Parsing the Language of New Year's Resolutions

Tick. Tock. It's almost 2012.

 Before the sand in the hourglass runs out, I hope you pause to reflect on your accomplishments this past year and acknowledge yourself for your good efforts.

You deserve some appreciation, after all.

Also I hope you make a list of some of the wonderful dreams you have for the next twelve months. Make this a wish list, not just a to-do list, of everything that would excite and fulfill you. Be very specific. Be bold. Dream big and in vibrant color. And write it all down . . . Then fold it up and tuck that list in your wallet or in a special place where you can revisit it at intervals throughout the year to come.

Worry about HOW to do those things you dream starting next week.

We've passed the solstice and now days are getting longer in the northern hemisphere. They will still get colder for a while, but the light will be slowly returning as we move toward spring. Nature is in charge. That alone is reason enough to feel optimistic, isn't it? Good things are coming!

Take the opportunity New Year's Day brings this weekend to set some resolutions in place. Resolved means a decision has been reached. It means there's no internal waffling. Here's the definition.

Resolved (adjective): 1. determined, single-minded; 2. explained, answered, solved.

Latin root: resolvere, resolutum, to untie, loosen, relax, enfeeble, loosen, dissolve.

In general, I am more interested in determination than enfeeblement. However, I can see why the enfeeblement of a few poor habits would do me some good. In 2012, I am determined to enfeeble my habit of staying up much too late at night watching episodes of old sci-fi series on Hulu and Netflix. Goodbye, Battlestar Galactica. Goodbye, Torchwood. Hello, sleep!

This year I am determined to stay on top of my workload and not fall behind. Already a nifty plan is falling into place whereby this is possible. I caught up just last week and feel pretty darn proud of myself. That's a nice way to shift into focusing on a whole new set of projects in the coming year.

A resolution gives me an opportunity to be decisive. Before decision, confusion. After decision, action. I hereby resolve (and you're my witness) to get my body back in tip-top condition by my birthday in October. I imagine this 40-week project will involve (a cousin of resolve) getting back into yoga class and opening up my shoulders and hips, building up my cardiovascular system and the musculature of my feet and legs to a point where I can run again--maybe even doing a few road races for the sheer pleasure of participation, AND getting my ass back in tango class.

Got to drop some weight. I'm resolved to clean up my diet. I know what to do; now I just have to commit to doing it. I need to be single-minded about it. The noun resolution means many things, including "a course of action determined or decided upon." Planning for success is the key!

Did you know that a resolution in music is the progression from a dissonant chord or tone to a consonant chord or tone? Wow! That parallels the sensation that comes from mental resolution. When I'm of two minds about something (unresolved) I don't feel harmonious at all. Once I'm resolved, my body relaxes and my energy hones in like a beacon on my path.

In medicine, resolution is the subsiding of an abnormal condition like a fever or inflammation. Can we agree that we don't feel quite well when we're not firmly fixed on our goals and course of action? When we're undecided we might as well have a fever for all the clarity of purpose we feel. Makes me believe that if I have a look around at what's "abnormal" in my life--meaning, places where I'm not flowing and conditions are unharmonious--I can resolve them.

Oh, yes! I am resolved to establish a healthy balance of work and play. I love my work enough that it often feels like play. For me the distinguishing component of work is the exchange of money in return for an obligation on my part, whereas play can be whimsical and impulsive: If I drop my play activities no one has the right to complain--it's all for the love and fun of it.

Choice, people. Year 2012 is about our choices. Now, in physics and chemistry, resolution has a slightly different feel and sense, but perhaps we can borrow from this definition, too, as it applies to firmly settling upon a clear course of action. In the hard sciences, resolution is the act or process of separating or reducing something into its constituent parts (like white light divides into the full spectrum of colors). What are the constituent parts of our decisions? Action steps, I think.

Simplification, reduction, mysteries explained, fineness of detail . . . resolution. Before resolution, generalities. After resolution, specificities. Life is simpler once we've selected from our options. Being resolved about the past and setting a resolution for the future enables us to relax now.

Sweet.

How Do We Get Our Stories Out of Ourselves

I'd like to tell you about my friend and colleague Maureen Shepard, founder of Health Ascent. A practicing homeopath, she's also developing a line of unique plant essences and is in the process of beginning to write a book about how to partner with nature. Over the course of several months, we've had a series of casual conversations about what kinds of stories should go into such a book. Last week, one discussion seemed particularly valuable. With Maureen's permission, I now share the essence of our exchange with you.

About a month ago, Maureen took a two-week trip to Peru. She came home inspired by traveling through different regions of the country and doing ceremonies with indigenous shamans. Her adventures culminated on the banks of Lake Titicaca, where there was a particularly momentous occasion in which she felt called forth and recognized as an elder. As she recounted the events that took place, her enthusiasm and her descriptions moved me. But now that she's home, time has passed, and the holidays are upon her, her memories and the meaning are harder to articulate. One of the assignments she's given herself is to get the details of the trip down on paper.

How do we get our stories out of ourselves? What is going to communicate the felt essence of something we've experienced to our readers? What techniques can writers employ in the creative process to recall meaningful details, and what more can be done that might impact readers?

First, it's important to understand what happens when people read. The brain thinks in pictures (not in words), so what's happening is that the words of a book evoke pictures for readers. These pictures are images of their own creation, which are drawn from memories of their own past and fantasies. The picture-making process is largely associative. So when we write, the more specific we can be about what the five physical senses perceive, the more easily we can trigger the reader.

So tip one is to include visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory information. For Maureen, this might be details on the sights of the lakefront, the expressions on the faces of the shamans, the words of an invocation spoken in ceremony, the call of a condor, the warmth of the sun on her face or the flutter of the breeze blowing through her hair, the roughness of the path beneath her feet as she was hiking a trail up a mountain, the scent of a field of flowers, or the sensational flavor of Ricky's warm apple strudel in Pisac.

Second, it's important to give readers a framework within which to comprehend our story. Just because we say, "Lake Titicaca," doesn't mean people know the same things we know about it. There is definitely room to bring in factual content that we may only access ourselves by doing a spot of research on geography, history, sociology, anthropology, and so on. In Maureen's case, there are elements, such as the spiritual significance of the site to indigenous ceremonialists, features of the natural landscape, and her beliefs about ancient civilizations being connected to the landscape, which would enrich her readers' understanding of why this event was meaningful to her.

Third, in addition to sensory input, we can stir readers' imaginations and bring them along with us by revealing the stream of consciousness of the central figure. For example, "When our hands clasped, my cold hand began to warm up and I thought, 'How great it is to be here together.' "

Finally, to facilitate writing an essay or an anecdote, we can ask ourselves a series of questions. Examples: What did it look like? How did I feel? What was I thinking? Did I learn a lesson? Was there a turning point? What's the most relevant piece of information I'd like to impart? What does the reader need to know about this in order for it to make sense? Taking a journalistic approach to documenting our own memories can lead us to recall more about them. This is the who, what, where, why, when, and how of anything that we're describing.

It's acceptable to either write the questions we use to access content right into the story (Why did I feel that way? Well, because of . . . ), or to leave them out of the final draft. The most important thing is to get our details out on the page where we can work with them.

All of these techniques are employed in service to the process of writing. We then have enough material to manipulate and restructure the story for dramatic effect and logical flow. In the end only snippets from the event may make it into the final draft. Cutting is easier than building up.

If you're interested in reading more articles on similar topics, you may enjoy my weekly ezine: "Get a Book Deal News." Visit my website StephanieGunning.com to sign up.

Why Writers Need Courage

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There’s a technique called “verbal first aid,” where you lean toward an accident victim going into shock and—into his left ear—calmly say, “Everything is going to be all right.” Bypassing logic, this is immediately soothing to the victim’s nervous system. That left ear is powerful.

From the “command center” where I sit at my computer with my telephone headset on, my left ear hears the voices of the writers I coach, edit, and counsel speaking to me in alternating tones of inspiration, frustration, joy, and anxiety—their concerns penetrating deeply into the emotional matrix that is my right brain. My left ear, my right brain, listens for the energy behind the words they utter. I hear them down to the fiber of my being, absorbing, doing my best to process what comes in, letting it move through me if I can, and offering feedback and, sometimes, comfort.

Granted, I also have been known kick butt, but rarely when a writer sounds vulnerable.

Courage. Audacity. That’s what it takes to write a book. My role is to create a safe space for a writer to take risks and fail before taking the ultimate risk of exposure to a wider audience. My role is to challenge them to, and help them do their best when they can’t get out of the way. My role is to reinforce their book’s vision. For, having been around the block once or twice, I can see what lies beyond the corner just ahead—and I know it is not a monster, though it merits attention.

Writing a book changes your life. It simply does. It doesn’t matter what happens to that book in the end—you may think it does, but only to a degree—the real change, the change that matters, is in your identity. That’s an internal shift from which everything else in your life is sourced.

I know, I know, I’m philosophizing again. I can’t help myself. I simply talk to too many writers who are feeling anxious not to bring up these subjects repeatedly. I want to help you!

Here’s the bottom-line: Behind the eyes of every writer lies a life. You come from somewhere. You have feelings about it. Some things that happened to you were never resolved—many never will be (if you’re like the rest of the human race). You’ve got kids and spouses and business partners and in some areas things are falling apart, in others things are expanding. There’s always a holiday coming up or a deadline that has to be met—or a vacation. Or you’re not in the mood or right frame of mind or you just fell in love or your relationship went south. Basically, you’re doing the best you can with limited resources. Life is a messy proposition.

Now, into this mixture of pain and coping and daily routines that you are hoping, planning, to gain control over, you drop the A-bomb of writing a book. Kah-pow! Holy crap, Batman! All your feelings and inadequacies roll right on over from the mosh pit into this new project.

This happens to absolutely everyone. I assure you. Feelings are inevitable if you have a body. The question is: What do you do with them? How do you respond to life? Courage.

I love the word “courage.” Latin root. Cor. Heart. That life behind your eyes is exactly what you need to do this job of being a writer. The perceived weakness is your real strength—once you let it in. How much life has to teach you if you will only let it!

Like everything else, taking on the task of writing a book is a mirror. If you watch your thoughts in response to the process—a series of tasks—you’ll meet yourself face to face.

I still remember feeling upset and left out of groups as a teen. Like sludge, this dredges up from the trenches of my wounded being whenever I dare to risk being seen. Rejection! What wouldn’t I do to avoid that feeling? Seriously. Having built a life purposefully to avoid experiencing being hurt by people’s opinions of me, I’m expert at avoidance. At the same time, I hunger to replay the scenario and, this time, get it right. Those things are diametrically opposed. Get it?

This is not new information. It’s my story. I’m on to it. Being able to recognize those feelings when they arise is a signal to me that I’m on track when my goal is to get out there and do something bigger. When the sludge comes it’s a message that I need support, to go easy on me, to do a little verbal first aid: “Everything is going to be all right.”

What’s your story? I only ask because I can pretty much guarantee it shows up in your writing. The phrase “read between the lines” is spot on accurate. And on lines. And behind lines. And in word choices. And in what is put in and what is left out. And in your work habits. Hobbits?

Here’s a few ways you can support yourself when you’re feeling vulnerable about writing.

• Stop what you’re doing, slow down for a minute, and take a deep breath or two.
• Reconnect with the value of what you have to offer, how it will touch someone.
• Focus in on the step you’re on (often our wheels spin when we project into the future).
• Let yourself feel your feelings. If you’re enraged, stuff a towel in your mouth and scream (that way you won’t scare your neighbors). If you’re sad, get out a box of tissues and have a good cry.
• Be obstinate. Talk back to the unconstructive “voices” in your head. Say: “This matters to me! I’m doing it! It’s a priority in my life and nothing and no one is going to stand in my way.”
• Get some exercise. Sweat out the stress chemicals in your body. Loosen up.
• Visualize it as done in the present. What’s that like for you? Be detailed. (Sometimes when I visualize all I perceive is the hem of a sleeve touching my wrist, yet I know what this means.)
• Handle your objections. Maybe the points are valid? Solve them and then go in peace.
• Often a good night’s sleep does the trick. If you’ve push too hard for too long, rest.

My point is actually this: A little change will do you good. That’s why you asked for it.

What Writers and Actors Have in Common

Writers and actors share a strange trait. We go to a funeral, start crying into our hankies, and then think, "Oh, this will be great emotional material for my big moment in Act 3," or "Perfect story for chapter 8." We can be kissing the man/woman of our dreams for the very first time and think, "I'm going to write an article about that." We're always, on some level, observing.

I remember almost 30 years ago watching the movie The Big Chill and laughing my ass off when Jeff Goldblum's character says he's going to write a novel about the weekend he has just spent with his friends. Someone (I think Glenn Close) asks him, "What were you writing about before?" He says, "Last weekend." Even though I was a young woman when I saw that film, I recognized it as the truth. (See how I just used it as an anecdote!)

If you're a writer, it's incredibly fruitful to carry a small notebook or an MP3 recording device around with you so you can capture these moments of emotional insight. You simply don't know when you'll want them or be able to inject them into your material. The specific details of how things looked and smelled and sounded, and perhaps more importantly, what you thought when you saw, smelled, or heard them--the internal dimension--is the secret of great storytelling.

The truth can be entertaining. This past weekend at a housewarming party I heard a great anecdote. Someone--an ophthalmologist I met--was describing to me how detailed his instructions to his patients have to be since people so often get them wrong. He'd given a woman a bottle of drops for an eye problem, explaining to her that she had to lean her head back and then put three drops in. After a week, his patient came back complaining that the drops weren't working. He asked her to show him what she was doing. She tilted her head back and then squirted three drops into her mouth.

Equally funny to me was the time I got into an argument with someone who obviously had both a rather inadequate education and very little common sense. (Why did I bother arguing?) Because of the story of Adam and Eve, he earnestly believed men have one less rib than women do. If anything could be argued, it's that men have an extra "rib," right? It's just not found in their rib cage.

Whenever I hear stuff like this or experience it, I begin inventing stories around it. I try to tease out the meaning for myself. The "moral," if you will. I do this because I am a lover of human nature and because the unexpectedness of the beliefs or the behavior of others initially seems so unlike my own. That is, until I balance it against something in my own experience . . . which is an associative process I always do and so does everyone else. And this is the key reason why anecdotes are so powerful. We bridge to them.

I heard the eye dropper story and laughed at the woman's "stupidity," and then a minute later felt forced to admit to my new pal, "When I was on my way here . . ." and tell of my own mishaps and misadventures. On my way to that party, for instance (which was the third time I'd been to my friends' new house), I decided I would recognize the building. I got out of the subway, walked two blocks in the right direction, and congratulated myself for being able to identify the route. I thought, "The building is taller than the others on the same block." And then, "Oh, there's the bakery on the corner . . . I recall that." Looking across the street, I saw a tall building. I went up to the door. There were no names by the buzzer panel. I reasoned that since my friends live on the top floor I should hit the top buzzer. So I did. Someone answered and I said, "It's Stephanie. I'm here for the party." She buzzed me in. I climbed four flights of stairs, and arrived . . . only to discover I was in the wrong building at the wrong party. My friends' house was a block further away.

At least I got some exercise climbing stairs.

Moral of the story? Don't buzz strangers in? Bring a map? Write about your weekend? Live with a sense of humor because being human means we're at the mercy of our minds? Publish an ezine so you have somewhere to put your notes and reflections to good use?

Being an artist is about being a great observer of humanity. The truth is as interesting as fiction. Watch. Record. Share. It's all there for the taking as long as we are paying attention.