<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Chapter Eight]]></title><description><![CDATA[Creative writing workshops & storytelling courses in Cape Town. Rediscover yourself through story, creativity, and voice.]]></description><link>https://www.chaptereight.co.za/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:05:22 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.chaptereight.co.za/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[The Stories We Tell Ourselves]]></title><description><![CDATA[Personal Growth We are all, constantly, in the middle of a story. The question is: who is writing it? Long before I became a professional writer, I was a person with a narrative. A story I'd inherited, absorbed, constructed — about who I was, what I was capable of, what I deserved. Most of us are carrying stories like this without realising it. They live in the body as much as the mind. In the writing workshops I facilitate, I see it happen again and again. Someone picks up a pen to write...]]></description><link>https://www.chaptereight.co.za/post/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bbbc72cc44ec1fb38ca024</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:07:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f9513d_1e1a12ed37a74eb9a243cfa1ea56b5af~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_864,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Curtis Lotter</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Nobody Tells You About the Writers' Room]]></title><description><![CDATA[Behind the Scenes The first time I sat in a professional television writers' room, I was convinced I'd made a terrible mistake. Nobody tells you that the writers' room is loud. That people talk over each other, circle back, contradict themselves, laugh at ideas that don't work and then use them anyway. Nobody tells you that silence in a room full of writers feels different from silence anywhere else — heavier, more charged, more alive with the possibility of what might come next. I'd imagined...]]></description><link>https://www.chaptereight.co.za/post/what-nobody-tells-you-about-the-writers-room</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bbb9d71c9edf30004ae323</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:01:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f9513d_a8a0552197e6425d92ac09de4d37ad1a~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_955,h_764,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Curtis Lotter</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The page is never empty.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Creative Writing There is a moment, just before you begin, when everything feels impossible. The cursor blinks. The page is white. And your mind — which was full of ideas ten minutes ago — has gone completely quiet. This is the moment most people call "writer's block." I call it something else. I call it the threshold. The blank page is not asking you to be brilliant. It is not demanding your best work, your most polished sentence, your deepest insight. It is simply offering you a space. What...]]></description><link>https://www.chaptereight.co.za/post/the-blank-page-is-not-your-enemy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bbb4491c9edf30004acef3</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:36:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f9513d_af368131140b4a2999ce9d5868dd8415~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_640,h_533,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Curtis Lotter</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>