Breaking Generational Cycles to Achieve Success

It's not uncommon for people to believe that they are defined by their circumstances and their familial history. We accept the handcuffs created by others in how they choose to define us. But we have a super-power: the ability to choose a different path, to break the cycle and define ourselves on our own terms.

As discussed in his autobiography Becoming Superman, Straczynski endured an early life of abuse, poverty, constant moves, and a family life based on alcoholism and violence. This taught him the ways in which we can step out on a belief in ourselves, that says "I do not have to be what I was exposed to..I can fight the monster without becoming the monster..I can choose a better life for myself."

The session will be part lecture, and part direct interaction with attendees to find ways that will allow them to break the cycles holding them back and become stronger and more independent.

Becoming a Writer: Breaking Through the Walls

For his entire career, Straczynski has been a fierce advocate for encouraging and guiding new writers, and giving them the tools to succeed. Some of these tools involve technique, while others are about shaping the mind behind the writing: letting go of limitations, shedding writer's block, confronting and overcoming the fear of failure, and how to create a path forward that will allow those with talent the opportunity to become working writers.

The session will be part lecture, part question-and-answer with attendees in order to assure that the needs of the audience are being met.

The Necessity of Hope

Throughout his long career, there is one thread that runs through nearly everything Straczynski has ever written: the transformational power of hope, as individuals, as communities, and as a country. It's easy to look at the dystopian events going on around us and lose hope, lose optimism, lose faith. The prospect of hope and cooperation and the idea of a better world has become corny, or minimized, lost amid the latest crisis on the evening news.

The task of the writer is to point to the future, to the horizon, and tell readers and audiences that there is still that future, that hope before us. The lecture is designed to energize, to free, to give attendees a sense that they can achieve happiness despite whatever the world chooses to throw at us. Having himself survived a terrifying personal history, Straczynski uses personal examples as a base for a broader perspective on the ways in which we can achieve true happiness.