How often can you say, “I just saw a miracle?”

Happy Friday!

It’s been an amazing week! How often can you say, “I just saw a miracle?”

Wednesday was a sunny day, but suddenly, around 4:00 pm, there was a downpour, yet the sun stayed out! When I went outside, stressing about something, I looked up and saw this:

The corner of 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue is busy and bustling, but when the rainbow appeared, we all stopped, awed at the sight. There was a beautiful moment of collective appreciation, with happy smiles and nods exchanged.

Then the light turned green, and we all bustled back to our individual lives. Fifteen minutes later, it was gone without a trace. The lesson learned for me is that timing is everything!

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 Word of the Day Webinar

The class topic was how to use the Word of the Day practice to know your characters better. By finding a model for how your character sounds, you can begin to actually “hear” them talk. The model can be someone you know, a movie or TV star, or the barista at your favorite coffee joint. Once you can mentally hear their voices, you’ll get a lot of other information, such as where they come from, what matters to them, and how they see things. Your character’s point of view becomes the compass you can surefootedly navigate the plot. Intuitively, you will know what your characters can and cannot do. Understanding your character’s expectations and then challenging them will transform a decent story into a great story.

Another element we discussed was movement. When people talk, they move their hands, they squint, they shrug, and they cross and uncross their legs. Being able to imagine our characters moving is another key to writing success. A visual knowledge of their body language is an essential component of both character development and dialogue. When you next write, ask yourself, “How does my character move?

When one of the students spoke about her lead character being bullied by a new boss, she leaned forward and shook her fist as she read the words this bully might say. As she spoke, we could all visualize both characters having this confrontation as if we’d been there!

Another student spontaneously wrote a scene about the first breakfast between her main character, the owner of a bed-and-breakfast, and a strange, elderly man who comes to stay with her. As my student read her scene, she changed her voice for each character and also hunched forward as she spoke as the old man. Again, the effect was electric. We could “see” the exchange!

Wow!

Each student learned something about their character that they didn’t know before and was inspired by the new information. All of this from three minutes spent just creating a Word of the Day cluster and then spending a few minutes analyzing the information we received!

Please join me for the next webinar on Wednesday, November 1.

The Word of the Day Club

Today was the last day and one-year anniversary of the Word of the Day Club, which met every weekday morning to do the Practice. It was an amazing experience for me and helped me to create a more positive, self-supporting, and self-loving relationship with myself. I’m healthier, I sleep better, and my creative work is better. Most importantly, I wake up every morning happy and excited to begin the day. I want to thank all of the wonderful people who showed up every day and made the experiment possible. Watch for upcoming classes!