception is the body's awareness of itself in space and orientation. Bot6
- 3.1Module 3: Overview20
- 3.2Mindset Maven Test: How Embodied Is YOUR Current Prose?2 Questions
- 3.3Meditation: The Body-Awareness Audio (Trains for Proprioception)11
- 3.4Writing Prompt: Module 330
- 3.5INSPIRATION: The Scene Where I First Installed Proprioception (And the Way the Body Came Online)15
- 3.6Companion Blog: Proprioception Is a Writing Tool. Most Writers Don’t Know It Exists.10
- Module 4: The Seventh Sense — Weather (the Sensory Context That Carries Everything)Week four covers weather — the seventh sense. Not technically a sense, but the environmental sensory context that affects how every other sense registers. We cover the install moves for weather (speci6
- 4.1Module 4: Overview20
- 4.2Mindset Maven Test: How Is Weather Currently Present in YOUR Draft?2 Questions
- 4.3Meditation: The Weather Audit Audio10
- 4.4Writing Prompt: Module 430
- 4.5INSPIRATION: The Weather That Carried a Whole Novel (Without Pathetic Fallacy)15
- 4.6Companion Blog: Weather Is a Sense. Specific Weather Carries Everything Else. Install It.10
- Module 5: The Sensory Calibration (the Lifetime Practice)Final week. You'll calibrate sensory use across your draft — choosing two-to-three senses per scene with intention, varying defaults across the book, integrating the seven-sense audit into your standa6
- 5.1Module 5: Overview20
- 5.2Mindset Maven Test: What Calibration Will YOUR Draft Need Most?2 Questions
- 5.3Meditation: Closing Audio: The Sensory Architecture Document13
- 5.4Writing Prompt: Module 530
- 5.5INSPIRATION: Twelve Years of Sensory Calibration (and the Prose That Built)15
- 5.6Companion Blog: Build a Sensory Architecture for Every Draft. Refresh Yearly. Build the Prose Over Decades.10