Dancing into the Light in 2025 💃⭐🕺

I said goodbye to a very dear elder of mine over the holidays. My Great Aunt Elaine passed away peacefully on Christmas Day. She was 96 years old and, up until ten days prior, when she had a stroke, she'd still been living independently and hosting parties, including cooking a Thanksgiving turkey for her friends last month. One of the last meals we cooked together, when I visited in November, was lobster tails sautéed in butter and lemon and paired with blanched asparagus. 

Elaine was an amazing woman right up to the end, an inspiration to me and countless others.

She was a dancer most of her life, as well as a nationally recognized choreographer and teacher. She opened a ballet school, created three dance companies, and designed the dance program for the University of Toledo. She was creative through and through. 

Vivacious, fierce, funny, persistent, wild, and curious, her take on modern dance drew on spirituality, anthropology, pop culture, and the human potential movement. She loved and encouraged everyone she met, though she didn't suffer fools gladly.

She moved through life with grace and determination. She died that way too.

I will be unravelling her legacy over the coming year(s). I am determined to honor her memory by living her lessons. Her life was movement, and she moved through the world moving others with her wisdom and passion for all life had to offer. She believed in the human being in all its fullness. And I intend to dance into the new year carrying her light.

This past week I've had to call many people to tell them she's gone, and several have responded to my news with spontaneous sobbing. She had that kind of impact on others. They felt her love. The light of her body may have gone out, but each of us touched by her carries it within and can choose to let her spirit burn brightly through our own hearts.

My great aunt lived a full, creative life. And though this note to you on this last day of the year isn't so much about writing, it is about celebrating how a life devoted to creativity is a life of love of your chosen practice and of loving everyone and everything you come into contact with.

If you have en elder in your life who inspires you, spend time with them. If they're gone already, call on their spirit to be an ancestor. And become such a person if you can. Pass on the light of your love and creativity to as many people as you can. Share your gifts as often and as freely as you can.

As we enter this new year, more light and love will be called for. Each of you holds a bright, creative spark in your hearts. Let it burn with a passion. Let it guide your way.

Love your coffee (or tea) AND your life! ☕

Do you love your morning coffee or tea? Do you anticipate it, revel in, feel nourished and sustained by it as you begin your day?

I think our attachments to our small rituals in the morning are symbolic of our attachment to our deep love of life. It’s hard to contain such a big love, so we hold onto it and express it in smaller ways. Ultimately, it’s this love of life that must be our anchor as we live though our strange modern times.

Most people feel overwhelmed by—even afraid of— the 21st century’s “unprecedented” changes in technology, politics, and climate. With recent profound and disturbing leaps in AI technology and extreme climate disasters, not to mention rising racism and misogyny, it’s more than understandable. Some of us are asking, “Where is the love?”

Every generation makes the mistake of thinking their existential challenges are somehow new and different—unprecedented. But go back and read articles or listen to talks from the 60s (I’ve been listening to Alan Watts’ talks lately) or the early 80s (ie, Joseph Campbell interviews), or the 20s or 30s, or writings from the mid to late 1800s (Henry David Thoreau, anyone?), and you’ll find thoughtful speakers and writers saying the same sorts of things we’re saying: We are living in unprecedented times; Technology is changing so fast and making us so anxious; We’re longing for something calmer, softer, or more peaceful.

It’s sobering to realize every generation feels this. “But this is different!” we all say. “Never has XYZ happened!”

While the specific challenges of each generation are indeed different, the fact that each generation faces challenges is not. The specifics matter, of course. Our generation must take up our responsibilities to address extreme climate changes and leaps in emerging AI technology, and we must do our part to rein in racism and sexism. Future generations will have to take up their responsibilities, which will be impacted by what we do—or don’t do—now. Because we all inherit the actions—or non-actions—of the past, and that results in the specific content we have to deal with.

We can torture ourselves with the what ifs about the past: What if we’d done more to protect the environment in the 70s and 80s? Where might we be now? What if Oppenheimer hadn’t invent the atomic bomb in the 40s? What if XYZ?… 

Or we can rise to the challenges of the what ifs about the future: What if we don’t stop using fossil fuels? What if we do? What if we don’t regulate and humanize AI tech? What if we do?  What if we don’t impose limits on cruelty based on sex and skin color? What if we do?

The fact is: If the specifics of the past had been different, then the specifics of the present would be too. So, the details do matter, because what we choose to do now results in the specifics others will have to deal with later. And we should all care about that and align our actions to our values as best we can to manifest better visions of the future. Existential challenges will persist, but we can do our small parts right now to affect the scope and content of those challenges.

Starting with your morning coffee or tea…

Use this doorway of small pleasures in your life to reconnect with the great unfathomable love you have for life in all its wonder and complexity. When you find yourself asking: Where is the love? Recognize it’s in each one of us. Right here. Right now. Stay connected to that love when you ask your “what if” questions.

See yourself as part of a greater whole making your difference in some small way. Align with love from your first sip in the morning until your head hits your pillow each night. Trust you have a role to play in the the much larger scheme of existential reality.

And remember: as a specific element in your time and place you matter. So make something—of your life and your art—that you believe will make the world a slightly better place for others now and in the future (including yourself).

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

~ Mary Oliver ~

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." 

~ Margaret Mead~

Flexibility & Fortitude 👊✌️

Persistence and perseverance come up a lot when it comes to writing and creativity, but lately I'm considering the word “fortitude,” which means having courage in the face of adversity. It points to a state of mental and emotional strength that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage--the root of which is coeur, meaning “heart” in French.

Strength of heart. Strength of mind. We need these right now.

Every generation faces some form of social, political, and existential turmoil. And we’re deep in our own present-day version of that. A phase for the history books for sure, but, meanwhile, we’re living the reality of it day-to-day. And that takes fortitude.

The word is rooted in the Latin, fortitudo, from fortis, which gives us the French word for strong (fort), which the English and others borrowed for physical structures like fortresses and forts, also known as strongholds.

But we also need flexibility, which is from the Latin, flexibilis, from flexus, meaning “to cause to go in a different direction, bend, curve.” We need to be willing to adapt, to bend or curve in response to changing conditions. The tree that bends in the wind can do so because of strong roots.

In times of chaos, confusion, or strife, the impulse might be to build a protective wall around us and pull up the drawbridge to keep danger out. But this doesn’t work in the long run.

As turmoil spreads, where can we turn? What can we rely on? Firstly, ourselves—we need to clean up our own acts to be of use to anyone else. Secondly, each other—because we don’t live in a vacuum, and we can’t survive as if we’re islands unto ourselves.

We must build capacities within ourselves so that we can respectfully share rather than spill our fears, anger, and sadness on others. Such capacities can help us help others bear up, and in doing so, they might be there for us when we falter.

This being human isn’t a fixed state. It’s a constant flow of emotions and ever changing situations to react and respond to. Reaction can be knee-jerk, rooted in old, unhelpful patterns, but with some degree of fortitude, and flexibility, we can respond more thoughtfully, calmly, and with an awareness of a “bigger picture.” As events in the world appear to be unraveling, we are naturally triggered. So many people are behaving badly. Many others are suffering, often needlessly, and this is both painful to experience and also to witness. (Research has shown that observing others being bullied or abused creates stress and trauma in the observers, not just the victims.)

How do we respond to this? How do we first stand our own ground, and then, if we have some extra resources, how do we also stand up for others? We can’t run into action from an emotionally triggered reactive place. We’ll only add to the mess. Fortitude means responding to adversity with courage, which means heart is involved too. How can the heart lead us through our challenges?

A writer friend shared a Finnish word, sisu, which is like fortitude, but it adds extra, useful layers denoting strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. It also implies an ability to sustain one’s courage over time, a lifetime even.

Others have gone before us. Others artists had to contend with social and political turmoil in their times and relied on flexibility and fortitude to navigate their life and career challenges.

Frida Kahlo experienced a lot of physical pain as a young woman, but she painted nonetheless, moving fluidly between folk art and surrealism. James Baldwin faced racial and sexual discrimination and met these challenges with a sense of flexibility in genre choice and writing styles, using essays, novels, and plays to share his ideas. Toni Morrison turned experiences of racism and sexism into important stories about deep issues with heavy themes using a range of narrative styles. Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath suffered from mental health issues, and while they had untimely ends, they were expressive and experimental in the creative work they left behind, and this paved new paths for artists who came after them.

Each of those artists lived through some degree of social and political strife. And now here we are too, facing our own challenges. As we cultivate our own capacities for flexibility and fortitude, let’s ask ourselves: Will we use our creativity to build walls around ourselves or bridges between each other?

“Hardship, in forcing us to exercise greater patience and forbearance in daily life, actually makes us stronger and more robust. From the daily experience of hardship comes a greater capacity to accept difficulties without losing our sense of inner calm. Of course, I do not advocate seeking out hardship as a way of life, but merely wish to suggest that, if you relate to it constructively, it can bring greater inner strength and fortitude.” 

~ Dalai Lama ~

“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

An Appreciation for Lulls 🐛

September has been so full and rich with ideas and activities that I'm re-learning an appreciation for the "lull." 

But before I get to that, let me share with you that the retreat was a huge highlight of my year. Stowel Lake Farm was a wonderful location, and OMG--the food!! The participants were stellar, the conversations deep and rich, and the daily creative work poured forth steadily and productively. Everyone got a lot done, and there was still time for massages, yoga, and glasses of wine at the end of the day! I've included a few pictures below. (I had so much fun I think I want to do it again, so I'll keep you posted as those ideas unfold...)

My good friend Sabrina, from Hamburg, Germany, attended the retreat and stayed on to visit a while. This allowed us to take a side trip to visit a writer-friend, Kathryn, in Portland as well as offer a live webinar on a new and interesting topic that blended both our areas of expertise and gave us each a chance to explore new territory and expand our interests. We called the talk, "Stories to Live and Die For" (a recording is on youtube now) and it went so well we're going to delve into a second conversation on Sunday, November 3rd.

But first, a lull please. This strange yet soothing word dates back to Middle English and relates to the Latin, lallare, which means to sing to sleep, and the Swedish lulla, as in lullaby. Today we take it to mean a period of rest or soothing, or a period of reduced activity, or, nautically speaking, a period without waves or wind. I'm ready for a period like this. Time to read, think, write, reflect. I came across this quote by an 18th Century writer named Ann Radcliffe that captures my feeling: “When her life was discomposed…a book was the opiate that lulled it to repose.” (Interestingly, Radcliffe was a money making female writer in her time.)

In the writing world a "writing lull" is similar to a "writing block," and seen as negative, but I see the value in lulls, whether in the process of writing or within actual stories. Little lulls are needed to break up tension, integrate plot consequences, and give space for characters to grow believably. We may need to have more tension-relieving moments in life than in stories. Elmore Leonard cautioned us to, "Try to leave out all the parts readers skip." From a story perspective, I agree. But from a living perspective, lulls are needed.

I had been feeling inspired to focus this newsletter on the topic of writing and friendship, but I think I'll let Maria Popova's article on Henry Miller on Friendship and the Relationship Between Creativity and Community speak for me this time. Dig into this lovely meditation full of fun rabbit hole-links to wander through, or simply appreciate a personal "lull" by closing your eyes, taking a deep breath, and just letting things be.

“I must rest here a moment, even if all the orcs ever spawned are after us.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien ~

“That’s what you’re looking for as a writer when you’re working. You’re looking for your own freedom.” 

~ Philip Roth ~

Your Writing Vows 💍🖋️

My eldest daughter got married last weekend! 

In a moving ceremony I witnessed her and her fiancé, now husband, declare their vows to each other with heartfelt, life affirming words they intend to live by all their lives long. I teared up, felt my heart flutter, and breathed in the depth of their intentions.

Pledging your love and life to someone is potent, and it gives birth—figuratively and sometimes literally—to a third vital energy, something only those two joined forces can create.

The ceremony got me thinking of writing vows—not the act of writing vows but making vows to the writing itself. I’ve often suggested we think of our writing in terms of a friendly or romantic relationship, one we make time for, nurture, negotiate with, and trust thoroughly even when times get tough. A relationship we devote ourselves to. When a quality of devotion is present within artistic pursuits, the process is made more fulfilling than the product or outcome.

Have you ever made vows to your writing? Vows are different from promises, which depend on future fulfillment. Promises always come later. Vows take place in the here and now, they are expected to be embodied, to be lived out, “from this day forward.” A future is implied here as well, but the devotional action starts now.

Having one foot in and one foot out—whether in a human relationship or a writing one— seems to limit the depths of possibilities that arise from the gifts of commitment. What would it take for you to fully commit to your writing? Right here. Right now. Even by phrasing the question with what would it take or what will it take we’re naturally deferring to the future. Isn’t that interesting? But what if we didn’t defer or delay until some condition is met? What if the vow was now? Which vows can you offer your writing in this moment?

• I vow to cherish my urge to write.

• I vow to honor that urge by providing time and space, internally and externally, to write.

• I vow to honor and appreciate whatever I write, have written, or will write.

• I vow to write from a place of love and wisdom rather than fear and insecurity.

Many years ago, in the late 90s, Jan Phillips’ “Artist’s Creed,” which is included in her book, Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity, helped me to deepen my commitment to writing. Her list of beliefs moved me closer to taking up writing vows. The Creed begins with: “I believe I am worth the time it takes to create whatever I feel called to create.” The rest of it can be found and downloaded here.

Now, as I feel inspired to renew my writing vows, I’m also asking myself what my deepest writing urges are in the context of what I feel is most significant for me to have written before this life as “April" is done. These thoughts have led to a collaboration with fellow writer and “story nurse,” Sabrina Görlitz, on a free series of webinars we’re calling Stories to Live & Die For: Writing, Living, and Dying with Your Whole Heart .

I know that those of you reading this blog take your writing seriously enough, but today I ask you to strengthen your relationship with your writing by making a deeper commitment by creating your own writing vows. Allow yourself to express that unique vital energy that only you, joined with your writing process, can create.

“A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” 

~ Junot Diaz~

“Commitment is an act, not a word.”

~ Jean Paul Sartre ~

Community, Productivity, Renewal

Recently, someone asked me: “Why do you lead writing retreats?” One of the main reasons has to do with my belief in community building.

I believe in community spaces and community time. And I believe that when you devote time and space to communities, especially creative ones, several things are possible: individual and group productivity; individual and group healing; individual and group change.

At a retreat, there’s bound to be someone quite a bit like you. And there’s bound to be someone very different from you (as well as several someones in between). One or more of these people will become friends, others may be teachers, but in both instances you’re exposed to different people from different places and you can’t help but learn, grow, and change for the better a little or a lot.

Another reason for offering writing retreats has to do with how challenging writing itself can be. It isn’t easy but we think it should be. Being with others reminds us of this disconnect between the task of writing and how we feel about it, and it renews our resolve to rise to challenges, persist despite setbacks, and celebrate our own and each other’s successes.

Writers spend a lot of time alone and can get lost in their own self-deprecation and self-aggrandizement. Being with others reminds us that these inner polarities are based in our imaginations rather than in reality.

I’ve seen time and again how much more productive writers are when they’re working alongside each other in a “together alone” situation compared to when they’re totally on their own. Whether online or in person, a group of writers toiling in each other’s presence is noticeably more focused and productive. Positive group energy nurtures individual goals.

Another reason is that I know if I, personally, benefit from a change of scene to renew my perspective and enliven my creativity then others must too. A writing retreat isn’t as intense as a five country tour around Europe, or a family holiday afar, or attempting yet failing to find time to write on a business trip or a getaway with a spouse. A retreat offers dedicated time to write in a different, slightly unusual spot. You may have a garden at home, but you don’t have to weed the one at the retreat location. You may be a great cook and eat well, but on a retreat you get to eat delicious food lovingly prepared by others whose job it is to help you relax and focus on your creativity. You may not like to leave your own bed, but waking up in quiet comfort elsewhere will shake up your perceptions—and you’ll probably dream differently.

Writers depend so much on their imaginations for inspiration, but they sometimes forget that inspiration needs life experiences to nurture it too. A retreat is just enough of a different experience to stimulate the senses while also meeting the more quotidian needs of an imagination at work.

Writers benefit from forays into the world that don’t fully pull them off the path of creativity. Retreats provide the environments—physical, mental, emotional—that help writers recommit to their love of the act of writing and of their choice to be a writer in this strange, interesting world. A world that needs artists of all kinds, especially writers, to help make sense of it, celebrate it, and point out its sacredness.

“I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them — without a thought about publication — and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.”

~ Anne Tyler~

Gushing Fountain or Steady Stream? ⛲🖋️💦

We all create differently. At times, the muse inflames us and we rush to our laptops or notebooks and let the inspiration pour forth. Other times, we show up regularly, routinely, and work methodically. 

I know one writer who only writes while traveling, and since she knows this about herself, when she she has a project in mind she plans several trips and works intensely in spurts of several days of long hours. Her work gushes forth like a fountain turned on for a few days and then she returns to the business of her life. Meanwhile, the project keeps percolating in the background until her energy builds for her next trip dedicated to focusing on the writing project.

Another writer I know writes a little every day. He’s up early and tends to his writing projects first, before getting into his other business. His steady routine allows him to complete several writing projects every year.

What’s your proclivity? Do you like to work intensely for shorter stretches of time? Or do you prefer to have a regular daily routine? Are you a gushing fountain or a steady stream?

Our individual characters and ways of living makes us lean one way or the other, but particular projects may demand a certain way of working too. Some ideas gush out almost fully formed and demand an intensity of attention, while others need longer to gestate and steadily take shape; they may require less time daily but more time annually for the process of drafting, rewriting, and revising. Your personal character plus the particular project will affect your approach to getting the writing done.

Even so, I’ve found that most writers struggle in some way with the nature of the project and/or themselves. That old saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” plagues everyone sometimes and writers quite often. A gushing fountain writer longs to experience the steady stream’s regular, disciplined routine. A steady stream writer wants a taste of the fountain’s intensity and wild productivity.

It seems to be in writers’ natures to feel unsatisfied to some degree while working (and only somewhat satisfied after having worked--full satisfaction seems elusive and probably shouldn’t be sought).

While most of us can achieve a degree of satisfaction working as either fountains or streams, we are all capable of both ways of writing. So experiment with your flow sometimes. Mix things up. Give yourself opportunities to get away to write intensely a couple of times each year. Practice a regular writing habit for a few weeks or months at a time.

Figure out which way of working feels more energizing and satisfying for you. Sometimes it just takes changing things up temporarily to revitalize creative flow.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the tap is turned on.”

~ Louis L'Amour ~

“No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

~ Martha Graham~

🦶Every Writer Walks a Unique Path: Success, Envy, and Being Yourself

Most of us have a nasty habit of comparing ourselves to other writers and authors. Let’s stop. We each walk a unique path of creativity and fulfillment.

President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” That’s reason enough to curtail comparing, but another good reason is to avoid the risk of being drawn down the dark road of envy.

Envy is defined as: a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another’s possessions, qualities, or luck.

When you’ve been writing for a long time and still haven’t experienced the kind of success you’d hoped for, envy finds its way in.

Writers want to experience success in their vocations just like anyone else. In many fields, a desire for personal success is often connected to a belief that social recognition and increased status will make us more lovable and worthy of attention. But even deeper than this, perhaps unconscious, is a fundamental longing to be a part of something that matters.

For writers, this longing is usually activated by having read something that mattered to us when we were young. Something that changed us, that woke us up to the possibility that we could be creative too.

A desire to be successful at something that is personally meaningful seems reasonable enough to me. But the journey between realizing one’s desire to create and becoming a person— like a writer—who makes things to share with the world (and maybe even gets paid for it), can be a long one. On that long and winding road one feels many things, including admiration for those writers one strives to emulate. But over time admiration can twist into envy. When it does, try to learn from it.

If you envy an author’s success it usually means you also want such success, but it feels out of reach. Envy arises when what we long for feels too far away from our own reality. We tend to admire what we believe is still within reach.

The antidote to envy and comparison is to first lean into your individuality, to go back to your initial hopes and dreams and take stock.

What dreams do you have for your writer-self? What is the reality you perceive around you right now? How big is the gap between? And within that gap, how many steps would it take to get from reality to dream? How many of those are within your control?

Every single writer has their own row to hoe in the great garden of the creative writing world. No two lives are the same and no two voices are the same.

Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Douglas Adams, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, and James Joyce have little in common with each other—divided by time and taste and so much more—but they all share(d) a common commitment to the written word. They dreamed, drafted, revised, and submitted their work. And each possessed the kind of talent, tenacity, and luck that supported getting their work published and having it last.

Though I typed that list of writers randomly, on reflection I’ve learned something big or small from each of them at some point. I bet you have too.

We all need role models, but we cannot be them. We can only be ourselves—unabashedly, authentically, and unapologetically.

As we write, no doubt we’ll fall short of our envied and admired ideals, but we will allow something new to enter the world, something that can only come through our unique ways of seeing the world.

It makes no sense to compare ourselves to writers of the past, or even those in the present, except to acknowledge the common element that truly matters: a love for and commitment to the written word.

The writers of the past didn’t know if they would become known, successful, stand the test of time, or remain unknown forever, but they wrote anyway. Those of us writing now will be, in the future, the writers of the past. Known and unknown. That last bit is a gamble, and mostly out of our control, except for the foundational part: doing the actual writing in our inevitably unique ways.

“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

“Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

~ Natalie Goldberg ~

What Stories Are & Why We Need to Write Them ✍️

For the past five years I’ve been working on a book about writing stories that will be published later this year. In it, I’ve included what I think writers need to know to tell powerful, deep, resonant stories. I’ve organized the material around the five aspects of writing that story-makers need to master: Structure, Character, Theme, Plot, and Scenes.

Here’s why:

Structure contains and organizes the story, and its limits ("freedom within limits") contribute to all the other elements.

Character is the enlivening heart of any story, its main focus, and this main character is the guide, avatar, and/or projected pseudo-self through whom the reader gets to live and learn vicariously.

Theme infuses the story with meaning—a resonant message—that’s conveyed through the character’s interactions with plot situations (including other characters).

Plot is what the character does and doesn’t do in the face of inner and outer conflict generated by an inciting incident that sets up a story problem and a story question.

Scenes express all of the above through “showing” the character in action: dealing with conflict, expressing/repressing feelings, making choices under pressure, trying/failing/getting to achieve a story-worthy goal.

What is a story-worthy goal?

I once heard this clear-eyed yet unusual definition of happiness: Happiness consists of the overcoming of obstacles on the way to a goal of one’s own choosing. Swap out happiness for story and you’ve a pretty good definition for a story arc. In stories, characters are faced with situations and must choose a way to respond. Their ultimate, unconscious desire always relates to happiness—their version of it—so how they choose to respond to the story problems will include a specific, concrete goal that represents their version of happiness. As they head toward that goal, obstacles ensue. That’s storytelling in a nutshell (easier said than done, I know).

I’ve spent a lifetime figuring this stuff out through trial and error an study and it’s still hard. But so worth it. Because stories carry us away, in the best sense. They reveal, inform, inspire, and delight. They help make life bearable, manageable, acceptable, and, when their alchemy is right, they can contribute to change and evolution on a personal level and even a societal scale.

Stories can: heal, guide, expose, educate, enlighten, encourage, aid, direct, repel, activate, support, comfort, motivate, and so much more. They help us overcome the obstacles on the way to the goals of our own choosing.

Stories help us navigate our life situations. They help us grow and evolve in a life, and world, full of change. A human lifetime is finite, and the world goes on without us after we’ve gone; we’re all too aware of this. Many stories deal directly and indirectly with the ramifications of this existential awareness.

At some point, most of us encounter an internal question: is such a life, with its accompanying awareness, a gift or a curse? Your thoughts and beliefs about this will affect how you behave and the choices you make in your life. Writers usually take their worries and questions to the page, and this is how stories are conceived.

The book I've written isn’t a story itself, rather it’s about how to write stories. It’s the guidebook I wish I’d had thirty years ago. Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I wrote my book because I believe stories—especially in the forms of novels, screenplays, and memoirs—are the biggest magic we have as humans.

When my book comes out, I hope it will be a useful companion to help you write the stories you care about. But in the meantime, keep doing just that. Write what you want to read. Teach what you want to learn. Tell the stories you wish someone had once told you.

“Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle.”

~Robert Olen Butler ~

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

~ Joan Didion ~

Darkness, death, light, and life. 🌓 And writing.

At this time of year in the northern hemisphere, many of us who are welcoming spring and summer feel a sense of relief and expansion accompanying the extra light. I’ve been thinking about this response to the light and what we think of as its opposite: the dark.

In Nature, we observe birth, growth, decay, and death all around us, including in each other and ourselves. Nature reminds us we are each part of a great natural cycle that balances life with death and light with darkness. This cycle seems neutral, yet we humans have come to associate the light with life and the dark with death.

Darkness seems to be associated with death, at least emotionally, because it also represents mystery and the unknown, and we’re biologically wired to fear the unknown at first. But, if you think about it, life begins in darkness. Whether in the cocoon of the womb, the mycelium-laced soil below the earth’s surface, or the nether depths of the sea, darkness is home to life force.

Nonetheless, we favor the light. We associate it with positive things, while darkness carries the negative.

Yet Nature keeps offering another perspective: in the vastness of the Milky Way hangs the jewel of Earth; in the vastness of space our galaxy spirals, and in the vastness of the universe (let alone a multiverse) countless galaxies spin as beacons across the light years. All that energy (light) surrounded by immense darkness, the darkness giving it all room to grow.

I think it's time for a new and deeper understanding of darkness and death. Because we stash all that we don’t know or understand, all that we fear, feel confused about, or anticipate will generate pain into darkness, we have misunderstood our relationship with a huge portion of the source of life force.

What does any of this have to do with writing? Well…

The polarizing of light and dark, in terms of emotion and morality, has always been a powerful source of story conflict. Pit good against evil, and vice versa, and you’ll get a story. Stories are told using imagery and symbols—things stand in for other things. Ergo, light translates as good, darkness as evil (the unknown is feared and then demonized). Yet something gets lost in this polarizing interpretation. Let's shine a little light...

The power of light can be penetrative and expansive. It can puncture and push back the darkness so it can be understood for what it is, including understanding that some parts are not understandable at all and must remain mysterious. 

Light needs to travel through darkness to navigate it, understand itself in relationship to it, and shine itself into the crevasses of fear we project into it (to quote Frank Herbert, author of Dune: “Fear is the mind killer.”). And then we learn to live with it, to fully comprehend that life does not exist without its counterpart, death. And light doesn’t exist without darkness. Nature shows us this.

I think it’s our job right now, as writers and storytellers, to begin to untangle the symbolic associations of good and evil from life/death and light/darkness. In so doing we can use the light of knowing to penetrate confusion and expand awareness. We need stories to lead us out from the darkness of mistaken perceptions (especially about each other, different beliefs, other countries and ways of living).

We don’t need to fully disentangle the symbols and meanings (I don’t think we can), only enough to understand that that’s what they are.

Stories are metaphors that express the human condition and help us figure out how to live. They are not direct prescriptions. Their symbolism must be interpreted, and their mysteries are only revealed through the light of thoughtful understanding and respectful discourse.

As writers we wrestle with the mysterious process of creation to craft symbols and messages that help us and others understand the relationship between light and darkness, life and death. We show their necessary coexistence, the conditions that ensue, and the choices left to us within those conditions, as well as the consequences of those choices. When the metaphor is interpreted adequately, we absorb new insights and inspiration for how to live our lives.

One compelling character in one compelling story in one pervasive religion died and was resurrected this weekend, or so the story goes. His story showed us the symbols, the mystery, the light, dark, good, evil, and living and dying. People have been wrestling with these paradoxes for thousands of years. Many world stories explore these paradox of being human, of being alive, knowing death awaits us all, and that’s why writers need to pay attention. We work at the crossroads of the dark cave and the light-filled peak every time we create. We interpret the symbols so we can carry the messages humans need to hear.

"We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence."
~ Gertrude Stein ~

"An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it."

~ James Michener ~

Are You a Lonely Writer? 🐈

Do you ever get lonely? How can you tell?

Writers like being alone, undisturbed, so they can focus. They're protective of their solitude and rarely identify with being lonely, in part because their imaginations are wildly populated with intriguing thoughts, characters, and dramatic situations with the potential to become stories.

But when does creative solitude cross over into loneliness? 

It's not as clear or straight as the yellow line down the center of a road. We're often on the other side before we've realized we've been drifting. There's no honking or swerving of oncoming traffic to alert us to the danger we're in. We just... feel different. A bit out of sorts, maybe a bit sad or irritable, possibly extra self-conscious, worried, fearful, or even paranoid. These shifts in mood and self perception can creep up on us so quietly that we're often convinced they're byproducts of what's going on in the outer world rather than our inner worlds.

Psychologists identify loneliness as "painful isolation.” Feeling lonely is a subjective awareness of feeling some distress and dissatisfaction around interpersonal relationships. To be lonely is to have certain social needs unmet.

Every person has different social needs and, therefore, a personal loneliness threshold. We each have to figure out what that is. Personally, I love traveling on my own, and I once spent a summer in Brittany, mostly alone, sometimes working on a novel. One day I looked up from my computer and realized I felt odd. A bit loose at the seams. A bit down in the dumps. I wondered why until it occurred to me that I hadn't interacted with another soul in three days, not a phone call or a grocery purchase or a nod on the street. (Actually, I don’t think I’d even left the house.)

Writers do tend to tolerate greater amounts of alone-time than others, and we know that being alone is not the same as being lonely, but we may over value solitude and the creative possibilities we think it might bring at the expense of fulfilling fundamental needs for social connection. I wouldn’t have been aware of that three day threshold if I hadn’t felt it physically. (Honestly, I can go longer than a few days on my own, but zero contact with other humans, even to observe them across a restaurant from the privacy of your own dinner table, will take a toll eventually.)

Humans are wired to be together, though not all the time. To be human is to embody a living paradox--we need connection and belonging and we need autonomy and freedom. More importantly, we need to be aware of the experiences of these things. It's not always enough to be free; we want to feel free. It's not enough to know we're connected to family and friends; we need to feel these connections.

Which also means we can feel lonely even if we're not really alone in an objective sense. We all want to feel seen, understood, safe, welcome, and of some value within our social tribe. When we're deprived of such feelings, we can end up feeling lonely, depressed, or anxious.

In fact, loneliness is a predictor of depression and anxiety, yet it stands apart from it too; you can feel lonely without feeling depressed or anxious. But if your personality is prone to depression and anxiety, and that's true of many writers, you can end up drifting toward loneliness without being aware of it.

Apparently loneliness is on the rise in our digitally connected yet more physically isolated societies. The Covid pandemic forced us all to adapt to "social distancing,” and, thankfully, advances in technology were able to meet most us where we were in our locked down locations. But in the years since, most everyone is more digitally connected than ever, whether through live interactions on Zoom or other platforms, on social media, through watching YouTube or various streaming services, yet we're also more lonely. We may have plenty of visual and aural input, but how often are we in each other’s physical presence anymore? How many of our in-person encounters have been replaced with virtual ones?

Now, I’m not knocking the live online thing. I love the freedom and flexibility it allows me, but I do miss the quality of connection that comes from being in the presence of others (it’s one of the reasons I’m hosting an in-person writing retreat this year).

We certainly aren’t going to stuff the genie of technology back in the bottle. The digital and virtual are here to stay. But we can choose to include more social interaction in our lives, which means investing time and energy in the relationships that keep us on the right side of our personal loneliness threshold.

It’s been proven that good relationships keep us healthier and happier. You’ve probably heard of that long running Harvard study? This Ted Talk from 2015 summarizes it, with two of its points being: social connections are good for us and loneliness kills (they’re now equating its impact on longevity with smoking fifteen cigarettes a day!).

I’ve always been one of those writers in search of more solitude, so I made a decision early on in life to invest in friendships with people who love writing. Writers do need other people, especially for commiserating and celebrating the strange ups and downs of the writing life, and they always understand when their fellows need to pull away to create. I have other friends and family, too--as writers we must be willing to engage fully with real life if we want to have anything to write about!--but my writer peers are essential. As a matter of fact, maybe I'll reach out and set up a coffee date right now... 

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life."

~Ernest Hemingway ~

"There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickering, apologies, heartburning, calling to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that."
~ Mark Twain ~

Your Vein of Gold ⚡

You can probably relate to a feeling that the process writing exacts some quantity of your own blood, sweat, and tears. But do you realize you can also draw on your vein of gold?

Your vein of gold refers to your personal zone of authentic excellence. When you're feeling "in flow," it's this inner treasure that's flowing. Think of those times when you feel in your "element" (as coined by Sir Ken Robinson), connected to your essential self, and able to express certain innate, unique talents.

Julia Cameron wrote a book with the title, The Vein of Gold (a recommended follow up to The Artist's Way as it's more valuable to the committed creator). In the book she refers to a conversation she had with the director, Martin Ritt (pp.98-99). As a director, he was always trying to draw out the best in his actors, something he called their vein of gold, by which he meant "a certain territory, a certain range, they were born to play." Ritt believed if you cast the actor in roles representing that vein, the actor would always shine. Which didn't mean actors couldn't also give very good performances outside their vein of gold, but there would be a difference. 

Julia Cameron then reflects on the differences between Robert De Niro's memorable roles in films with themes related to "male bonding, loyalties and betrayals" compared to his good but less resonant roles involving relationships with women. She mentions Kevin Kline, a skilled dramatic actor who is most known for his comedic wit and timing (remember A Fish Called Wanda?). Then there's Meryl Streep, who takes our breath away in high dramas. Some will argue she gives a noteworthy performance in every role, and she herself loves comedy, but the Devil Wears Prada, Mama Mia, and It's Complicated don't expose the same vein of gold as Sophie's Choice, Out of Africa, or The Deer Hunter. 

All creators can do excellent work outside their vein of gold, but the possibility for brilliant work, the kind with memorable, remarkable resonance, flows from one's vein of gold. 

So how does one tap into this? It takes a degree of self knowledge and awareness. You may have to dig deep into your heart and psyche to access your personal ore. And you may need to consult some others who know you well. Because it's often what others can see shining through you when you forget they're watching. Its natural, deep, and not always obvious to your conscious mind.

Yes, your vein of gold is often connected to what you like, love, admire, and aspire to, but it's also connected to what frightens, angers, or drives you to despair. Essentially, it's connected to what moves you. It's part of what moves under the surface of your being that inspires the words and deeds that flow most naturally through you.

One way to start your personal mining is to pay attention to stories that have lasting resonance for you. Without thinking too hard, list five to eight of your favorite films. Then spend some time thinking about what they all have in common (even if at first it appears they have nothing in common, persevere, because I assure you they do--to you). Do the same with five to eight of your favorite books from when you were young--the ones you've reread, the ones that linger, the ones that trigger something in your heart, no matter what the trigger is. 

It's very important that your mining expedition carries no judgement. A fascination with serial killer stories may reveal how much you care about order restoring chaos, about justice and mercy. Flights into fantasy may expose your faith in the higher powers and integrity that underlie good magic. Sad love stories may point to the importance of profound human connection that is often elusive. You're simply looking for clues about what matters deeply to you. Your vein of gold flows from these deepest zones. 

More clues are lurking in the news stories that grip you, the delights that lead to spontaneous smiles or laughter, the tears that arise in witness to another's plight. All these ways you can be moved will point to certain values at play--freedom, truth, justice, creation, love--and at stake when in opposition--freedom/oppression, truth/deception, justice/corruption, creation/destruction, love/hatred. 

By locating some of those values in the resonant stories you've chosen, as films or books, and noticing how they flow through those particular characters and situations, you'll begin to see the connections that allow you to strike your personal, creative mother lode.

"A creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies."
~ Willa Cather ~

"If a story is in you, it has got to come out."

~ William Faulkner