June 2, 2023
I want to share this beautiful email I got from Diaane Janis, a writer who attended one of the Word of the Day seminars:
Hello,
I am writing to thank you. Because of my membership in PANO and receiving your newsletter, I became aware of the Honey & Hemlock Short Screenplay Competition, “Honey Writes.”
During one of your Word of the Day sessions I commented on branching out from writing feature scripts and doing some shorts. I mentioned that I was considering entering a competition for shorts and you said, “What do you have to lose?”
The happy ending is that I entered it and won it. Shanna Riker from Honey & Hemlock will be directing my short, “Dueling Watchers.” I am thrilled, excited, and proud. But most of all, I am grateful.
Thank you for promoting that competition and for encouraging me to enter it.
Very best wishes,
Dianne
I appreciated Dianne’s words, but the real triumph goes to her for making the attempt and actually entering the contest.
I’m sharing her letter because it demonstrates the power of this practice to hopefully convince you to either give it a try or to continue.
It helped Dianne overcome her fear enough to try. What makes this a different process is the way it’s able to convince the biological imperative that clings to tried and true practices that there can be other possibilities.
Join me for the next Word of the Day Seminar on June 7 and discover the value of practice, perseverance, and taking a chance.
have noticed amazing things in my own life from my commitment to the Practice and to my colleagues in the Word of the Day Club. I have much more peace of mind and am doing more of what I love without having to fret about scheduling the way I used to.
I also want to share an old blog of mine that has a technique for worry that I have successfully used recently in several very trying situations:
How to Worry at the Right Time
This post isn’t specifically about writing. It’s about worrying. But I think it’s appropriate since a number of people have told me that they haven’t been getting their pages done (or even writing at all) because they’ve been so focused on something they’re worried about. And while it’s impossible to simply ignore something you’re concerned with, you can train yourself to focus on it at the right time.
The idea is you set a 7-minute time limit to actively worry (yes, actually set a timer), and for seven minutes, you worry whatever it is to death. I mean, go crazy on it. Think about how it affects you emotionally, financially even spiritually, and then keep worrying about it some more. If you’re a writer, you know how long you have to write to fill seven minutes; think how much worrying you’ll have to do to fill these seven minutes.
And then, when you’re finished, and the timer goes off, you want to lie down, or if you do yoga, get into the child’s pose, or if you’re sitting at a desk, put your head down. So you set your timer for another seven minutes. And during these seven minutes, you think about something you really like: your favorite food, your favorite vacation spot, or even your favorite movie. And don’t think about anything else.
This part of the exercise is relaxing and causes you to ignore your worries at other times because you know you’ll have your set ‘worry time’ later to deal with it. So, you can actually say, “Don’t worry, worries, we’ll worry later.”
This worry-with-a-timer technique is highly effective because you will soon realize that worry is about something that hasn’t happened yet! And that means that if you can change worry into PLANNING, you will often find an elegant solution you’d never have thought of.
Here’s to your writing success,
Professor Marilyn Horowitz
