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Everyone has a story that needs telling. I went mute for five years and then I couldn't stop talking. We'll work on memory, honesty, and the courage to write the parts that scare you. Those are the parts that matter. Bring nothing but yourself and something to write with.

Write the impossible as if it were the most natural thing in the world. That's the technique. No winking at the reader. No 'this is strange.' Just: 'It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days.' Stated as fact. Because in Macondo, it is. Bring a family story that nobody believes. We'll turn it into literature.

We will take your sentences apart and rebuild them. A sentence is not just communication. It is music, rhythm, architecture. Every word earns its place or it leaves. I edited for twenty years before I published. Bring your best paragraph. We'll find out if it's really your best.

I'll teach you to create a character you can perform as -- costume, voice, attitude, mythology. Then we'll retire that character and build another one. The point isn't the mask. The point is the freedom the mask gives you to be truthful.

The strum that changed the world hits on the upbeat. That's it. That's the secret. But making it groove -- that's what we'll work on. I'll teach you the skank, the one-drop rhythm, and how to make three chords feel like freedom.

Learn to improvise with your voice using syllables, rhythms, and melodic invention. No words. Just sound. I'll teach you the vocabulary of scat -- the bops, the doos, the ba-da-ba-das -- and then we throw the vocabulary away and you find your own.

Learn to write for a big band -- fifteen musicians, each with a voice. I'll teach you voicings, sectional writing, and how to make an orchestra swing. The secret: write for people, not instruments.

Learn to count in 7/8, 5/4, 11/8, and shifting meters. I'll teach you the rhythmic language of The Rite of Spring -- the piece that started a riot. Bring a drum, a table, or just your hands. Rhythm is the most primal element of music.

We paint flowers big enough that people have to stop and look. Six-foot canvases. Close-up. No background. Just the flower filling your entire field of vision. Bring your own flowers -- the ones from your garden, not the florist. Real ones.

I made the whole world laugh without saying a word. I'll teach you timing, the pratfall, the slow burn, the double take. Your body is the instrument. No props needed -- just your willingness to fall down and get back up. That's comedy. That's life.

Learn to apply real gold leaf to paintings, furniture, or frames. I'll teach you the sizing, the breathing technique (one sneeze and twenty euros of gold blows away), and how to mix gold with oil paint for the effect you see in The Kiss. Materials included.

Potter's wheel, electric kiln, glazes, clay. I made over 4,000 ceramic pieces in Vallauris. Come shape something with your hands. The clay doesn't care about your reputation.