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A writer's notes on family

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Back To School Jedi Mind Tricks

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One of my kids is desperate to get back to school. The other one, not so much.

Not feeling it.

Nora, my twelve-year-old, was pretty much bored out of her mind all summer. And unlike previous episodes of summer boredom, this one did not resolve with a big acts physical creativity like digging an enormous hole in the backyard or washing her hair in a bucket that the chickens drink from.

We’re on the brink of the teens years. And if I didn’t already know that, I could tell by the amount of David Bowie music emanating from her bedroom (SO proud) and her general apathy towards almost every activity I suggest.

This was her first summer with no real plans. No viola lessons, no swim lessons, no art camp. And her phone, which she was using to text a few friends (she doesn’t have cell service yet) broke and we haven’t replaced it.

Without really meaning too, we starved her of social interaction for nearly twelve weeks. As a result, she’s VERY eager to return to school. 

I’m calling that a parenting win.

The four-year-old, Alma, has NOT been eager to return to school. Mind you, her school is a veritable kid paradise. Warm, beautiful classrooms, lots of time outdoors, a ludicrously loving staff. She’s just anxious because she’s moving from preschool to kindergarten.

Every time school is mentioned, her pat response has been, “I’m going to hateit.” She had a home visit from her teacher, a potluck with her new classmates, and plenty of coaching and coaxing from me, but it hasn’t put a dent in her sour attitude.

Finally, my husband called her bluff. And it was beautiful. Part Jedi mind trick, part reverse psychology.

“Alma, if you’re really going to hate it, we won’t send you. We would not make you go someplace you hate. So don’t worry. You’re not going.”

“Nooooo!” she cried immediately. “I saw some things that might be fun! I want to—” here she caught herself showing too much enthusiasm, “I mean—I’ll try it.”

“You want to try school. You might actually like some parts of it.”

“Yes,” she pleaded.

“Well, okay,” he said. “We’ll let you try.”

Today, we visited the classroom for about an hour, so she could get a feel for it. I practically had to drag her out of there after an hour so the poor teacher could finish setting up her room.

I highly recommend picking a Jedi co-parent.

Season 7, Episode 3: Nora’s Foolscap Continued

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In this episode, Nora starts brainstorming some details to plan her story and confesses that wearing headbands makes her feel “elevated,” a feeling she shares with her protagonist.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 7, Episode 3: Nora’s Foolscap Continued

This week we brainstorm and work through some ideas in Nora’s story plotting—playing with the idea of time travel in different eras. There might be a climax that takes place in the kitchen at Hampton Court Palace!

Nora’s story planning so far:

Nora’s decided she’s writing an action story with time and space travel. Her main character (as yet unnamed) is a space fanatic and is reading a book about the moon landing, but her book disappears. She discovered her book has been erased from existence and that Martians have gone back in time to prevent the moon landing from ever happening because humans are planning to travel to Mars and are getting too close to being successful.

Here’s her Foolscap so far:

External genre: Action

External value at stake: Life and Death

Internal genre: Disillusionment

Internal value at stake: TBD

Point of View: Third person limited (will stay in head of main character)

Objects of desire: Wants her book back; want life to be exciting; wants space travel to work

Controlling idea/theme: Humans mess stuff up (tentative)

Beginning hook:

Inciting Incident: Protagonist’s book on the moon landing disappears.

Complication: It’s been erased from existence because Martians have traveled back in time to erase the moon landing

Crisis: Prog must decide whether to help against Martians

Climax: TBD

Resolution: TBD

Things we mention (or forget to mention) that you should check out:

And, don’t forget, you can now, buy, read and enjoy my book: The Cat, the Cash, the Leap & the List. (And leave a review when you’re done, pretty please.)

Disclosure: By the way, all of these links are affiliate links, so if you buy something, you pay the same, but Nora gets a few pennies for her big 8th grade trip fund.

Season 7, Episode 2: Nora’s Foolscap – Part 1

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In this episode, Nora starts brainstorming some details to plan her story and confesses that wearing headbands makes her feel “elevated,” a feeling she shares with her protagonist.

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You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 7, Episode 2: Nora’s Foolscap

Nora’s story planning so far:

Nora’s decided she’s writing an action story with time and space travel. Her main character (as yet unnamed) is a space fanatic and is reading a book about the moon landing, but her book disappears. She discovered her book has been erased from existence and that Martians have gone back in time to prevent the moon landing from ever happening because humans are planning to travel to Mars and are getting too close to being successful.

Here’s her Foolscap so far:

External genre: Action

External value at stake: Life and Death

Internal genre: Disillusionment

Internal value at stake: TBD

Point of View: Third person limited (will stay in head of main character)

Objects of desire: Wants her book back; want life to be exciting; wants space travel to work

Controlling idea/theme: Humans mess stuff up (tentative)

Beginning hook:

Inciting Incident: Protagonist’s book on the moon landing disappears.

Complication: It’s been erased from existence because Martians have travelled back in time to erase the moon landing

Crisis: Prog must decide whether to help against Martians

Climax: TBD

Resolution: TBD

Things we mention (or forget to mention) that you should check out:

And, don’t forget, you can now, buy, read and enjoy my book: The Cat, the Cash, the Leap & the List. (And leave a review when you’re done, pretty please.)

Disclosure: By the way, all of these links are affiliate links, so if you buy something, you pay the same, but Nora gets a few pennies for her big 8th grade trip fund.

Season 7 Begins! Nora is writing a story!

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This season 12-year-old Nora is going to write a short story using all of the story structure principles we’ve been discussing for the past year on the podcast. We discuss how to start story planning. Follow along and write your own story!

And Not got her first haircut since second grade.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 7, Episode 1: Nora Starts Story Planning

Things we mention (or forget to mention) that you should check out:

  • Story Grid for all things related to the 5 Commandments.
  • More information on the four-act structure can be found at Storyfix.com.
  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material.

And, don’t forget, you can now, buy, read and enjoy my book: The Cat, the Cash, the Leap & the List. (And leave a review when you’re done, pretty please.)

Disclosure: By the way, all of these links are affiliate links, so if you buy something, you pay the same, but Nora gets a few pennies for her big 8th grade trip fund.

S6, E8: The School for Good and Evil

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Nora had to pilot the podcast ship this week due to severe little sister interference. And burning beeswax. And she did a fine job analyzing the first book in the popular series The School for Good and Evil using the four-act structure.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 6, Episode 8: The School for Good & Evil (Book 1) – Story Structure Analysis

Things we mention (or forget to mention) that you should check out:

And, don’t forget, you can now, buy, read and enjoy my book: The Cat, the Cash, the Leap & the List. (And leave a review when you’re done, pretty please.)

Disclosure: By the way, all of these links are affiliate links, so if you buy something, you pay the same, but Nora gets a few pennies for her big 8th grade trip fund.

Stories We See and Stories We Don’t See

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Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash

As a writer, I feel like my brain is both my biggest asset and my biggest liability. I suspect this is true for most writers.

We are storytellers, and we’re really good at it. And when we’re sitting down to write a work of fiction, we know that we’re writing a story. It may feel like truth to us—and it should. That’s what we do. But on some level, we always know it’s fiction.

Here’s the thing, as we’re going through our days with our families, at work, everywhere, we are also telling ourselves stories. All day long. We’re creating stories in our minds about what’s possible and what’s not possible; how good we are, and how terrible we are. But we often don’t recognize the fact that they are also essentially fiction. There are so many stories constantly swirling around our heads, and we don’t recognize them as fiction that is synonymous with what we do when we sit down to produce a book.

But I submit to you, even if you’re not a writer, that many of the things that you think are fiction. And those thoughts are interfering with the opportunities that we see around us or that we don’t see around us.

So, I’m working on identifying when I’m just telling myself a story. And then consciously choosing to tell a story that serves me better.

We are really good at creating barriers that don’t need to be there.

So much of the work I do as a book launch coach (my day job) is about helping writers create healthier mindsets and get past their mental blocks about finding an audience for their books. There’s so much fear and so many stories that are shackling us to imaginary limitations.

One of the things I’m starting to do is ask writers to start at their preferred end.

(I tweaked this exercise from the amazing life coach, Martha Beck.)

You can try this too, even if you’re not a writer…

So we’re gonna flip to the last page of our story…

It’s five years from now, and you’ve hit it big. Whatever big looks like for you. I want you to close your eyes and really think about waking up and having everything you want. Everything you’ve been dreaming about. What does that look like? How does your day go? Who do you talk to? Where do you live?

Just revel in it. What do you feel like as this future you? What does your body feel like? Does it help you relax? Does it help you not to grasp? Just sit with that for a minute.

The crazy part is that you don’t really want whatever it is you just imagined. You want the feeling state you think it’s going to create.

And you just created that feeling state. And it’s no less real and no more real than the feeling state that’s created when we tell ourselves, “I’m no good. I can’t do it.”

Those two feeling states are both the result of fantasies, right? So if we’re gonna delude ourselves with our own mind stories that are always playing, let’s use our powers for good, okay? Let’s use our storytelling powers to actually lift ourselves up, and create a feeling state that’s going to serve us throughout our day so that we can come from a place of that quiet confidence.

Let’s replace that nagging voice of resistance and shame.

On purpose.

Let’s start recognizing that voice of resistance inside our heads is debilitating and it’s not real.

If we’re gonna be debilitated by something that’s not real, we can make a decision to shift that and say, “All right, I’m going create something else that’s going to help me feel better.”

None of our stories are real, but they have the power to create a feeling of truth inside us. So choose your story carefully.