Optimise your vocabulary for maximal lexicon synergy

It was four o’clock in the afternoon and Derek was facilitating his process environment. He validated his competency, taking care not to leverage his parameters to an un-optimal degree, then took ownership of the resultant paradigm. Gina knocked on his open door.

‘Derek?’ He looked up.

‘Yes?’

‘I was just wondering,’ she said, ‘have you facilitated the strategic execution of mission-crucial validation opportunities today?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In addition, I intend to empower myself to refocus those efforts going forward.’

‘Good, just checking.’ She utilised her wrist-based resource to take stock of available man-hours. ‘Nearly quitting time,’ she disseminated in a teamwork-focused office-wide verbal memo.

A Peaceful Bedroom

I did a mini-makeover on our bedroom a couple of nights ago. After reading about bedroom feng shui I was itching to change things around a little and have a good clean. Here’s what I did:

- Moved the bed here and there (so I could get under it), and vacuumed just about every loop of carpet in the room, and the corners and edges. That always ‘feels’ nice afterwards.
- Moved some containers of books which were behind the door to another room.
- Removed a few things from under the bed so there are now three containers at the foot end (containing hair dryer and GHDs etc, scarves and bags).
- Pinned up a canopy of natural coloured fabric above our bed.
- Put away the browsing/boudoir books that were stacked on my bedside table. Now only my current reading book is there. My browsing books are all on our main book shelf in the living room.

Our bedroom is pretty much as I want it, given the constraints of the room and the fact we live in a rental property. I’m so thankful the entire house is painted a soft off-white, including the ceilings and beams. It gives a very fresh look so we have a good blank canvas.

Anyone who knows even a tiny bit about feng shui knows beams are not good news, and especially beams above the bed. We also have a slanted ceiling on two sides in both bedrooms. Slanted ceilings and beams are not good separately let alone together.

The slanted ceilings 'press' down on you as you sleep and the beams ‘chop’ into you. I decided to create a canopy over our bed which still doesn’t make the situation ideal, but helps out somewhat.

I may have a look at getting some white, filmy, cotton muslin instead if it doesn't cost too much. I think this would look lovely and airy draped across most of the width of the ceiling. I could almost pretend I was India Hicks living her idyllic island life.

Being the shrewish wife that I am, I made my husband drag home the stepladder from work and then found I could achieve what I wanted to by standing on the bed. Thankfully he stowed the stepladder in our car the next morning without saying a word.

With excess possessions removed, a good spring-cleaning and the billowy canopy our bedroom feels new and fresh, and like the retreat from the world that it should be.

Creative Tension and Sharing Our Work--Is It Time or Is It Premature?

A reader from Minnesota sent me a good question.  She'd taken my two-day book writing workshop at the Loft Literary Center in July, and I talked about the value of writers' groups, how they help support the book-writing journey.  She wanted to know more about that.

"I'd like to continue working on my book on my own," she emailed me, "and I still have a lot of 'islands' to write. You talked a little bit about writers groups and I was wondering how one goes about choosing/ finding a group? I haven't been involved in such a group since
composition class in college. Does it make sense to find people writing in the same (medical memoir) or different genres? I know the Loft has some groups posted on their web site, but I'm just not sure where I should/would fit in. The book is such an emotional topic for me too, that I think it would be important to find the right fit to share it. Any advice you have is greatly appreciated."

It's a very good search she's on.  It might take a while to find the right fit, but it's worth the time to look carefully.

Many of us have reached this point in our book-writing journey, where the "islands" (scenes) are accumulating, the manuscript is formed enough to benefit from kind feedback.  We long to hear how our words sound, whether they make sense to anyone outside our mind and heart.

But as the writer above noted, huge risk is attached to this step.  What if the feedback isn't kind? What if it doesn't inspire us to keep writing, but instead it leaks away any enthusiasm we have?

First Question:  Is Your Work Really Ready for Feedback?I've long been intrigued with something I call "creative tension." The best way I can describe it is this:

Everyone knows someone who can't keep a secret. Not because this person is bad, but because they just can't tolerate the inner tension of knowing something and being asked to keep it to themselves. They have to spill it, to someone, somewhere, and they feel intense relief at doing so.

Similar pressure builds as our book begins to cook. This inner tension is very much like a marvelous secret, something we know and feel excited about. ( Or not excited, depending on how the writing goes that day.) If the build-up gets too intense and our ability to handle this creative tension is pretty low, we spill the book.
We share our secret with anyone we can get close to for a few minutes. The tension dissipates.

That's, actually, not such a relief in book writing.  It's a big problem. Why?  Because it's quite hard to build back up the tension, to fuel the writing again. We can't figure it out; it just seems like that lovely momentum is now flat.  The precious secret is now not just our secret, it's the world's.

Worst case scenario: We choose poorly and the person we share our book with does not treat it well. It gets trashed; even without meaning to be, the feedback is deflating.

Most often, it's not actually the feedback that causes us to stop writing after prematurely sharing our work. It's the fact that all  creative tension is gone. There's no more steam to propel the creative engine forward.

I've done this more times than I can say, embarrassingly enough. I've shared my work with spouse and friend, stranger and coworker, and I've learned from many, many hard experiences when the writing's not really ready. From hardship, I've taught myself how long to hold the work inside, how much sharing is OK and still keeps the creative tension pumping.

Unfortunately, this isn't a skill taught in most writing classes. You learn it the hard way, as I did, or you may not keep writing.

After the skill of holding creative tension is developed, you can move forward quite fast on your project. An internal hum is always there, it lives inside you, and the people and places on your pages are part of you now. You know the work momentum isn't in danger of disappearing.

So the first question to ask is really this:  Is my work ready for air?

Writing Coaches, Writers' Groups, Writing Partners
If you think it is, then it's time to find the right support, the right method to help your writing reflect back to you, from someone else's objective eyes, what it really is saying.

Myself, I wait.  I've learned it's best not to share my raw writing, unrevised "islands" or chapters with anyone, not even my beloved spouse who is one of the most supportive human beings on the planet. I work it, I keep that steam building inside, I revise until I can't see the writing clearly anymore. When I know I'm ready to get someone to reflect back to me what the heck I'm saying, I go to my support sources.

I have worked with three different kinds of feedback mirrors. These are a writing coach, a writers' group, and a weekly writing partner. Each serves a different purpose at different stages of my manuscript. Each took many years  to develop.

Writing coaches are professional writers, a teacher you took a writing class with, an editor someone recommends. They have experience, they are published.  They are hired help, and they work with you one-to-one, in person or by email or postal mail, to help you grow.  Writing coaches can be hired for any kind of feedback you need. I've asked some to keep me moving forward on a project with weekly or bimonthly check-ins. I've worked with others to evaluate my manuscript and help me see what to work on next.  Rates vary.  Most range from $75 to $150 an hour, very worthwhile occasionally, or even regularly if you can afford it and need persistent support from someone well trained to give it.

Note:  Writing coaches should never deflate you, denigrate your work, or leave you feeling worse than before. They're paid to help, not hinder, your writing process.  Sometimes their feedback is pointed but it should never be unkind.  If it is, leave the relationship at once.

Writing partners are equal-exchange opportunities. You give her your chapter, she gives you her poems. You each read, you each comment. A fairly intimate creative relationship, where trust is built over time. I find my writing partners through writers groups and classes. I look for someone whose writing I admire, who gives me useful feedback, who opens doors with her insights. It's worth waiting for the right partnership, because if good, it can last for years.  Writing partners have been instrumental in many of my books.  Without them, I don't know if I would've finished and published as many.

Writing groups are the least risky option.  Some groups meet weekly, some monthly. some only by email. Some exchange work ahead of time, some read out loud during the meeting, some only work on writing exercises and share what comes in the moment. If you're considering a writers' group, ask yourself which type you think you need.

If your writing feels very tender, start very slow.  Look for a writing group that meets to do writing exercises from prompts. A great resource is the International Women's Writers Guild (www.iwwg.org), based in New York with branches everywhere. IWWG members gather for Kitchen Table conversations, low-key writers' groups where women write from exercise prompts and talk about their work. Membership is low cost; you get a list of Kitchen Table gatherings in your area. Try one out. They might give you just what you are needing.

Or visit a local writing school, a university English department, and scout postings for writers' groups. Many have bulletin boards that list these.  As my blog reader above mentioned, the Loft Literary Center's website (www.loft.org) offers groups galore.

Email the coordinator of a group that sounds interesting, and ask questions. Find out how people work together, whether they exchange writing or just write from exercises. Ask if you can sit in on a few meetings to see if it's a good fit for you. This should be welcome, as long as you are willing to not comment heartily on others' work until your own is up for comment as well.

Attend writing classes. Look for others with similar interests, whose way of giving feedback is both honest and helpful. Do their ideas open doors for you?  Do they seem willing to respect your lovely secret?

Learning to handle the creative tension with our own writing process, knowing when it's time to take the risk to bring that work out into the air for others to see, these are big steps in the process of becoming a writer. They lead to self-confidence in our own work. Self-confidence leads to willingness to risk more.

It's all a beautiful circle.

This Week's Writing Exercise
1. Spend some time with your writer's notebook or journal. Write honestly about your own ability to hold creative tension. When you spill your writing, why? Or is your tendency to hold it too tightly too long?

2. If you feel you're ready, take one small step toward researching some possibilities for writing coaches, writing partners, or writers' groups--whichever makes more sense to you right now.

Blunder into double entendres

Richard held his sausage out over the counter.

‘Do you want it or not?’ he ejaculated. The butcher’s shop was filling up now, the crew from the recently docked Navy vessel lining up for a taste of his meat. The young woman cocked her head.

‘I’m not sure...’ she said.

‘I’ve got it out now,’ he sighed. ‘If I don’t give it to you, I’ll just end up throwing it in the back passage.’ He waved a hand at the growing queue behind her. ‘As you can see, my shop’s full of seamen. I’m sure these guys are hungry for what I’ve got to offer.’

Countdown to 40

In a few months I will turn forty. I'm very happy to be going into the next decade. I feel like I'm already 'getting a good run at it' (as my husband says) with starting this blog and working out how 'chic' is defined in my life.

One thing that is still bothering me though, and which I've sat back and had a think about, is my figure. I stopped posting my Chic Eating updates as it was stressing me out. Saturdays came around very fast and what if that week hadn't been particularly noteworthy?

So I relaxed and thought to myself, how can I change this. Still no to Weight Watchers, it's too strict for me, but giving myself free rein is a recipe for disaster. I sat down a week ago and drew up some 'guidelines' for the way I want to live, to enable me to slim down slowly and quietly.

My guidelines are not a diet, and there are no quantities listed. Here they are (I've called them Countdown to 40, just for fun) -

Sunday to Thursday – alcohol-free nights
Friday night – Bubbly Friday (we've had Bubbly Friday for years)
Saturday night – snacks and drinks

- This means I've cut down drinks to two nights a week (from probably 5-7 nights, even one glass of wine each evening adds up to a lot of calories) and I only eat snacks one night a week. I've decided I would rather have some camembert and crackers than potato chips, but if I want potato chips that's fine too, only on Saturdays.

Salad with lunch every day
Vegetables with dinner every night

Protein at every meal, eg:
- Egg with breakfast
- Tuna with lunch
- Lean meat or fresh fish with dinner

One piece of fresh fruit every day

If I crave something sweet after a meal – 1-2 squares dark chocolate
If I crave savoury snacks, a small amount of rice crackers and cheese

Early nights – in bed by 9.30pm at the latest, preferably 9pm, to give plenty of boudoir time for reading and moisturising before lights out at 10pm.

Green tea first thing in the morning with blog time (6am)
Drink water all day

Two yoga classes per week
Three one hour walks per week (two included to and from yoga)

I have to say, having my guidelines has really helped me stay on track and have a balanced week with plenty of nutrition and good sleep. I started out by writing down what my perfect week would look like and added things as I thought of them.

I also like that they are not just about food, but incorporate lifestyle habits to aim for as well. I am still using my Chic Eating principles most of the time too (I can have anything I like as long as it is 'Chic' and 'Real').

If I ever feel like slacking off, maybe pouring a glass of wine on a Wednesday, I remember my Countdown to 40 list and I feel newly remotivated. I also have the Word document open on my laptop most of the time, so I see it whenever I'm on the computer.

Make use of the caps lock key

‘WELL THEN,’ HE SAID, TURNING OFF THE LIGHT, ‘SWEET DREAMS, LITTLE ONE.’

‘NIGHT NIGHT, DADDY,’ AMY MURMURED, ALREADY FALLING ASLEEP. HE PULLED THE DOOR HALF-CLOSED AND THEN STOOD FOR A MOMENT IN THE DIM LIGHT, JUST LISTENING TO HER BREATHE. EVERY DAY IS A GIFT, HE THOUGHT. EVERY DAY AND EVERY SILENT MOMENT OF THE NIGHTTIME. THEN, STEPPING LIGHTLY ACROSS THE HALLWAY, HE WENT TO HIS BED AND SLEPT THE SLEEP OF A HAPPY MAN.

Starting a Law Firm | Working for Friends and Family

A funny thing happens to all attorneys once they actually become attorneys, whether they choose to start a law firm or not - friends and family begin to ask you all sorts of legal questions from all sorts of different areas of law. You've got your buddy that got a traffic ticket, you've got a cousin that needs you to look at her lease. The list goes on and on - and I'm not saying this is bad by the way, just a fact - remember, I have family too :).

The question of the day is, what do you do with these questions?

I received a comment on this blog today from someone that wants to start a law firm. She had several concerns, which many people typically have, and then she left this at the end:

4. I do alot of legal work for my family and friends right now because I am out of work. I don't get paid because I don't feel comfortable charging people I know when I am unemployed and don't have a practice. Please give me some suggestions on how I should market and gain clients?

It was something I just couldn't pass up talking about.

I guess the easiest way to do this is to answer the question, and then explain why. Here you go -

the only free work I do for anyone is family. And even then, I strongly consider charging for it. And I don't typically give discounts to friends.

I know, I know, I'm cold hearted, I hate my friends, and I'm just trying to make some money off my friends. In fact, the opposite is true, and here's why.

1. Free work has little perceived value.

I get the idea of wanting something to do and jumping on the legal issues your friends and family members have. And I'm okay with that. It makes you feel like a lawyer, like you are doing something good, and it helps out a close friend or family member.

But here's the problem, when you do work for free, it's impossible for your friends and family to understand the level of value you are providing them. When you charge, they get it. And most importantly, they get it enough that when their friends have problems, they will remember that you are a lawyer (and that you do great work but you aren't cheap). You might not believe this is true, but trust me, it is.

2. Free work doesn't count as work when you are starting a law firm.

If you want to be busy, go down to the courthouse, tell people you'll work for free, and start signing people up. But if you want to make some money while helping people (which is sort of the point of starting a business), you've got to be making money for the work that you do. If you aren't, then you're doing yourself a disservice because you're working for well under your value and you are taking yourself away from other things that you should be doing (i.e. marketing to get paying clients).

I see this all the time in criminal defense. People are running around working their butts off for people that are probably never going to pay them. Until they look at their bank balances they feel like their business is really taking off. Bottom line, if you aren't getting paid, you don't have a successful law firm.

3. Family and friends can be a crutch that can hurt you in the long run.

This blends points one and two together, in a way. What I mean is, if your friends and family keep bringing you work and you keep doing it, for little or no pay, then not only does it make it hard to market to outside sources, it gives you a reason not to step out there and take some marketing chances. And you can't fail if you don't try, right? So you'll just keep languishing, wondering when business is going to pick up, when in fact you are doing it to yourself by leaning on your friends and family to make you feel like you're busy.

I know, I know, it's uncomfortable asking for money from friends and family for work that requires your expertise, knowledge, and will provide them with tremendous value. But if they aren't happy to pay after you've talked to them about what you can do for them, it's your fault not theirs. You haven't done a good enough job of letting them know why they should be more than happy to pay you for the work you are about to do for them. Here are a couple of starters.

First, they are going to get a level of service they won't find anywhere else. For example, you have a dentist? Ever try to get a hold of the dentist personally? Not easy to do. For your friends and family, they have your cell phone number at the ready. They have a level of access to their attorney, someone that is going to be helping them with a problem, that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Second, they have a level of trust with you that they won't have with any other attorney. Ask people what the number one concern is with hiring an attorney and it's whether or not the attorney is going to perform as advertised. With you, they know what they are getting, and as long as you don't make outrageous promises, they are going to rest easy knowing you are giving it everything you have.

Third, and finally, they are showing their support for you by investing their money in your services. What better sign of "this attorney is good and can be trusted" than when family and friends are paying you to help them?

Now, to back track just a bit. Here's the part where I say you don't have to charge everyone full price all the time. That just doesn't make any sense. But, if you're going to give a discount (you should only do something for free as a last resort - do it for free and if anything goes wrong your client is going to think you weren't giving your full effort because you weren't getting paid), make sure you spell out to the client what you would normally charge (printing it on the bill is a good way to do that). That way they will know what your services are worth.

In the end, starting a law firm is as much about running a business as it is being a lawyer. So you've got to start thinking about your law firm as a business, as something that helps you accomplish the goals you have in life. Bottom line, if your business isn't making money, it's not working for you the way it should be.

Beat around the bush

(With thanks to Dan DeWitt)

The doctor tapped his pen on his clipboard and coughed.

‘Well, Mr Wolfowitz,’ he said, ‘you suffer from a rare disorder known as Chronic Recurrent Meta-Synodic Genetic Reconfiguration.’

‘Okay,’ said Art, scratching the back of his hand. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Let me put it like this,’ the doctor said. ‘The episodes you have described experiencing and the associated symptoms – chronic restlessness, argyrophobia, sudden, unexplained hair growth, uncontrollable aggression – seem to occur on a regular cycle, do they not?’ Art nodded and flexed his toes, which suddenly felt very restricted inside his shoes.

‘What’s your point?’ he said.

‘That cycle is, broadly speaking, monthly, is it not?’ said the doctor.

‘Yeah. So?’ Now his ears itched. He scratched at them.

‘And the episodes only occur at night, is that correct? When the moon is visible?’

‘Look,’ snarled Art. ‘What are you getting at?’ He was feeling irritable and, all of a sudden, hungry.

‘The truth is, Mr Wolfowitz,’ the doctor sighed, ‘very little is known about Chronic Recurrent Meta-Synodic Genetic Reconfiguration. I’d like to keep you in overnight for tests. You can sleep here, in this flimsily-built cage, just underneath the skylight.’

Dilemma in Three Acts--Story Arcs and the Big W

Almost the end of August, and the leaves are starting to change color here in New England.  I'm getting my teaching notes together for my new classes in September.  This year my classes are both virtual (online) and in person.  Both have me thinking about story arcs again.

August was a writing month for me.  I've been working on finishing my book about book-writing, Your Book Starts Here, which will be available later this year, and on editing the final act of my novel-in-progress, Breathing Room.  

Both books are built with the three-act structure of story arc that I teach in my workshops and classes.  I call it the big W.  It's a system that's
been around for a long time, this classic story structure, even promoted by Aristotle himself as being the best way to bring emotional catharsis to an audience.

Classic three-act story arcs are based on beginning, middle, and end sequence.  It works because that's the way real life works, or so said Aristotle. Past posts give more details on this three-act story structure (look at April 3 and June 12, 2010, in the archives of this blog, using the lists on the left column or the search button above, right column).

I recommend revisiting this three-act system often because it will help you doublecheck the strength of your book’s dilemma by looking at its “rising” and “falling” action.

Rising and falling action is best understood with the big W. Imagine a giant W.

                               W


Act 1 is the first leg of this W, the line that starts at the top left corner and goes down to the first juncture. Notice it's a line that falls. So in your book's first act, something needs to happen. Something that brings up a question or a quest, to trigger the falling action at the beginning of the book, to set up the need to read on to find out more.

Simple, yes?

Just think of this triggering event as a question or a quest, and make sure it begins right away, within the first few pages if possible. It's the falling action that moves along the first leg of the W.

The Hero's Journey and the Big W
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, a classic definition of mythic structure in storytelling, says that the first part of a story is where the hero faces the initial crisis (the triggering event) that propels him into action and things tangle soon after.

In Act 1, dilemma must continue to escalate—otherwise, why would we read on? Knowing this, you need to study your storyboard’s Act 1 for sufficient obstacles that enhance your book’s dilemma. A great example is the fairytale. The opening chapters always set a hero on a quest. But very soon the hero learns that the quest is much more dangerous or more difficult than imagined. This is the falling action, and it accelerates the momentum, eventually driving the story into Act 2.

It’s important to carefully choose your scenes and snippets (I'll call them "islands" below, after a term coined by Kenneth Atchity in his book A Writer's Time) when writing Act 1. No one sits around drinking coffee and thinking great thoughts during a falling action. There’s no time. Things are speeding up. The falling action of Act 1 is very much like a rollercoaster taking its first big swoop downward.

So when you look at your story arc, first doublecheck the triggering event, the beginning of Act 1’s falling action.

Ask yourself, Is the dilemma presented immediately and clearly? Is it big enough to propel the entire book? Remember that a triggering event should be an externalized action without which the story would not happen.

Your second place to check for sufficient dilemma is at the end of Act 1, the bottom of the W. Sometimes called the “first turning point,” this is where something changes. Things literally bottom out. From the triggering event which started this journey, we reach, at the bottom of the W, a point of no return. The tension has increased but now there’s a bit of a pause to assess what to do next.

Act 2 contains the next two legs of the W, a rising action that cranks the rollercoaster up a steeper slope (feel the tension building!), a tiny pause, then another falling action that drops us to the second turning point, the second bottom leg of the W.

Often the first chapters of Act 2 contain hope—so you need to choose “islands” that show a new level of understanding, or a new clue, or a new friend. We take time to regroup and gather strength.

But soon the action changes, things get worse again and tension builds. New complications take us to the end of Act 2, the second turning point, where we encounter a crisis of greater magnitude than any other moment in the story. Things really fall apart now. The tension is intense, with a sense that there’s no way out.

Look again at your storyboard to see if you have these turning points in place. Does your peak of the W show a change from hope to complication? Consider the “islands” you’ve chosen for the peak of Act 2. The dramatic action should change now from hopeful (rising) to oh-no! (falling).

If these “islands” are not located in the exact center of Act 2, that’s perfectly fine. The W doesn’t have to be symmetrical. One leg can be longer or shorter—each book’s story will determine that. But make sure you have some peak in your W, some change to show things getting more complicated as we slide down to the second turning point.

Does the second turning point in Act 2 contain the worst moment in the book? If not, then think about ways you can show the dilemma worsening. What complications can you add to heighten the tension? Make sure what you are revealing feels much more complicated than at the first turning point.

Wrapping Up the Book--Act 3
Act 3 is what my weekly classes at Hudson Valley Writers' Center will be focusing on this semester. The week of September 20, when we gather for the first time, we're going to look at the final leg of the big W and how our books' story arcs move us into Act 3.

Notice the W again in your imagination--the last leg is an upward movement, which means simply that another rising action is taking us to the end of the book. Most books have some new revelation or realization or discovery at the end of their storylines. In nonfiction, it might be the new understanding of what's been discussed through the book--a recap of sorts. In memoir, something is realized by the narrator, hopefully, despite the trials and traumas of the previous two acts. In fiction there is often a final crisis in Act 3, a final battle that’s propelled by the second turning point.

So whether something unexpected is revealed, a new level of understanding brought to light, make sure the dilemmas of your book is resolved or if not resolved, at least talked about why it's not resolved.

Act 3 is a big exhale of tension, and it usually delivers a new level of clarity about the story or subject. This is where your characters realize how much they have grown, and how overcoming all those dilemmas earned them their insights, also called “earned outcome.”

What's that? some writers wonder.  I did too, when I first heard the term.  In my classes we're going to explore this, but basically it's tracing back through your three acts to make sure everything you present in the final pages of your book makes sense, because you've set it up to be anticipated.

In August I checked back through my storyboard for "earned outcome" as I worked steadily through Act 3 of my two books-in-progress.

In the novel I could immediately see that the ending crisis was not "earned" enough, so I built in some new scenes to make it more logical. In my nonfiction book, I traced back from the end of Act 3, through the final chapters, to make sure the material I was concluding with was also "earned."

Not all writers like this big W theory of story structure, but it has been a lifesaver for me. It's helped me produce and publish so many books, that I can't imagine not having it in my back pocket for times like these, when I am needing to check my creative flow against something solid and structural.

This Week's Writing Exercise
This exercise is from my forthcoming book, Your Book Starts Here. It's called "Raising the Stakes" and it shows you a few very cool ways to increase dilemma in your story. Try it this week and post your comments here, if you wish. I'm always happy to hear how these exercises worked for you.

1.Choose a character or narrator in your book who feels distant, too safe, even bland. Take a look at these two lists of questions.

EXTERNAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What do you like or dislike about your looks?
How do you feel about your age?
What five things are in your refrigerator?
What are your favorite shoes? Why?
What is your least favorite article of clothing?
What sort of work do you do? How do you feel about it?
What’s a favorite possession that you’d never let go of?
What’s your favorite music? When do you listen to it?

INTERNAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Who or what in your life first broke your heart?
What do people who know you think of you?
What or whom would you eliminate from your life?
What do you wish never happened to you?
What’s a secret you hide?
What is so painful you can’t let it go?
What makes you so happy you can hardly bear it?

2.Pick three questions from each list. Write down how the character or narrator might answer these questions. If you are writing about someone real, research the answers so they are accurate and true to life.

3. Do any of the answers give you a new insight on possible (and as yet unrevealed) conflict? Maybe you are suddenly aware of a desire or longing that person hasn’t mentioned before.

4. Freewrite for twenty minutes about how this new understanding could increase the conflict in that person’s story.

Look for answers that contradict each other: this is gold for writing dilemma. For instance, if one of your characters says he has no pain in his life, no one who ever broke his heart, but in the same breath talks about a woman who once told him he wasn’t very smart, go deeper. Two answers that challenge each other hint at something unresolved.

Upcoming Classes
If you'd like to take a workshop on this story arc system, please consider joining one of my classes.  This fall I am teaching a one-day workshop at Grub Street in Boston on Sunday, September 12; a six-week class on Act 3 at Hudson Valley Writers' Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY (near Tarrytown), on Wednesday mornings starting September 22; a two-day workshop at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis on Friday and Saturday, November 12 and 13; and a two-day workshop at Southern New Hampshire University through the New Hampshire Writers' Project on November 6-7.  Classes fill fast, so please contact the school of your choice, if you're interested, and register soon.  Names of schools above will link you to the right page of their website for more information and registration details.  Hope to see you there!

Boudoir Time

Anne Barone of the fabulous Chic & Slim book series mentions that chic French women take regular ‘boudoir time’. This means withdrawing to their boudoir to take stock, recharge, have quiet time alone.

My version of boudoir time is to go up to our bedroom after dinner but before bedtime. The bed is made and tidy, with pillows and cushions arranged in a pleasing way. All laundry is in the hamper, clothes are hung up and put away.

I turn the bedside lamps on so there is a soft glow rather than the overhead light and spend 30-60 minutes or even longer reading. Often on my stomach or on my side laid out across the whole bed with either an old Victoria magazine (the French issues please) or some printed out French Chic group/blog posts bound in a clear-file folder.

A glass of water or herbal tea is on the bedside table. Sometimes I will have a facial mask on, sometimes not, just a freshly washed face with night cream sinking in.

This time is a very relaxing prelude to drifting off to sleep.

Refuse to take the hint

Dear all,

Just a quick reminder – if you’re in or around London on Wednesday evening, I’ll be performing a show based on this blog at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44-46 Pollard Row E2 6NB at 7:30pm. The script is just about written now and it includes a shocking amount of new material as well as some of the funnier posts from here. If you approach me and tell me that you’re “off of the internet” then I might buy you a drink.*

All the best,

Joel

*Offer only valid in the event of the gig going well, me having the right change in my pocket and you being sufficiently complimentary about my performance. Terms and conditions apply.

The Importantance of a Shopping List

I had another style revelation. That’s two in one week! All my reading must be sinking in. But it’s not enough to read about it apparently, I marinate it in my head and then the lightbulb eventually goes on and I think I’ve thought of it first.

My ‘problem’ is this (and if that’s my biggest problem in life I’m doing OK). I walk into a clothing store, there are hundreds if not thousands of garments everywhere, and I become overwhelmed. The colours, the styles, the choice of pieces... I don’t know where to start, end up browsing the sale rack, buy something identical to what I already own and go home.

Or buy no clothing and purchase a candle or some hand-cream because it’s easy, I always use them and I can never have too many (they are consumable). So now I have a hand-cream ban until I use up the ten tubes and pots I have.

Yesterday in the city I visited our lovely, old yet modern department store and because they are having their half-yearly sale it seems nearly everything is 50% off. I stared at the sea of racks with their big red sale signs, couldn’t think where to start then turned and walked away.

I couldn’t face going through all those hangers. It would have taken me hours (and I only had about thirty minutes before I wanted to head back to work). And then there is all the trying on. And do I really need anything anyway?

On my way out, after spraying myself with Estee Lauder Pleasures and putting on some organic Rose handcream (one must always make the most of walking through a department store) I understood what I have been told before. I need to know what I am looking for before I go shopping.

It’s no different to grocery shopping. Imaging going into a big, bright, busy supermarket with no clue what you need. You would be overwhelmed by the huge array of goods on offer. With a list, it’s easy.

I remembered I heard this advice from Trinny and Susannah when they toured here last year. Their main rules for shopping are: Make a list of what you want to get before you go out shopping. Look in your wardrobe and make a list. Work out your budget. Work out how much money you have. Think ‘what is it I can never find in my wardrobe that I need’.

All I can really think of now that I would like is a crisp white shirt, very tailored with French cuffs perhaps. One that fits me correctly across the shoulders and doesn’t pull across the bust.

And I also am wondering if white is the best colour for me. Even though I love the look, it can be too harsh for my colouring. Winter white is better for me but who ever heard of a crisp winter white shirt? Then I wondered if perhaps I could do pinstripes instead of plain white: white/cream, white/grey or white/pale blue.

I want to go to a specialist shirt/suit tailoring shop for this, and I am saving the money for it. This is the type of thing you don’t find in an end of season sale.

Once I realised/remembered the shopping list thing, I felt quite relieved. I don’t need to wade through all the clothes in all the stores in all the suburbs. I feel calm, and in control. Exhale.

Write outside your comfort zone

Dr Henry Billingsworth was a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and all-round renaissance man. In the course of his long career, he had held sub-atomic particles in the palm of his hand, excavated lava from the centre of the Earth and invented a whole new mathematical function which supplemented the old-fashioned plus, minus, multiply and divide to create a unheard-of fifth way of doing sums. At present, he was absorbed in his new experiment – observing evolution in fruit flies.

‘Look,’ he said to his assistant, pointing to one of the flies. ‘That one’s evolving. Just round the legs, at the back. Can you see that?’ His assistant nodded and made a note. Billingsworth grabbed the notepad from him. ‘You’ve got to make notes more quickly – look, it just evolved again and you nearly missed it.’

Sometimes Billingsworth thought he should just fire all his assistants and take care of everything himself, but there was simply too much work to be done. After all, if he spent all night in the lab, when would he find time to attend to his personal project, translating the novels of Shakespeare?

The Two-Colour Rule

After reading about the ‘two colour rule’ last month, I have limited myself to two colours in outfits recently. Of course I have more than two colours in my wardrobe, but to only wear two in one outfit.

Because one of my main wardrobe staples is blue jeans, one of those two colours has to be navy, or grey-blue.

Even though I have some favourite three-colour combos (grey/denim/tan accessories, grey/denim/black), I have to admit I did feel quite chic in the two-colour ones I tried lately. ‘Elegant restraint’ as was said in the book excerpt in my How to be Wealthy post.

I wore jeans with a navy v-neck RL fine cotton knit top and beige high heels and a beige trench-coat (which I would like to add that I bought at Galaries Lafayette in Paris, just to show off). Accessories-wise I wore a chunky gold necklace and a beige/tan/gold bag.

Another time in the two-colour clothing diary I wore jeans, black heeled boots and a grey-blue v-neck cotton/silk jersey. You may notice a pattern forming. Actually my second example wasn’t two colours I’ve just realised. I also wore a classic Burberry print silk scarf I bought in Thailand (faux Burberry, real silk).

My other wardrobe staple for everyday wear is beige pants. I have cotton drill ones and dressier ones in a sort of floppy/thick viscose/linen mix. This gives me a break from having to choose blue as one of my two colours.

In the French inspiration post some of us were discussing how the two-colour rule works as it seemed a bit limiting. I even asked my French beauty therapist about it but she hadn’t heard of it. She did say French women are more classic in their dress than New Zealand women though.

I then had a thought that the two-colour rule could apply to clothing items only. Accessories which include scarves, belts and shoes are not included (within reason).

This made me think of The Vivienne Files on the French Chic yahoo group. She had a limited colour palette in her wardrobe of black, white, grey and red but added interest and colour with her collection of brightly coloured scarves (in tones to suit her complexion). Et voila, I think I’ve cracked it.

When I think about my wardrobe (and also my dream wardrobe), I will mostly wear only two colours in my clothing, but maybe twist it a little with shoes or a scarf.

This has given me new focus on wardrobe planning. I’m going through my clothing at the moment with The Vivienne Files at my side, well actually my whole Personal Style folder of articles and posts.

If you aren’t a member of the French Chic yahoo group, go join and have a look in the files section – La Mode – The Vivienne Files. It’s free to join and if you’re reading this blog I’m sure you’ll enjoy the French Chic group. If anyone would like me to email the Vivienne Files document to them I’m happy to do that – email me: howtobechic at gmail dot com.

Use quotation marks for no apparent reason

(With thanks to this “Blog.”)

The sun was just “setting” when I arrived home. The smell of “bread” and the sound of “laughter” drifted across the field. Already, the stresses of the day seemed like a “distant memory.” I ran the last few yards, then rapped my fist against the “door” and stepped into the kitchen.

‘I’m home,’ I said, partly to myself and partly to “Susan.” She turned to look at me, a “smile” lighting up her “face.”

‘You were gone so long,’ she said, giving me a “hug.” ‘I was getting “worried.” Where were you?’

‘“Nowhere,”’ I said. ‘“Nowhere” at all.’ I glanced over her shoulder. ‘Are you “baking?”’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I’m really “glad” you’re home.’

Starting a Law Firm | The Most Important Lesson

Today I had lunch with a guy who was thinking about starting a law firm. He hadn't even started law school yet, but he was sure that he wanted to do his own thing when he got done. So I sat down with him over lunch and we talked about what it takes to start a successful law firm. And it was interesting where the discussion went, leading me to a bit of a light bulb moment that made me run to the computer and start writing this post. Are you ready?

To have a successful law firm you must have a keen business mentality.

By the way, I didn't intentionally write that huge revelation to be so murky and hard to understand, it just came out that way. And I'm too lazy to change it. So I'll just explain what I mean.

When I began talking about this guy one of the first questions he asked me was "what is the most important thing to know when starting a law firm?" I immediately told him to always remember that getting clients is the ultimate goal (now before you get to snarky let me explain). That if you are the best attorney in the world but have no clients you'll be a failure.

He said "okay" and then we started talking about what kind of firm he wanted to open. And in that instant I knew he hadn't really understood what I was saying. We talked it out and I think he got it, but the bottom line is this - a law firm is a business. If you aren't thinking like a businessman at all times when making decisions you are going to at best tread water and at worst lose ground to your competition.

And here's where most people mess up when they are starting a law firm. They fantasize about what it's going to be like to be a big time lawyer making a bunch of money doing the work that they love, like it's going to be all roses and stuff like that. Here's the truth of the matter - you've got to hustle your ass off to have a successful law firm. You've got to spend a large amount of every waking day doing things to make your business better.

I was driving in the car from court today and I was thinking about the lunch I had and I was trying to figure out how to say this in a way that everyone can understand. And this is the best that I could come up with: don't create your law firm because you want to practice law, create your law firm because you want to have a successful business. If I want to be just a great lawyer I can go do that anywhere. I opened my law firm because I want to do two things - I want to create a business in the mold I envision, and I want to make a boat load of money. Practicing law and the firm, while a part of each other, are not the same thing.

And don't take that to mean I don't treat my clients well. It's actually the opposite. I provide the best service in the state in all likelihood. I answer my own phones, I attend all my court hearings, and I have systems in place to make sure my clients and my former clients know how much I appreciate them. But in the end it's all part of a larger plan to create a successful business. Let me put it to you this way, you think Nordstroms takes back anything as a return because they like you? It's great for you, but it's also great for them.

Now, back to the talk. After a little while I learned this guy had already owned and operated a successful business in the past, and that he was trying to find something to do in his industry that he could start a business in. The reason he chose law was because he thought (as we all do before we become lawyers) that once you get that license people just line up to give you money. He liked what he did at his last job but the funding fell through and he was let go (it was a government position). And here's what thinking like a business person gets you.

I asked him what I thought was the best next question - "they still need that work right? Do they farm it out to private contractors?" He said the work still needed to be done, and that the few people they still had on staff could not keep up with the work. So, (and I know you all already know what the next question is) I asked him the next obvious question - "why aren't you that guy they are contracting with?" He couldn't answer that question, but I hope he explores that idea.

Here's the god's honest truth for all of you. I love being a lawyer. I love getting up in court and arguing. But I like business better. A lot better. And just like I told my new friend, I'm going to tell you. My plan's not to just start this firm, be successful, and rest on my laurels. In a couple of years my law firm will run like a well oiled machine. And then I'll start another business, build it up, and then start another. I don't know about you, but my goal isn't to work 10 hours a day for the rest of my life, it's to golf every day and spend the rest of my time managing my businesses.

I've got a couple of other things I'd like to talk about, but I think we're going to explore some of this a little bit more in upcoming posts. You can't just start a law firm and expect people to show up. It just doesn't work like that. So I'm going to pose a couple of questions to you and let you start to mull them over. Once you answer them, assuming you still want to start a law firm, you'll have a thousand times higher chance of success.

See you soon.

Chic Mentors

Adding to my list of chic mentors which I profiled here, may I present you with two new ones.

Firstly meet Janey, a customer of our shop whom I’ve met a couple of times in the past years, but have had quite a lot to do with in the last few weeks.

Janey is an interior designer (but a real one with a passion for design, not a rich wife one with a put-on posh accent. You can just tell). She is in her early fifties and part of her look is Converse All-Stars. From that you would think she tries to dress young (as Adrienne covered wonderfully recently). But no, she wears gorgeous, sophisticated clothing, mostly pants, with quietly expensive looking tops and often a chic coat or jacket. She wears long, fine-knit scarves too, looped casually around her neck with the ends down.

A while back she asked me to let her know when we received any Converse in brown, olive or green shades. Here in New Zealand we don’t get the huge range of colours that are always available in the US. Our tiny population is less than the size of one city in a bigger country, so this is why.

We received in some ‘vintage brown’ All Stars which even had subtle cream rubber/laces compared with the bright white of most other colours. I thought these would be just her style, so I emailed Janey to say some had arrived in store. She said she would call in at some stage to take a look at them (a bit non-committal, and that’s fine, it was months since she had left a note in our customer book) and I thought nothing more of it.

I remember thinking how picky and difficult she was when she first came into our shop. Not because she was unpleasant though. I now realise she was being selective, a la Vivienne of ‘The Vivienne Files’ fame at the French Chic yahoo group. None of the approximately 20-30 colours of All Stars were good enough for her, and that’s when she asked me to let her know if we ever got any in earth tones in.

She came in to see the brown ones one night last week. It was ten minutes before we closed and a rainy, dark night. She had battled the traffic to get to us and when I went to get her size to try on, it was the only size we didn’t have. I didn’t want to go back out to the shop to face her! I had totally wasted her time and I felt terrible. Even worse, when I checked the Converse stock list it seemed there were none left in her size in the country.

She couldn’t have been nicer about it and said she would come another time. The next morning I found out that we did in fact have a couple of pairs in her size, in an overflow stock area. I emailed her again and told her about my faux pas. She really was so gracious and kind when it was her being mucked around, that it inspired me to be more that way.

She came in this week, same time, ten minutes before closing. She comes in after work finishes for the day and not on weekends as it seems she leaves the city on Thursday night for her home in the country and returns to the city on Monday. Doesn’t that sound lovely? She may well be, but she doesn’t give off the aura of being mega-rich. With her appearance and her demeanour she more whispers ‘I choose my ideal life and live it the best way I can with the resources I have’. I could be wrong, she may totally be a millionaire though, you just can't tell (which I think is rather nice).

What I am most inspired about by this latest chic mentor, apart from the fact of her calm and gentle understanding is the way she comports herself. She is fun in a soft way, she keeps a slight distance but is very personable. I can’t imagine anyone blabbing away in her yoga class. And if they did she might not even notice.

Her personal style is great too. Working in the interior design industry she clearly has an eye for colour, and she carries this through to the clothing she wears. She doesn’t just buy what’s available at the time, even if she needs something, she will wait until just the right thing comes along.

Her clothing style was quite classic in a casually sophisticated way. And of course she was slender. I definitely don’t see her watching 2½ Men with a bag of potato chips in her hand. She would likely forget to nibble at all before dinner and maybe sip on half a glass of wine or sparkling mineral water.

My second new chic mentor is a man – bet you didn’t expect that. His name is Niko and he’s a sales representative who has been visiting us with various shoe ranges since our shop opened almost six years ago.

I know you’re probably thinking ‘does this girl meet anyone that isn’t a sales rep or a customer?’ Maybe, or maybe not. We do work a lot at the moment, so I tend to see more people who are customers or suppliers. I don’t have a lot of time to join sports clubs or organisations. To tell you the truth I’m not a big team/group person anyway, even if I had all the time in the world.

But onto Niko. As I said he’s a sales rep. He is very Italian-looking and comes from an Italian family but I believe he was born here in New Zealand. He certainly has a New Zealand accent rather than an Italian one.

I met he and his wife a while back out of work at a dinner hosted by friends who also own a shoe shop. His wife brought along the biggest and most lush salad I had ever seen and I heard them both talking to people about enjoying healthy food. As a comparison one of the other wives, who is solidly overweight and quite a negative and manipulative person brought along a killer cheesecake - and declared she couldn't eat it as it was too rich for her. I remember thinking I know which one I want to be like!

Recently Niko was in our store showing us his shoe samples. It was a Friday and he popped next door to buy himself some lunch. He bought a vegetarian sub sandwich and a fruit smoothie and, when finished, patted his stomach and said ‘aah, that will keep me going until dinner-time’ (no snacking then, I thought to myself).

Niko is probably in his early 50s and he is very slim – no sign of a paunch on this man. He is also very well dressed in a Euro way. Always quite casual, he’s not in suits when he visits us. The other day he wore slim/straight fitting jeans but in a washed-out burnt ochre colour, with tan slip-on dress shoes and a black long-sleeve t-shirt (which had a charcoal/mid-grey t-shirt underneath, you could see a tiny bit of it at the neck).

He’s not trying to dress particularly young, but he certainly looks youthful and European, in an age-appropriate way. He’s a lot of fun, tells a great story and would be loyal and trustworthy too. He told us he is working a few days here and there at our friends’ shoe store to both give them a break and earn some extra money.

At one stage he was saying to my husband how he and his wife chose to live the European way, following his family heritage from the old country. Sadly I was in the shop at the time or I would have (subtly) picked his brains.

When I said to my husband Niko must live a nice life, he said straight away ‘he isn’t rich at all’. I already knew he had been let down by some people he worked with and this affected him financially. Regardless he always carries on, finding new shoe brands to show, and now being a part-time retail assistant for some extra spending money. I admire that about him. And through it all he’s always positive, cheery and upbeat.

From listening to him talk he is the ‘work to live’ type, rather than ‘live to work’, but with that, gives his all to whatever job he’s doing at the time. When he was packing up to leave our shop, his wife called to ask him to pick up some fresh oysters on his way home. He said they planned to ‘watch a couple of indie (art house) movies with a bottle of wine and some oysters’. I thought that sounded like a very stylish evening.

Underestimate your audience

Michael walked into his office and sat down on the divan, which is a kind of chair. He ran his hands through his hair – something that people tend to do when they are stressed or worried – and cursed under his breath. That presentation had been his one chance to impress the board, which is a name for a group of people who make decisions about important things. He had stayed up all night planning, but somehow it had all fallen apart (which is a metaphor* meaning that the presentation hadn’t gone well).

The worst case scenario was that he would be fired. This meant that he would lose his job and wouldn’t get paid money to go to work any more. And that would mean a change of lifestyle – no Ferrari, no Armani suits and, worst of all, no more blow. “Blow” was the name Michael called the drug cocaine, which is white powdery stuff that he liked to put up his nose.

* A metaphor is when you describe something as if it was something else, like a presentation “falling apart” as if it was a physical thing.

Writing with Images or Writing with Words? Learn the Difference in Effect on Your Reader

One spring I took a month-long writing retreat. I went to a beautiful lake at the edge of the mountains and stayed by myself in a comfortable cabin. I was excited about all this time I had to write. I brought a pile of “stuck” writing to work on—I had a novel in a final draft, ready for revision.

On warm days I set my writing desk on the cabin’s wrap-around porch. From there, I had a great view of the lake, the blue sky. Birds skimmed the small garden, looking for bugs. Cedars swayed in the wind off the mountains.

I plugged in my laptop using a super-long extension cord. I waited. Nothing. Too quiet, I thought. I packed laptop and files into my car, took off for the nearest town. In a cafe, I had a good lunch. I got out my laptop. Nothing. At a library, I set up my laptop again. Still nothing moved forward with my writing.

After a week of this, I phoned a writing buddy. “I am in writer’s paradise,” I told her, “and I can’t write.”

“Probably too full of words,” she said.

Wasn’t a writer supposed to be full of words? I wondered.

That night, I dreamed of a candy jar crammed with candy, but its mouth was so narrow, it was impossible to get any candy out. When I woke up, I knew the only way to help myself was to write anything that came into my head until the crammed-in words began to come out. My “important” writing—my novel crying for attention—went back in my writing bag. I sat on that porch and did one writing exercise a day, awful stuff with no purpose but to empty the brain of words. I wrote pages about the smell of cedar trees in sun, about frenetic birds hovering over a garden, about the mountains’ beauty.

I bore with these clichés for an entire month. I was about to go out of my mind, but I trusted the prescription given to me in my dream.

It took the whole month to clear the creative channel. By the time I packed up to go home, I was empty of words and full of images. In fact, by the end of the month fresh images began to drift into the freewrite I did each day. Unique images, at last, and with them came original ideas. It was my voice coming through.

A writer friend once said, “Practicing the language of images—and trusting that image is where emotion lies—is what has brought my writing to a deeper, more effective level.” It wasn’t until I got home to my writing desk that I saw how true this was. Suddenly, a new character in my novel was following me around in my inner worlds. The cleared space let her come out. I realized she was the missing ingredient in my novel. I played with images that told me about her. By fall, the novel was revised.

Finding a Key Image
Sometimes a key image is all it takes to slide into your true voice. One image I discovered during that month of bad writing wouldn’t quit my brain or heart. I’d witnessed a certain dance of reflected light on the ceiling; I even tried to draw it in my writer’s notebook. Since my novel was about a family of painters obsessed with light, this single, unique image reconnected me with their fascination with art. And it reconnected me to my voice.

For another writer, it might be a line of geese traveling overhead as she stood in a winter-raw garden, remembering that geese were also traveling the day her mother died. For a third, the image of the sweet curve of a lover’s lips, before a first kiss at the Iowa State Fair, the air scented with cotton candy and roasted corn.

Joan started working with me, thinking she had a finished manuscript. She had a very interesting story about time travel, with strong characters, but Joan found she needed to “get far deeper into the emotional, sensory underpinnings of the story.” Working most particularly on “the language of image,” she said, “telling the story through the sensory detail that gave it emotional depth,” helped Joan tie the scenes and action to the basic theme of her book. “It gave the book greater range and power. It made it sing.”

Images come through the right brain. The right brain is not logical or rational; it just perceives without judgment. But most adults have been conditioned to use the more logical, reasoning left brain. To prefer words over simple images.

Words are of course necessary to the book writer. But as I experienced, we depend on their logic and reason too much. We need to re-learn how to access images.

Showing and telling come from different sides of the brain. Words are a product of the left side of the brain, while images come from the right side of the brain. If words “tell,” images are the “show” of writing.
Why? Because images communicate viscerally to a reader, with immediacy. They drop the reader right into the “room” of your story. As the writer captures an emotion and finds a key image for it, the reader perceives the emotion via the image directly. No telling or interpretation required.

But it requires you, the writer, to also be present in that “room” of your story. It requires you to enter your writing as you would a vivid dream.

If this sounds odd, think of how someone might go about trying to recall a dream after waking up in the morning to an alarm clock in her ear. Immediately the day’s agenda enters the mind, wiping out the images of the dream fairly quickly. People trained in dream recall say it’s easiest to counteract this immediate left-brain activation if you can hold on to a key image about the dream and keep it in your mind while you find paper and pen to jot it down. Do this before the logical part of the brain engages and you may well recall more of the dream.

That’s why dream experts advise that we don’t try to remember the entire dream, just write down the one image. Stained-glass window. Cactus in sunlight. Waterfall and clouds.

Later, the image will trigger the rest of the dream, like a hologram holds the greater picture in a small space.

This Week's Exercise
1. Pay attention to your dreams this week. See if you can capture one small image right on waking. Write it down, if you can--even if it makes zero sense.

2. After a few days, choose one of these dream images as a writing prompt. Copy it to the top of a clean page and set a kitchen timer for 20 minutes. Write whatever comes.

3. See if this image-based writing has taught you anything about the difference between writing with images and writing with words.

Avoiding overeating

I had the house to myself last night. My husband went out to a fund-raising quiz night with a group of his friends and the evening was all about me, me, me. In the past I have looked forward to such an evening as a ‘treat night’ where I would think about what I wanted to make myself for dinner and also plan what crap I was going to eat as well.

I would cruise the aisles of the supermarket shopping in preparation for the evening. There would be hard jubes, popcorn, chocolate and ice-cream (any or all of). So foul I know, and I would feel disgusting afterwards. Just how is this a treat Fifi? Yesterday afternoon as I was thinking of going out food shopping, I thought about the French Chic life.

I pictured myself reading the posts I have printed out off the French Chic yahoo group and being chic and slender ideal-French-girl Sabine rather than a piglet on a sofa with junque food. Just imagining myself reading my inspiring French Chic ‘book’ was all it took to change my mindset from ‘treat night’ to ‘French Chic night’.

All I bought at the supermarket was a piece of salmon and some milk.

I made myself the Jo Dinner as I call it. My mum Jo eats salmon and stir-fried vegetables five nights a week, she would probably have it seven if she didn’t spend two nights staying overnight at her job in a private girls school. People often compliment her on her complexion. I think it’s all that salmon like Mr Perricone says, along with a consistent skincare regime of course.

My stir-fry vegetables last night were carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, garlic, capsicum, celery, mushrooms and green beans, in lemon infused olive oil since I was having fish. I’ve run into trouble before when making stir-fry for the two of us when all the different vegetables add up and I end up with a wok overflowing with goodness. It’s not really the best start to the meal when your husband says ‘this is getting ridiculous’ in a good-humoured way (and he’s a big eater).

Is it possible to binge on vegetables I wonder? After a stir-fry I always have a ready-made lunch for the next day. Last night was no exception, I still made twice what I needed even though I only used ½ a carrot, a few florets of broccoli, three or four beans, three mushrooms etc. Those veges really play up in a wok and expand.

In the background while I was cooking played the latest Buddha Bar XII cd – it is so me – the inner leaflet has French imagery including the Eiffel Tower, and CD 1 in the set is called La Vie En Rose. I almost swooned when I realised all this. It’s not dissimilar to the other Buddha Bar cds but I like that. It’s new, but familiar.

Before dinner I had a glass of chardonnay with cheese and crackers. I already had some Laughing Cow cheese which I had read so much about on the French Chic yahoo group. It is very delicious spread on crackers but I noticed it was made in Poland. That’s a bit worrying, a French-brand cheese made in a nearby low-income country. It makes me think of problems with food made in China.

I could be totally wrong, it could be made in Poland because they have such high-quality milk from happy (laughing) cows. But normally these decisions come down to money. As nice as the Laughing Cow cheese tasted, the fact of where it’s made, and also that it’s processed, I don’t think I’ll be buying it again.

Later on I watched an episode of The Starter Wife. One of the characters attends AA and she reminded a character leaving rehab about ‘one day at a time’. I thought to myself that would be a good credo for anything you wanted to achieve in life, whether it is overspending, overeating, living the French Chic life.

It’s hard to imagine you doing (or not doing) something for the rest of your life and that scares you into going back to how you were before. If I say I can never have a mini-pigout again, I would likely fixate on that. By saying ‘just get through this day’ eating healthfully and in reasonable proportions, well, this is much more achievable.

Let your characters explain themselves

Penny stared down at the police interview table.

‘I’m embarrassed and quite scared,’ she said. The policeman nodded.

‘I’m aware of that,’ he said. ‘However, I’m not above using your fragile emotional state to get the information I need. You see, despite sympathising with you and, to be entirely honest, being quite attracted to you, I am very good at my job.’

‘I’ve noticed that you’re attracted to me,’ said Penny, looking up and half-smiling. He looked away hurriedly.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m nowhere near as subtle as I think I am.’

‘Now I’m wondering how I can use this to my advantage,’ she said. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally do, but this is a stressful situation and there’s room for these kind of surprises in the way that I’ve been characterised.’ Just then, the door burst open.

‘Right!’ shouted the slightly higher-ranking policeman, storming into the room. ‘I’m here to break the tension and to alter the pace of the scene, which seems to have stalled somewhat.’

Desiderata

No matter how many times I read the Desiderata I never tire of it. It has such relevance, even today (especially today - our modern world would do well to just. slow. down).

Wikipedia has some pretty interesting things to say about its history (mistaken and actual).

Its words have such power. They slow my heart-rate in a relaxing way and all my muscles untense. My brain changes into a lower gear and my mindset shifts.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Lovely. A daily read I think, would be medicine for my head.

Write in a modern, accessible way

Step by painful step, we approached the altar at the heart of the temple. Sunlight was falling in a shaft from a hole in the cave ceiling far above, bathing the rough stone plinth in golden light.

‘OMG,’ muttered Hubert, reverentially. I turned and motioned for him to be silent. I gave no credence to villagers’ tales of The Old Ones, but there was no knowing who – or what – lurked in the temple’s shadows. If we were being watched, as I felt we were, it was not merely for teh lulz.

‘BRB,’ I whispered, edging towards the altar. The air seemed to tighten around me. There was a time when I would have LOLed at those who shrank in fear from this place, dismissing them as noobs or worse, but now I was here, the possibility of powers ancient, terrible and 1337 beyond comprehension felt all too real. I stopped and raised my head, looking to the shaft of light far above.

‘im in ur temple, stealin ur relix,’ I whispered.

Handling unpleasant people

When I first started attending a local yoga class a month-and-a-half ago, I went once a week. I have been enjoying it so much that I decided to double my attendance rate to two classes per week. I also decided to purchase a concession card rather than just paying casual rates.

I went to my additional class yesterday morning. It is at the same place, with the same teacher (she is so good – a perfect mix of being gentle, firm, and fun, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the physical body and yoga). The only thing that is different are the people. I have gotten to know the faces of the folk in my Thursday class, but the Tuesday class are not the same faces. That’s fine, I don’t go to chat. There is a nice atmosphere but everyone is there to do their own yoga workout. Perfect.

Just as Stephanie is working on dealing with awful workmates, so I found myself yesterday morning at my new yoga class with some unpleasant and attention-seeking class attendees. Because there were only about eight of us at the most it was particularly noticeable. One of the women thought she had the right to disturb everyone else’s peace by saying such stupid things out loud as ‘this is excruciatingly painful’ and ‘oh it feels like my fingers might snap off’.

Sure most of the other people including me were probably thinking these things, but we didn’t feel self-important enough to decide that the others wanted to hear about it. She first drew attention to herself near the start of the class when she declared to the teacher ‘last time we did this pose you told me to do it differently as I couldn’t feel anything’ and then later on as the teacher walked around tweaking our poses ‘don’t stop doing that, it feels great’. It seems she treats the group class like a private lesson.

Now, unlike Stephanie, I don’t have to spend five days a week with this person (and her friends who giggled and laughed at her proclamations), but I pay a not-unreasonable amount to attend this class and enjoy the peace and quiet of a small group of people all with the same goal of bettering their physiques in a relaxing and gentle way.

I sincerely hope she doesn’t come to this class too often. And if she does then I suppose I’ll have to work on ignoring her. When I was walking back to work I saw her and her two friends heading into a cafe no doubt to call out inane observations loudly. At least the noise of the coffee machine would drown them out. No such luck in a quiet yoga class.

I thought to myself ‘that figures’ when I saw who one of the friends was. She was a late arrival to the class. We are asked to come five minutes early to get set up with our mats and props so we are relaxed and can start on time.

Last week I arrived dot on time (stressfully so, not a great start to the class) – I grabbed everything I needed and made as little disruption as possible. Not this one yesterday, she complained in a loud whisper (so we could all share) about her two children being sick, she was half-sick herself, and on and on. Meanwhile the whole class waited.

I remember a similar type (they’re scattered around carelessly everywhere unfortunately) who used to attend the same Weight Watchers meeting as me. She came along every week with a friend or two and would loudly claim she wasn’t losing weight and that Weight Watchers didn’t work, and asked how could you tell the size of a medium apple. When told it was as big as would reasonably fit in her hand, she snorted and said ‘I can fit a bloody big apple in my hand, so it must still be a medium-sized one’.

Yeah love, it’s a large apple that’s making you fat, not the giant bag of M&Ms you went on about eating last week. Do such people realise how tiresome they are? It’s a shame I have wasted mental energy on remembering this woman, and it must have been about twelve years ago if not more.

I have been wondering what Sabine, my ideal French girl would do in the yoga situation. I was quite shocked at the main loudmouth’s rudeness yesterday, and I admit I did give her a small ‘look’ at one stage. My plan will be to ignore her (these people love any kind of attention, good or bad) and focus on my own thoughts as well as the teacher’s voice.

Sometimes I find myself listening to a person’s cellphone conversation and just because you can hear it, your brain starts thinking about it. So tuning out her boorish honk is my goal.

That was always my mother’s advice about annoying people at school – ‘just ignore them and they’ll go away’. Here’s hoping.

Thank you for listening.

Revision--How Do You See Your Own Writing from a Different Viewpoint?

Writers who lock onto one picture of their books, holding it fast, being unwilling to adjust as they receive new insights, rarely publish. Their books stay limited in the limited vision of early drafts.

Revising happens. It must, before publishing. So "re-visioning" requires looking anew, looking deeper, with a different viewpoint. The reader's viewpoint. What will the reader make of the words you've chosen, the images you're painting?


Even though you believe you have a good understanding of your book by the time all the scenes are written and assembled into a draft, to the reader it may still be an incomplete jigsaw puzzle and they don't hold the cover image in their hands, as you do in your mind. For the reader, a final picture is still waiting to be revealed. Will you allow that picture to come forward? Will you attempt revision?

Feedback Mirrors What's Needed Next
How ironic that in many artistic processes that viewers can often see our truest expression way before we can. I've had this happen so many times, I can't even remember all of the embarrassments. I rarely have the detached view I need when I come into revising a story, a poem, an article, a book manuscript. So I use my sources for trusted feedback, to allow me to consider, then possibly adopt, a new vision.

Ever have this happen? It's a wonderful thing when it does: You're talking with one of those trusted folks about your new piece and you mention your confusion as to what it's really about. Or you say what you think it's about, and the friend says, "To me, it's about this." And she goes on to give you an overview that you would've killed for months ago when you were in the midst of struggle. So simple, you couldn't see it. You were looking too close.

That's what revision is about. Standing back, getting a different view, a better look at what you've created. Know that it's not about your skill as a writer or lack thereof. Many well-published writers can’t see their books clearly when going into revision.

It's still a bit annoying, a bit shame-producing, a bit unpleasant at that first moment when you see what isn't yet right. So it helps me to have this attitude: I look at revision as a process of chipping away what is not really my book’s true story. I recall that very likable main character in the movie Karate Kid, who kept polishing the car and painting the fence because his teacher said he'd learn something from it. Usually in revision I'm blind to what I'm learning from reworking my writing. But I know if I plod along, changing what I can see, listening to my good feedback partner, I'll come up with a much better book.

In the Fall 2003 issue of the Amherst Writers and Artists Newsletter, writer Bridget Bufford compares the early stages of a writing project, when the draft is there but not yet revised, to quilting squares, cut to shape but not yet assembled in a refined pattern. “Pretty, but not functional,” she says. It is only during revision, Bufford writes, that the writer can begin assembling the squares into a continuous piece.

It’s not until revision that “the writings become a narrative; my ‘squares’ begin to look like a quilt,” as Bufford says.

Revision and the Inner Critic
Why does revision make so many writers so uneasy? It's not just the embarrassment of not being perfect the first time around, I believe. I think it's because we sometimes have this false belief that the tale is intact, from God's mouth to our pen, and revision will only mess it up. Something vital could be lost.

But this is wording from the Inner Critic, that self-censoring part of ourselves that keeps the gate and tries to prevent us from risking more depth. Revision causes the Inner Critic to really sharpen its tools. Again, I've adopted a useful attitude that helps me keep the Inner Critic from stopping my revision process. I remind myself that as I brought my story through the narrow funnel of the creative brain, the Inner Critic was already active, filtering out some of the most colorful bits. I have the complete picture still in my own mind, but it hasn't actually appeared in my book yet.

Revision is where I notice what the Inner Critic omitted. I can return these missing pieces to their rightful place on the page.

And this is as it should be. The planning and initial draft are not where we get the writing perfect. These stages are designed to help us capture the golden idea, to sketch it out via "islands" of writing that are not yet continents. Now you’ll ask your story, “What else do I remember about that experience? What else might that character believe?”

Revision also creates a manageable way to let the beautiful shadows emerge, the filtered-out images and memories we (or the Critic) deemed too much for the writing. Most readers want to hear about the struggle as well as the goal achieved. Through polishing your writing, you shine light into dark places, make them visible. Writing with conscious revision becomes a way of healing ourselves as well as telling the whole story.

I've grown to love revision. It's actually my favorite part of writing now, after so many years of making friends with it. Polishing lets the shine come out, brings the music in.

In a well-revised piece, there’s a sense of multiple parts in an orchestra finally playing together. They create a sound larger than any individual part ever could.

This Week's Writing Exercise
1. Choose a short piece of writing that's ready for revising.

2. Before you begin, write a short note to the Inner Critic. Ask it what it's protecting you from, as you begin to re-vision a draft of your chapter, an "island," a scene from your book.

2. Listen to what it says. Do you get a sense of what might need working on? What's being held back?

3. Now read the writing out loud to yourself, yellow highlighter in hand. Make a small mark in the margin whenever you sense something is missing, too much is being said, or a new viewpoint is needed.

4. When you're finished, make a list of these places. Begin with questions. Ask yourself what might be needed in each of these sections. Let yourself muse over it, rather than be intense or focused. This helps to relax the Inner Critic and let the truth emerge.