Tripping onto the archaeology of inspiration in our Summer Surge Challenge. Something extraordinary occurred this week. Writers started dropping more profound truths into our shared space, and what emerged was pure gold—the kind of breakthrough moments that make these challenges transformative.
Victory/challenge sum up and I simply loved this true admission from Jill: " I'm so into my story that even when not writing, I am writing in my head and making notes on my phone."
You guys are "in it" and I'm with you (as you'll see from my slight health overshare with Laura).
Don't forget our AM meeting TOMORROW, nine AM and a new page will be up at midnight: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
I'm at 104,000 words and about to take on the hardest aspect of this story which is where a character I love gets hurt. This is the last 1/4 of the book. Decisions have to be made and the most important one is this: WHAT IS IT ABOUT? On the surface it's about two siblings who flee an abusive home, grow up and then grow separate ways, and then come back together. One is changed by sufferings that seem unbearable and understands something about the nature of reality that the other does not. Her final act is one of sacrifice for her brother and in that act, his own bubble of fantasy is popped and he learns that vital lesson as well. It's about trust in divine providence and it's a lesson I've only learned this last year (so, of course, I couldn't write it) but here it is and I'm all weep writing it to you guys. But I see it and will push myself to write into the great sorrows today. 🤞🏼
Note: Instead of writing I've been shopping on line for garden statues and replacing old mascara and basically doing anything I can but write this! STOP STALLING, Lauck," I keep saying and now I have to answer back, "Okay! Fine. I'm going. I'm writing...I'm gone."
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Three: On the road yesterday and today, got 2500 in yesterday, none today but I am reading (listening to) five chapters on the drive. Helpful. I hear so much fat that I can cut. That kind of counts.
Great moment of insight from Jill below. How does a conflict avoider writer conflict that sounds realistic. 1) Write the talk first, get the back and forth going as an "innocent" bystander. Words flying at one another is a skeleton and allow it to get ugly. 2) set the talking aside and go back and set up the moment in time via the SRCard and then write to the moment the words fly. Do not forget the weather which is always active and changing, and that includes natural world (birds, bugs, cats, dogs, whatever) 3) Now make sure you have your characters well described. Show us what they are wearing, carrying, and how they fiddle and gesture. Is one holding a drink, a menu, opening straw, straightening her necklace that gets tangled in her hair. Have all these options available for the moments between the words. Those moments of pause between the words are your work then, 5) and thread the dialogue into your scene.
All creative writing is rather strategic and your job is to take it nice and slow, using the tools at your disposal! Hopefully that's helpful.
I am working on my runaway stories Here's a sample.......
We had no cell phones back then. There may have been a phone call ahead of their arrival but hard to remember now. I do remember Sandy, my boyfriend, and Danny, his crazy friend, showing up at my house that night in Danny’s old pick up truck, the one used as the getaway vehicle a few nights before when they robbed the gas station. I was with them that night and so was Denise. A tall, dark haired, pretty girl, she dressed nice and seemed out of place stuffed into the cab of the truck with the likes of us. She was a new girl in town and Danny liked her. I guess you could call it a first date for them.
We sat in the dark, a Friday night, drinking, smoking pot, Danny in the driver seat, Denise next to him with the long armed gearshift that rose up from the floor of the truck between her legs, then Sandy with me on his lap. The temperature was still warm enough to have the windows down, it was mid September, 1978. My mom had recently moved my brother and I up to Aims lake. She couldn’t afford to keep our 20 acre piece of land in the hills above Duvall after my dad had died in a car accident the year before. Along with us three, there came her new husband and, every other weekend, his two teenage boys. I was not talking kindly of my mom and her choices that night as we sat in the dark getting high. We were also talking about the need for more money.
Danny said, “I have the keys to the gas station. I could easily slip in and get us a little cash.” “You’re crazy”, I said, not for the first time or the last. To my surprise, Sandy jumped in with acknowledging the possibility and planning began as to how they would pull it off. Denise and I looked at each other and just shook our heads. I didn’t really know her very well. When my family moved to Aims lake we ended up on a dividing line of school boundaries where my brother and I had the choice of staying at Tolt, a senior and junior high combined, in Carnation, or going to Mt. Si High School in Snoqualmie. My brother opted for Mt Si, having higher aspirations than the “looser” school, as he referred to Tolt, and I was told to follow suit. Denise went to Tolt, where I had met her the previous spring when she first started there.
The plan was made. They would park the truck a ways away, walk there, do the deed, and be back in a jiff. Danny left Denise and I the truck keys, just in case, and off they went. The gas station was situated on a winding road with minimal amount of street lights on the outskirts of Redmond without much around it. The boys were confident in the ease of this endeavor, though all I could think of was how stupid they were. To my surprise, they were quick, but also to my surprise, they were carrying more than would fit into their pockets. While they were at it, Danny and Sandy had decided to grab an armload each of tools from the gas station's repair shop, where Danny was hired as a mechanic. "Damn", I said as Denise and I again looked at each other and shook our heads, this time my head dropping into my palms. This is not good, I thought.
Great. A scene in a car, and plotting trouble. Solid start. And I'm always so happy to see a writer land in a scene. It's always there, and waiting for us.
Sorry to be a pest but the second live meeting sign up is giving me fits: I'm using Luma to make it happen. Click here and sign up: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Six: Hi! Well, we're in the soup now. Our third week coming and illness grabs some of us, moving grabs others, summer-go-go still others. We're out there. We're working. I know I am, topping at 101,000 after revising, and revising, and revising still more two chapters.
Greatest victory is I got some writing done and I painted!.....I'll take what I can get right now!
Greatest challenge is consistency in the midst of too many things in my life to tend to and catch up on and discerning where best my energy serves me and those around me.
Again on victory....... I feel gratitude every day and I speak the gratitude into my life. This is what keeps me moving forward and truly is my greatest victory!
I love this! I love feeling the energy of being so into something! Yay! I have had a lot of family activities as well......I'll tap into some of your "all good" energy for that, thanks! : )
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Two: Here we are in our second week, the start a little slower than last week when we were all geared up and excited for "the new" of the challenge. Now, it's a bit of grind, those "go-go" pressures are all around. I have to go into the city today---bleck---for car maintenance and an appointment. Last night, thinking about this, I wondered "do I really have to go? Should I cancel?" But no...I'm going.
Woke at four, now hitting the work. Am in a stumbling block around a time jump. It's the hardest thing for me right now. How do I do this and not irritate, or confuse the reader. I guess the best thing I've learned is just jump and land. Once on the other side, you can pull your story back together. Wish me luck. 🍀
Sending you all the same, XO
PS: Look at Vivian's post below, Judith, too. New shares. Great insights.
The conflict scene struggles. The two characters formed a friendship but they have a conflict arise. This is hard for me to write because I'm an avoider of conflict and these two are going to face it head on then resolve it. I struggle on how to make it sound realistic.
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day One: Welcome to our next week of this terrific challenge with a deepening connection to one another and an ongoing commitment to our writing. Last year, when I opened this challenge, I was just getting started on a draft of The Home Tree, and this year, I'm at the end of the next draft. A totally different experience. Before, I was lost. This time, I'm found. The book writes itself w/a few snags along the way (mostly about time jumps) but I am able to untangle and keep going.
The elevator pitch with the help of a little AI tool I'm working with along the way: Two siblings flee family violence in 1880s Italy and rebuild their lives—she as a gifted traditional healer, he as an aristocrat's husband. But when devastating family secrets about rape and illegitimacy surface, they choose opposite paths: Maria embraces painful truth while Vincenzo pursues wealth and status. As WWI tears through Italy, reversal of fortune forces Vincenzo to confront the heritage he rejected, while Maria's ultimate sacrifice teaches him that true nobility comes not from titles but from accepting the full complexity of family, trauma, and love. A sweeping historical saga about the cost of denying one's origins and the redemption found in embracing difficult truths.
See you in the notes and don't forget to register for our meeting next Wednesday!
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Five: Major pickle here in the 3rd act of the novel. I didn't realize how tangled and long this section had become. It's time to think hard about the essence of my dual narration. I need a tighter sense of where they've come from in order to stage out where they are going. A little idea hopped into my mind while driving home (and listening to the book being read aloud to me on my computer) which is to make a creepy thing appear in the room of Vincenzo's new baby, in order to convey the closing in of the antagonistic force (a fired employee). What do you think?
EXCERPT:
Adjusting the boy to one arm, she digs into the pocket of her dressing gown and pulls out what looks like a knot of thread and hair. Holding out his hand for it, she tumbles the little thing, the size of a coin, into his palm and and holds it in her open palm.
“I found this in the nursery,” she says. “It was caught the window and hanging. At first, I thought it was spider.”
It's a hunk of hair woven with red threads. A black sticky substance in the center. Like tar. It stinks with a foulness. Bitter. Poking and turning it about, a sharp prick bites Vincenzo's finger tip and he drops it. It bounces on the carpet between them. He takes it up again but holds it by the long thread. It swings side to side, twists and turns.
Creepy. Right? It goes to the lesson of "less is more," in a story. The idea of horror vs. actual horror is far more effective in a novel. It makes the reader do the imaginary work for you and makes the book more fun (and sinister). Since I'm dealing with 18th century Italy, the evil eye is a thing so...Love to hear your comments.
What is your big struggle in your writing this week? 🧗🏻♀️ Or, what is your great victory? 🏆
Yes, creepy! I am wanting to know what the "black sticky substance in the center" is and then the "sharp prick bites Vincenzo's finger tip".....what is that? Yikes!
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Four: Home again, home again, jiggity jig. But, a late start...overslept. 😴 Gak. It happens.
But I'm here now, rev'ed up with a new idea to make this time transition work.
FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT: Our second meeting link is hinky so I set us up over at Luma. Click here: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z, sign up and I'll get you the link that way.
Peering into your notes and shares:
1) Found a terrific start on a scene by Tracey! Check it out.
2) And shared a protocol for excellent health and clarity with Laura. I have not financial ties to any of this. It's pure, shared, successful experience that goes outside the frame of writing teaching. For that, I'm a little cautious and don't want to offend. Take what is helpful and leave the rest!
The urge to look away is present constantly. Why - because although my antagonist is now dead, the senseless animus lives on in his partner and children. I realize that she may have been the hand on the wheel all along, and while my antagonist was a damaged boy turned narcissist, she may actually be a narcissist with APD. The damage has been devastating, and the urge to speak my truth is strong. But I worry about the consequences.
So so good. So hard to see these things but the story (and the super power) is in the truth we shove out about ourselves and our roll in our journey's. We go from being acted up to acting in that simple discovery. Hugs to you!
What were the circumstances that caused me to be a 45 year old, never married, childless, single woman actively pursuing a biological child of my own, whose had 9 failed rounds of conventional IVF and is now at a clinic in Albania that offers a fertility procedure that nobody really knows why it works but 5 babies have been made this way in the world to woman my age or older and I’m here to become the 6th? Well, that is quite a story actually. Will be working on writing the answer all summer!
Where do I look away and why. Hanging out in a teashop in Iran a Canadian boy, Graham, tip toed into asking me a question as if afraid to spook me. He asked if I'd runaway from home. I was embarrassed because I was 18, a legal adult! I hadn't run away. I was on a great adventure! But, of course, I was running away as much as I was running toward
I love this image, Vivian. A boy tiptoeing. A great question, too. A legal adult...an idea vs. a reality. Now we know that our kids don't fully mature in the brain until 25 and then come the 30's. 🤣 I'm cheering for this book.
I’m in nyc for 10 days and feeling weird about not writing much but am aiming to at least keep up with the dialogue because your comments everywhere have already helped me sharpen focus.
I have some good news. After watching someone demonstrate Scapple in a webinar a few years ago, I dowloaded it, but then didn't find it useful at the time. It works a bit like a digital whiteboard where you can write characters or events or just about anything you want to fiddle with in individual blocks that you can move around and link together to form associations. I've been frustrated in trying to get a sequel to my latest novel going. I've had so many possibilities running through my mind, it's been overwhelming. I remembered Scapple today and started using it. Seeing the possibilities onscreen in this form is fun and calming while also piquing my imagination. I think using Scapple will help me get immersed in the story and pull the necessary threads together. I thought some of you might want to give Scapple a try. I believe it was created by the same folks who created Scrivener, which I like a lot, though I use only a fraction of its features.
What a wonderful surprise to be included in this! This was so deep. If I might be so bold, I will share what came out of me this week, real time. I did exactly what you suggested and let it flow. There are nuggets here that will likely land in my book someday. **I am still shaking as it went live less than a hour ago but I am not looking away. ;)
"Every prison visiting room is polka-dotted with moms, grandmas, wives, sisters, daughters and girlfriends."
And
"For every ten women in the prison waiting room, you might see one man bouncing his knee violently, eyes glued to the blaring TV. It's usually a grandpa or an attorney or a brother, though. Dads just do not visit prisons."
Thinking about the question, where in my writing do I have the urge to look away, what I'm grappling with is that in recent years I've gradually been losing some of my facility for language. I used to have trouble getting myself to sit down to work, but when I did, I'd often have times of pure joy when the words to express what I was seeing in my mind's eye, as well as the subtext would flow, and surprising things would surface. In writing, I would express things I didn't even know I knew, and I'd come up with some gorgeous turns of phrase. It's more of a struggle now. I see things but not quite as clearly, and there's a chasm I need to cross to get to the words. It's hard to get into the flow. I'm perfectly articulate when it comes to ordinary exposition, but the lyrical touch isn't as accessible to me. I'm working on accepting who I am now and what I can do with what I have. It's not like all is lost, but things are different. And the fear is that things will get worse and I'll only be able to write flat, linear sorts of things, and ultimately get dementia and gradually forget who I am and all the people I love. I realized this is the thing I want to look away from, and I actually do look away from it most days lately, and I delay, delay, delay, write something I don't like, delay, delay, delay some more, and write something else that isn't quite right, and so it goes, uphill I go.
When getting ready for bed last night it occurred to me this is partly a matter of exhaustion. I push myself too hard and don't do a good job of finding out how I can nurture myself, feed myself, refresh myself in little ways throughout the week. It's also an aging thing. My sisters, who are close to me in age (I'm the youngest of three born at 14-month intervals) joke a lot, with deep belly laughs, about things we are forgetting these days. It's good to know I'm not alone in this strange evolution.
I am familiar. It's cumulative--over time we are told this is "just aging," that we "wear down" but is that true?
Or is it that our lifestyles catch up to us?
I'm not 100% sure but I will share this: I had a condition pop up on my hands and feet that looked and felt like osteoarthritis. Off I go to a MD who tells me, "OA" and "here's a medication but there's no cure."
Then I meet with my naturopath who is quirky but who I find rather brilliant. He says, "elimination diet," and "DDW water." I don't want to do either but I like my hands and feet. I do both.
The elimination of all inflammatory food for three weeks and then slow, three day reintroduction, to see which ones cause problems which are: wheat, sugar, alcohol and dairy. Most of all, the issue with the hands is seed oils. The moment I stop them, fully, my hands start healing. Feet too.
But, the water is the thing. The water has been life changing. It's spendy but I honestly don't care now. I've budgeted it in because my energy is through the roof. My mental clarity as well. I feel like I'm in my forties again (when I last had this kind of energy). I asked the NP what is it? The water or the diet? He said this: "It's the water AND the diet." Food and water are medicine. Period. He's right. Now I'm eating a new way, the food I eat is fueling me and the water powering me. It was cumulative. I ate for sustenance but mostly for emotional satisfaction/habit. Now I'm in a totally new space.
His protocol on the h20: "I recommend you do it is by purchasing one (or more) cases of 25 parts per million (ppm) water at https://bit.ly/4es03hd. You mix one bottle (500mL) with 500mL of your regular drinking water. That produces a liter of water that is 87.5ppm deuterium. Keep in mind that normal drinking water is 150ppm deuterium. By lowering the deuterium content in the water of your body over time by drinking this water, you activate all the beneficial effects of DDW. After 2 months I suggest you switch to mixing 500mL of the 10ppm DDW with 500mL of your drinking water. That produces a liter of water that is about 75ppm.
Another option is to simply drink one bottle of the DDW daily without mixing it. The mixing just spreads the water out over the day more so could be more retained than if you drink it in a short period of time."
I know it's a lot but for anyone struggling, I have to share. To be a writer, we have to be well! Health is everything.
Thank you, Jennifer. This is really good information, sort of a big kick in the pants to take better care of myself. That's the hard thing. I internalized a complete lack of regard for myself from an abusive stepmother. It's so automatic, it's hard to see how much it affects the decisions I make moment to moment because it's largely subconscious. I didn't realize until recently that it's like she's still hovering, her ill wishes for me infusing my every breath. I tend to attribute difficulties to my own weakness of character or something like that. I learn of good ways to take care of myself but rarely apply anything consistently, other than being off wheat for decades now on the advice of a wonderful acupuncturist. I've been able to stick with that because the results of going off of wheat were so quick and dramatic. But there's so much more I could do. I don't know if I could do the elimination diet right now, but I can at least improve my diet and check out the water, too. Truly defanging my stepmother's influence ... I don't know if I ever will. I suppose bringing it to light is a good thing, though.
That's hard. The defanging. I've done a lot of personal work over the years. Tons. Each round shows me that the issues I struggle root in the past but require something of me now. It's always surprising what...first dream therapy for like 12 years. Then neurofeedback (https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/p/the-anguish-ends?r=fjvlj) which was a game changer. Then I found God (I know. It's so cliche but there it is. I was raised Catholic but rejected those teachings because I convoluted them with my abusive step-family) and then I did something called HeartSync which is a kind of purification of memory. You don't have to be a Christian to do it, it helps, but not necessary because the underlying teachings connect to family systems and what goes on in us that creates the stories/actions/reactions and personality formation (https://heartsynchealing.org/about-heartsync/). Bottomline: It's all cumulative. The diet/water couldn't have come before all the other healing but now that healing is done, the diet/water all make so much sense. Food is medicine.
I hope I'm not stepping too much out of my lane by sharing, but as writers, we have to be well. In spirit, and in body. 🌸
Thank you, Jennifer. I don't think you're stepping too much out of your lane at all. I was worried I'd over-shared. I think you've created a safe place where things weighing on our creativity (and lives in general) can burble up, though I can speak only for myself.
I can feel the pain and frustration as I read this and I also have the same question as Jennifer.......
"Would you say this is an aging thing? Or "can't find the write words," thing?"
One thought that came to mind for me is how my other creative endeavers help feed my writing, especially paiinting and collaging. When I paint I am in a process of layering, the first layer starting with 1-3 colors and a spray bottle of water, watching how one color at a time wants to move in the water, sometimes turning the canvass around in all directions, as I get into a meditative state and just watch the paint flow. More solid layers continue to build on the first fluid layer, eventually creating form. I feel that collage works in a similar way in the layering. In both these processes writing is an integral part....... they 'speak' to each other.
Do you have other ways of creatively expressing yourself that you can turn into when you have moments of turning away form writing?
Most days I doodle a bit in my journal before I write, but it's for a short time to give a little color to the page as I set up sections having to do with what I want to accomplish, so I haven't been allowing myself the freedom to just enjoy that little touch of drawing and using color (which I'm not good at). I could think about what you do with paint and let myself explore a little, hopefully with the freedom to just enjoy it and not have expectations.
Going “vertical” on a medieval travel scene has led me down the rabbit hole of horses. In my limited experience with horses, I was probably more scared of them than immediately connected to them - as many people seem to be. So I have great descriptions of the horses ( Barb, Andalusian, and Arabian) but lack an honest emotional connection to them that I need one character to have. Any suggestions would be most welcome.
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Seven:
Health info shared.
Excerpts from our writing.
Victory/challenge sum up and I simply loved this true admission from Jill: " I'm so into my story that even when not writing, I am writing in my head and making notes on my phone."
You guys are "in it" and I'm with you (as you'll see from my slight health overshare with Laura).
Don't forget our AM meeting TOMORROW, nine AM and a new page will be up at midnight: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
I'm at 104,000 words and about to take on the hardest aspect of this story which is where a character I love gets hurt. This is the last 1/4 of the book. Decisions have to be made and the most important one is this: WHAT IS IT ABOUT? On the surface it's about two siblings who flee an abusive home, grow up and then grow separate ways, and then come back together. One is changed by sufferings that seem unbearable and understands something about the nature of reality that the other does not. Her final act is one of sacrifice for her brother and in that act, his own bubble of fantasy is popped and he learns that vital lesson as well. It's about trust in divine providence and it's a lesson I've only learned this last year (so, of course, I couldn't write it) but here it is and I'm all weep writing it to you guys. But I see it and will push myself to write into the great sorrows today. 🤞🏼
Note: Instead of writing I've been shopping on line for garden statues and replacing old mascara and basically doing anything I can but write this! STOP STALLING, Lauck," I keep saying and now I have to answer back, "Okay! Fine. I'm going. I'm writing...I'm gone."
See you all live in the morning.
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Three: On the road yesterday and today, got 2500 in yesterday, none today but I am reading (listening to) five chapters on the drive. Helpful. I hear so much fat that I can cut. That kind of counts.
Great moment of insight from Jill below. How does a conflict avoider writer conflict that sounds realistic. 1) Write the talk first, get the back and forth going as an "innocent" bystander. Words flying at one another is a skeleton and allow it to get ugly. 2) set the talking aside and go back and set up the moment in time via the SRCard and then write to the moment the words fly. Do not forget the weather which is always active and changing, and that includes natural world (birds, bugs, cats, dogs, whatever) 3) Now make sure you have your characters well described. Show us what they are wearing, carrying, and how they fiddle and gesture. Is one holding a drink, a menu, opening straw, straightening her necklace that gets tangled in her hair. Have all these options available for the moments between the words. Those moments of pause between the words are your work then, 5) and thread the dialogue into your scene.
All creative writing is rather strategic and your job is to take it nice and slow, using the tools at your disposal! Hopefully that's helpful.
I am working on my runaway stories Here's a sample.......
We had no cell phones back then. There may have been a phone call ahead of their arrival but hard to remember now. I do remember Sandy, my boyfriend, and Danny, his crazy friend, showing up at my house that night in Danny’s old pick up truck, the one used as the getaway vehicle a few nights before when they robbed the gas station. I was with them that night and so was Denise. A tall, dark haired, pretty girl, she dressed nice and seemed out of place stuffed into the cab of the truck with the likes of us. She was a new girl in town and Danny liked her. I guess you could call it a first date for them.
We sat in the dark, a Friday night, drinking, smoking pot, Danny in the driver seat, Denise next to him with the long armed gearshift that rose up from the floor of the truck between her legs, then Sandy with me on his lap. The temperature was still warm enough to have the windows down, it was mid September, 1978. My mom had recently moved my brother and I up to Aims lake. She couldn’t afford to keep our 20 acre piece of land in the hills above Duvall after my dad had died in a car accident the year before. Along with us three, there came her new husband and, every other weekend, his two teenage boys. I was not talking kindly of my mom and her choices that night as we sat in the dark getting high. We were also talking about the need for more money.
Danny said, “I have the keys to the gas station. I could easily slip in and get us a little cash.” “You’re crazy”, I said, not for the first time or the last. To my surprise, Sandy jumped in with acknowledging the possibility and planning began as to how they would pull it off. Denise and I looked at each other and just shook our heads. I didn’t really know her very well. When my family moved to Aims lake we ended up on a dividing line of school boundaries where my brother and I had the choice of staying at Tolt, a senior and junior high combined, in Carnation, or going to Mt. Si High School in Snoqualmie. My brother opted for Mt Si, having higher aspirations than the “looser” school, as he referred to Tolt, and I was told to follow suit. Denise went to Tolt, where I had met her the previous spring when she first started there.
The plan was made. They would park the truck a ways away, walk there, do the deed, and be back in a jiff. Danny left Denise and I the truck keys, just in case, and off they went. The gas station was situated on a winding road with minimal amount of street lights on the outskirts of Redmond without much around it. The boys were confident in the ease of this endeavor, though all I could think of was how stupid they were. To my surprise, they were quick, but also to my surprise, they were carrying more than would fit into their pockets. While they were at it, Danny and Sandy had decided to grab an armload each of tools from the gas station's repair shop, where Danny was hired as a mechanic. "Damn", I said as Denise and I again looked at each other and shook our heads, this time my head dropping into my palms. This is not good, I thought.
Great. A scene in a car, and plotting trouble. Solid start. And I'm always so happy to see a writer land in a scene. It's always there, and waiting for us.
Thank you!! So helpful 🙏
Sorry to be a pest but the second live meeting sign up is giving me fits: I'm using Luma to make it happen. Click here and sign up: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Six: Hi! Well, we're in the soup now. Our third week coming and illness grabs some of us, moving grabs others, summer-go-go still others. We're out there. We're working. I know I am, topping at 101,000 after revising, and revising, and revising still more two chapters.
Today:
1) Greatest victory
2) Greatest challenge
Remember to sign up for our meeting via Luma: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
Greatest victory is I got some writing done and I painted!.....I'll take what I can get right now!
Greatest challenge is consistency in the midst of too many things in my life to tend to and catch up on and discerning where best my energy serves me and those around me.
Again on victory....... I feel gratitude every day and I speak the gratitude into my life. This is what keeps me moving forward and truly is my greatest victory!
Beautiful. Start and end with praises. TY!
I agree, gratitude changes everything.
1) I'm so into my story that even when not writing, I am writing in my head and making notes on my phone.
2) Summer days fly by with so many family activities. It's all good. Gives more content to build characters. 😂
TY! Yes.
I love this! I love feeling the energy of being so into something! Yay! I have had a lot of family activities as well......I'll tap into some of your "all good" energy for that, thanks! : )
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Two: Here we are in our second week, the start a little slower than last week when we were all geared up and excited for "the new" of the challenge. Now, it's a bit of grind, those "go-go" pressures are all around. I have to go into the city today---bleck---for car maintenance and an appointment. Last night, thinking about this, I wondered "do I really have to go? Should I cancel?" But no...I'm going.
Woke at four, now hitting the work. Am in a stumbling block around a time jump. It's the hardest thing for me right now. How do I do this and not irritate, or confuse the reader. I guess the best thing I've learned is just jump and land. Once on the other side, you can pull your story back together. Wish me luck. 🍀
Sending you all the same, XO
PS: Look at Vivian's post below, Judith, too. New shares. Great insights.
Good luck!
I keep showing up a couple hours each day. Kinda of floundering at midpoint. I’m wearing out google on synonyms
The conflict scene struggles. The two characters formed a friendship but they have a conflict arise. This is hard for me to write because I'm an avoider of conflict and these two are going to face it head on then resolve it. I struggle on how to make it sound realistic.
Formula above!
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day One: Welcome to our next week of this terrific challenge with a deepening connection to one another and an ongoing commitment to our writing. Last year, when I opened this challenge, I was just getting started on a draft of The Home Tree, and this year, I'm at the end of the next draft. A totally different experience. Before, I was lost. This time, I'm found. The book writes itself w/a few snags along the way (mostly about time jumps) but I am able to untangle and keep going.
The elevator pitch with the help of a little AI tool I'm working with along the way: Two siblings flee family violence in 1880s Italy and rebuild their lives—she as a gifted traditional healer, he as an aristocrat's husband. But when devastating family secrets about rape and illegitimacy surface, they choose opposite paths: Maria embraces painful truth while Vincenzo pursues wealth and status. As WWI tears through Italy, reversal of fortune forces Vincenzo to confront the heritage he rejected, while Maria's ultimate sacrifice teaches him that true nobility comes not from titles but from accepting the full complexity of family, trauma, and love. A sweeping historical saga about the cost of denying one's origins and the redemption found in embracing difficult truths.
See you in the notes and don't forget to register for our meeting next Wednesday!
This description sure resonates with me. It sounds like the kind of story I like to read.
Yay! So kind.
The "elevator pitch" has me intrigued! I look forward to reading it : )
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Five: Major pickle here in the 3rd act of the novel. I didn't realize how tangled and long this section had become. It's time to think hard about the essence of my dual narration. I need a tighter sense of where they've come from in order to stage out where they are going. A little idea hopped into my mind while driving home (and listening to the book being read aloud to me on my computer) which is to make a creepy thing appear in the room of Vincenzo's new baby, in order to convey the closing in of the antagonistic force (a fired employee). What do you think?
EXCERPT:
Adjusting the boy to one arm, she digs into the pocket of her dressing gown and pulls out what looks like a knot of thread and hair. Holding out his hand for it, she tumbles the little thing, the size of a coin, into his palm and and holds it in her open palm.
“I found this in the nursery,” she says. “It was caught the window and hanging. At first, I thought it was spider.”
It's a hunk of hair woven with red threads. A black sticky substance in the center. Like tar. It stinks with a foulness. Bitter. Poking and turning it about, a sharp prick bites Vincenzo's finger tip and he drops it. It bounces on the carpet between them. He takes it up again but holds it by the long thread. It swings side to side, twists and turns.
Creepy. Right? It goes to the lesson of "less is more," in a story. The idea of horror vs. actual horror is far more effective in a novel. It makes the reader do the imaginary work for you and makes the book more fun (and sinister). Since I'm dealing with 18th century Italy, the evil eye is a thing so...Love to hear your comments.
What is your big struggle in your writing this week? 🧗🏻♀️ Or, what is your great victory? 🏆
Yes, creepy! I am wanting to know what the "black sticky substance in the center" is and then the "sharp prick bites Vincenzo's finger tip".....what is that? Yikes!
🐦⬛ Week Two, Day Four: Home again, home again, jiggity jig. But, a late start...overslept. 😴 Gak. It happens.
But I'm here now, rev'ed up with a new idea to make this time transition work.
FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT: Our second meeting link is hinky so I set us up over at Luma. Click here: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z, sign up and I'll get you the link that way.
Peering into your notes and shares:
1) Found a terrific start on a scene by Tracey! Check it out.
2) And shared a protocol for excellent health and clarity with Laura. I have not financial ties to any of this. It's pure, shared, successful experience that goes outside the frame of writing teaching. For that, I'm a little cautious and don't want to offend. Take what is helpful and leave the rest!
The urge to look away is present constantly. Why - because although my antagonist is now dead, the senseless animus lives on in his partner and children. I realize that she may have been the hand on the wheel all along, and while my antagonist was a damaged boy turned narcissist, she may actually be a narcissist with APD. The damage has been devastating, and the urge to speak my truth is strong. But I worry about the consequences.
So so good. So hard to see these things but the story (and the super power) is in the truth we shove out about ourselves and our roll in our journey's. We go from being acted up to acting in that simple discovery. Hugs to you!
What were the circumstances that caused me to be a 45 year old, never married, childless, single woman actively pursuing a biological child of my own, whose had 9 failed rounds of conventional IVF and is now at a clinic in Albania that offers a fertility procedure that nobody really knows why it works but 5 babies have been made this way in the world to woman my age or older and I’m here to become the 6th? Well, that is quite a story actually. Will be working on writing the answer all summer!
A story of perseverance. My favorite kind. Sounds like the Rabbit Hole plot as well, (Voyage and Return) of IVF. Check out the plot here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ncfcfhg3kmcxz5l/5-Seven-Plot-Handouts-Class-2.docx?rlkey=d6vax3t3mqylbo4qm4qhfykrm&dl=0
What a journey, Jacqui. I'll be rooting for you as you work on writing the answer.
Wow! That is quite a story indeed! Kind of a modern day twist on the Sarah in the Bible story......? I wish you all the best on this epic journey!
Where do I look away and why. Hanging out in a teashop in Iran a Canadian boy, Graham, tip toed into asking me a question as if afraid to spook me. He asked if I'd runaway from home. I was embarrassed because I was 18, a legal adult! I hadn't run away. I was on a great adventure! But, of course, I was running away as much as I was running toward
I love this image, Vivian. A boy tiptoeing. A great question, too. A legal adult...an idea vs. a reality. Now we know that our kids don't fully mature in the brain until 25 and then come the 30's. 🤣 I'm cheering for this book.
I’m in nyc for 10 days and feeling weird about not writing much but am aiming to at least keep up with the dialogue because your comments everywhere have already helped me sharpen focus.
Be safe! It's going to heat up in a lot of ways in those bigger cities.
I have some good news. After watching someone demonstrate Scapple in a webinar a few years ago, I dowloaded it, but then didn't find it useful at the time. It works a bit like a digital whiteboard where you can write characters or events or just about anything you want to fiddle with in individual blocks that you can move around and link together to form associations. I've been frustrated in trying to get a sequel to my latest novel going. I've had so many possibilities running through my mind, it's been overwhelming. I remembered Scapple today and started using it. Seeing the possibilities onscreen in this form is fun and calming while also piquing my imagination. I think using Scapple will help me get immersed in the story and pull the necessary threads together. I thought some of you might want to give Scapple a try. I believe it was created by the same folks who created Scrivener, which I like a lot, though I use only a fraction of its features.
Great tip!
Thanks! I'll check it out.
What a wonderful surprise to be included in this! This was so deep. If I might be so bold, I will share what came out of me this week, real time. I did exactly what you suggested and let it flow. There are nuggets here that will likely land in my book someday. **I am still shaking as it went live less than a hour ago but I am not looking away. ;)
https://www.blacksheepmom.com/p/confession-15-enough-with-the-missing?r=54r6zy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
"Every prison visiting room is polka-dotted with moms, grandmas, wives, sisters, daughters and girlfriends."
And
"For every ten women in the prison waiting room, you might see one man bouncing his knee violently, eyes glued to the blaring TV. It's usually a grandpa or an attorney or a brother, though. Dads just do not visit prisons."
Great details/images
Thank you for reading and for picking these out!!! 🖤
A pleasure.
I like the way you weave in the stats. It gives the personal story an added weight.
And it’s already heavy
I appreciate this comment so much! I never know how people take the stats but so often feel like they're necessary. TY! 🖤
I haven't finished reading this yet but, wow! The elephant story is a big eye opener! Thanks for sharing this, I will finish a later.
Thank you for starting! The juicy stuff is coming up. 😉
Thinking about the question, where in my writing do I have the urge to look away, what I'm grappling with is that in recent years I've gradually been losing some of my facility for language. I used to have trouble getting myself to sit down to work, but when I did, I'd often have times of pure joy when the words to express what I was seeing in my mind's eye, as well as the subtext would flow, and surprising things would surface. In writing, I would express things I didn't even know I knew, and I'd come up with some gorgeous turns of phrase. It's more of a struggle now. I see things but not quite as clearly, and there's a chasm I need to cross to get to the words. It's hard to get into the flow. I'm perfectly articulate when it comes to ordinary exposition, but the lyrical touch isn't as accessible to me. I'm working on accepting who I am now and what I can do with what I have. It's not like all is lost, but things are different. And the fear is that things will get worse and I'll only be able to write flat, linear sorts of things, and ultimately get dementia and gradually forget who I am and all the people I love. I realized this is the thing I want to look away from, and I actually do look away from it most days lately, and I delay, delay, delay, write something I don't like, delay, delay, delay some more, and write something else that isn't quite right, and so it goes, uphill I go.
Would you say this is an aging thing? Or "can't find the write words," thing?
When getting ready for bed last night it occurred to me this is partly a matter of exhaustion. I push myself too hard and don't do a good job of finding out how I can nurture myself, feed myself, refresh myself in little ways throughout the week. It's also an aging thing. My sisters, who are close to me in age (I'm the youngest of three born at 14-month intervals) joke a lot, with deep belly laughs, about things we are forgetting these days. It's good to know I'm not alone in this strange evolution.
I am familiar. It's cumulative--over time we are told this is "just aging," that we "wear down" but is that true?
Or is it that our lifestyles catch up to us?
I'm not 100% sure but I will share this: I had a condition pop up on my hands and feet that looked and felt like osteoarthritis. Off I go to a MD who tells me, "OA" and "here's a medication but there's no cure."
Then I meet with my naturopath who is quirky but who I find rather brilliant. He says, "elimination diet," and "DDW water." I don't want to do either but I like my hands and feet. I do both.
The elimination of all inflammatory food for three weeks and then slow, three day reintroduction, to see which ones cause problems which are: wheat, sugar, alcohol and dairy. Most of all, the issue with the hands is seed oils. The moment I stop them, fully, my hands start healing. Feet too.
But, the water is the thing. The water has been life changing. It's spendy but I honestly don't care now. I've budgeted it in because my energy is through the roof. My mental clarity as well. I feel like I'm in my forties again (when I last had this kind of energy). I asked the NP what is it? The water or the diet? He said this: "It's the water AND the diet." Food and water are medicine. Period. He's right. Now I'm eating a new way, the food I eat is fueling me and the water powering me. It was cumulative. I ate for sustenance but mostly for emotional satisfaction/habit. Now I'm in a totally new space.
Elimination Diet: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/akcx43ft9g4armr1jku8i/Elimination_Diet.pdf?rlkey=ncee0gddcnl8zx9jjc4pg0bm9&dl=0
H2O Data: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2024.1431204/full
His protocol on the h20: "I recommend you do it is by purchasing one (or more) cases of 25 parts per million (ppm) water at https://bit.ly/4es03hd. You mix one bottle (500mL) with 500mL of your regular drinking water. That produces a liter of water that is 87.5ppm deuterium. Keep in mind that normal drinking water is 150ppm deuterium. By lowering the deuterium content in the water of your body over time by drinking this water, you activate all the beneficial effects of DDW. After 2 months I suggest you switch to mixing 500mL of the 10ppm DDW with 500mL of your drinking water. That produces a liter of water that is about 75ppm.
Another option is to simply drink one bottle of the DDW daily without mixing it. The mixing just spreads the water out over the day more so could be more retained than if you drink it in a short period of time."
I know it's a lot but for anyone struggling, I have to share. To be a writer, we have to be well! Health is everything.
Great information! Thank you!
Thank you, Jennifer. This is really good information, sort of a big kick in the pants to take better care of myself. That's the hard thing. I internalized a complete lack of regard for myself from an abusive stepmother. It's so automatic, it's hard to see how much it affects the decisions I make moment to moment because it's largely subconscious. I didn't realize until recently that it's like she's still hovering, her ill wishes for me infusing my every breath. I tend to attribute difficulties to my own weakness of character or something like that. I learn of good ways to take care of myself but rarely apply anything consistently, other than being off wheat for decades now on the advice of a wonderful acupuncturist. I've been able to stick with that because the results of going off of wheat were so quick and dramatic. But there's so much more I could do. I don't know if I could do the elimination diet right now, but I can at least improve my diet and check out the water, too. Truly defanging my stepmother's influence ... I don't know if I ever will. I suppose bringing it to light is a good thing, though.
That's hard. The defanging. I've done a lot of personal work over the years. Tons. Each round shows me that the issues I struggle root in the past but require something of me now. It's always surprising what...first dream therapy for like 12 years. Then neurofeedback (https://jenniferlauck.substack.com/p/the-anguish-ends?r=fjvlj) which was a game changer. Then I found God (I know. It's so cliche but there it is. I was raised Catholic but rejected those teachings because I convoluted them with my abusive step-family) and then I did something called HeartSync which is a kind of purification of memory. You don't have to be a Christian to do it, it helps, but not necessary because the underlying teachings connect to family systems and what goes on in us that creates the stories/actions/reactions and personality formation (https://heartsynchealing.org/about-heartsync/). Bottomline: It's all cumulative. The diet/water couldn't have come before all the other healing but now that healing is done, the diet/water all make so much sense. Food is medicine.
I hope I'm not stepping too much out of my lane by sharing, but as writers, we have to be well. In spirit, and in body. 🌸
Thank you, Jennifer. I don't think you're stepping too much out of your lane at all. I was worried I'd over-shared. I think you've created a safe place where things weighing on our creativity (and lives in general) can burble up, though I can speak only for myself.
I just replied above and see you answered one of the question I also had. Thanks!
I can feel the pain and frustration as I read this and I also have the same question as Jennifer.......
"Would you say this is an aging thing? Or "can't find the write words," thing?"
One thought that came to mind for me is how my other creative endeavers help feed my writing, especially paiinting and collaging. When I paint I am in a process of layering, the first layer starting with 1-3 colors and a spray bottle of water, watching how one color at a time wants to move in the water, sometimes turning the canvass around in all directions, as I get into a meditative state and just watch the paint flow. More solid layers continue to build on the first fluid layer, eventually creating form. I feel that collage works in a similar way in the layering. In both these processes writing is an integral part....... they 'speak' to each other.
Do you have other ways of creatively expressing yourself that you can turn into when you have moments of turning away form writing?
Most days I doodle a bit in my journal before I write, but it's for a short time to give a little color to the page as I set up sections having to do with what I want to accomplish, so I haven't been allowing myself the freedom to just enjoy that little touch of drawing and using color (which I'm not good at). I could think about what you do with paint and let myself explore a little, hopefully with the freedom to just enjoy it and not have expectations.
I like that. A bit of creative work before jumping in.
The freedom to enjoy without expectations is the heart of this practice and color, for me, brings so much joy : )
How do I access the zoom meeting?
Hi, we don't meet until next Wednesday. Here's that link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/xEGGRUA5RLWXZ0i5UsCMgw
Sorry! That one is a dud: The second live meeting sign up is giving me fits: I'm using Luma to make it happen.
Click here and sign up: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
I just registered and see it says June 11th. Just letting you know in case it needs to be corrected.
That second live meeting sign up is giving me fits: I'm using Luma to make it happen. Click here and sign up: https://lu.ma/s6xxws8z
Going “vertical” on a medieval travel scene has led me down the rabbit hole of horses. In my limited experience with horses, I was probably more scared of them than immediately connected to them - as many people seem to be. So I have great descriptions of the horses ( Barb, Andalusian, and Arabian) but lack an honest emotional connection to them that I need one character to have. Any suggestions would be most welcome.