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creativity April Bosshard creativity April Bosshard

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.

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discipline, fortitude, flexibility, writing process, creativity April Bosshard discipline, fortitude, flexibility, writing process, creativity April Bosshard

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.

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rest, creativity, writing process April Bosshard rest, creativity, writing process April Bosshard

An Appreciation for Lulls 🐛

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. 

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commitment, love, writing process, devotion April Bosshard commitment, love, writing process, devotion April Bosshard

Your Writing Vows 💍🖋️

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.

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story, character development, plot, theme, scenes, creativity April Bosshard story, character development, plot, theme, scenes, creativity April Bosshard

What Stories Are & Why We Need to Write Them ✍️

I’ve been working on a book about how to write longer form stories, such as novels, screenplays, and memoirs. 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.

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darkness, creativity, nature, light, death April Bosshard darkness, creativity, nature, light, death April Bosshard

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

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.

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creativity, inspiration, community, loneliness April Bosshard creativity, inspiration, community, loneliness April Bosshard

Are You a Lonely Writer? 🐈

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?

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