Are You Your Own Worst Creative Enemy??!!

What does creativity mean to you?

How do you express your creativity?

What limiting beliefs do you have about yourself as a creative woman/man?

Which of these limiting beliefs are you ready to let go?

Which seem impossible to let go?

Close you eyes and ask for an image of what your life would look like if you let go of all your limiting beliefs??

The Five Ingredients of the Scene In Novel Writing, Short Story Writing and Memoir

1. Point of View
2. Dialogue
3. Dramatic tension/Action
4. Mood
5. Flashback

1. Point of view or who's story are you telling... POV puts you inside your main character's head, heart and gut -- you are seeing the world through the eyes of your character.

2. Dialogue is one of the fastest ways into character and allows characters other than your POV character to reveal who they are. Letting the dialogue "roll" often offers up unexpected "what happens next?" and other surprises. Dialogue is a great way to show tension. Glance through at a novel. Most novels are anywhere between fifty and eighty percent dialogue. Think you can't write dialogue. You can. I promise. Why am I so sure? You talk, don't you? You can write dialogue. I've never worked with anyone who can't write dialogue, only with people who think they can't.

3. Dramatic Tension/Action. You can't have a story without dramatic tension. There are many different ways to create dramatic tension, which can come from something outside the character or something internal.

4. Mood, some people call this description. Thinking mood instead of description is better because mood is character driven. How does your character see a scene? In other words, what the character sees is more important than what you as the writer want to describe.

5. Flashback is a scene from the past that informs the present and tells the reader something important about the character. Once you are in the flashback, you are once again in scene. All of the above applies.

Visit Emily's Website: www.thefictionwritersjourney.com for more great information on writing, her coaching and workshops!

Who Is Writing Your Stories?

Who is writing your stories? How intimately do you know that part of you?
Do you trust yourself to write in total freedom or are you afraid of exposing
yourself? To whom? Mother? Father? Child? God? Self?

Have you met any new parts of yourself on your writing journey?
Do you delight in these parts? Take them on a walk? Out for coffee, tea, wine or a beer? You might be surprised...

Sound nutty?
Ask yourself how far you will go in letting your imagination guide you.
The imagination is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets!

"We are all guilty of crime the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What those powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring."

--Henry Miller

Truth in Story Telling....

Do you think your life is too dull, normal and ordinary to be the makings of a good story.
Not true!
Scratch any person and you will find a fascinating story.
One of the main problems with using our own life stories is that we get stuck in the so-called "Truth".

What is truth when it comes to memory?
In fact, different people's view of the same situation makes fascinating storytelling.

Here's an exercise:
Take an incident from your life, or make up an incident. It doesn't matter.
Give it juice by making it an argument or fight.
Write it first from one character's point of view.
Then when that is written, put the story aside and begin all over. But this time write the story from the other character's point of view. It will be totally different story and tell you a lot about motivation.

This is a great exerciser and a big eye opener.
If you want to see a movie that uses this premise superbly, watch Kurawasa's masterpiece, Rashomon. It is an amazing movie in so many ways. If you think you don't understand the technique of point of view or want to see it in action, watch the movie.

When the writing flows....

What does it mean to be fully present?

I see how completely I am entrapped in my mind.
How cleverly my mind weaves its ego needs and concerns into
my journey into presence, which is also the place I want to
be with my writing. To write, simply what flows. Trusting my
Inner Writer, trusting she leads me to my truth.

Eckhart Tolle said you can't get there, get to presence,
you can only be there.

How I long to be there.
Simply be. Knowing I am.
Who is the I am?
I get it, I lose it, I get it, I lose it.
I lose it.
I yearn for it, hunger for it.

Who is the I am?
I think she is quite wonderful and at peace.