Once upon a time, I created a work-flow model based on conversations
with, and study of, hundreds of writers. A “critical path” of what
seemed to be the most important characteristics. Most excellent
writers have these skills in some form or other, often at the level of
“unconscious competence” but it is possible to extract and refine them
separately.
In communicating them to students, I gave this
process the name “The Machine” or sometimes “The Garden”, depending on
the preference of the student. Over the last weeks I’ve parceled them
out, but as I’m taking off for Keycon SF convention today, and will be
in crash mode for our movie next week, I wanted to encapsulate the first
seven steps, and then complete the entire structure.
There
are undoubtedly equally good, or better, ways to look at this, and I
invite established writers to make their own suggestions, and all
writers to modify to their own needs.
1) Create an output goal (a story a week, or a story every other week. Or a
thousand words)
2) Read 10 X what you write. Read one level “up” from your writing
goal.
3) Write stories that reflect the values, beliefs, and concerns of your own life, in indirect form.
4) Keep your stories circulating in the mail until they sell
5) Don’t try a novel until you’ve sold ten short stories.
6) Model the healthy attitudes, actions and beliefs of the writers you admire.
7) Once you’ve finished your first draft, ask “what is the meaning of my story” and
re-write
from the beginning to sharpen this. There are two things to write
about: what are human beings, and what is the world they see? “Who am
I” and “what is true?”
8) Follow structure (plotting and
consciously planning) until you have mastered it (selling at least 10
short stories), then try freestyle. If you have problems, revert to
structure until it is internalized.
My
own structure concentrates on two things: plot and character. I see
them as being two halves of the same coin. “Plot” is what a given
character does in a given situation. “Character” is best revealed 1)
by action and 2) by the character’s internal monologues and self-image,
as well as the “stories” they try to sell about who they are. The GAP
between observed behavior (concentrate on their career, their physical
fitness and their relationship history) and this “story” reveals an
entirely new and fascinating level to their personality. To deepen your
understanding of this, one painful thing is necessary: applying the
exact same standard RUTHLESSLY to yourself. By the way—you won’t be
able to do this if you do not love yourself deeply. In a way, it is
like performing exploratory surgery on your own child. Yuck. But
critical if you wish to move forward in life.
9) Separate the
“Flow” state from the “editing” state. Learn to enter “flow” state at
will. This means constantly refining “left” and “right” brain modes of
operation (not neurophysiologically elegant models, but hopefully the
distinctions communicate.) I would suggest meditation and the study
of the most logical and intelligent human beings you can groove with.
Daily. Logic and Intuition, shaking hands across the Corpus
Callosum.
10) Develop a circle of writers and readers to evaluate your work. Choose
the
smartest, toughest critics you can find, and learn to take the
discomfort. There are, of course, examples of writers who work in
solitude, but even these have an “internal community” of role models and
great artists in their minds, coaxing them toward greater skill,
production, and honesty. The most fortunate people have both.
Remember:
your “editing/reading” brain has far more experience AND ALWAYS WILL
than your “flow/writing” brain. It will ALWAYS be better at criticizing
what you’ve created than creating new text. The only exceptions are
those unfortunate individuals who really haven’t read very much, but
believe they have a calling to write. Every writing class or workshop
instructor encounters these unfortunates with stories to tell but no
skill with which to relate them…sometimes with few foundational skills
such as spelling and grammar! But most of us have read hundreds of
books for every book we write.
Don’t you get the
joke? You must read to improve, but that means your “editor” will
always be vastly more experienced than your “creator”, leading to
insecurity, lack of confidence, and even disgust at the huge “gap”
between your first drafts and the finished work of the masters.
“The
Machine” is designed to strengthen, polish and bring to conscious
awareness every basic link in the chain that leads from initial idea to
published work: generating ideas, selecting ideas, researching, rough
draft, polished draft, rewrite and integrating feedback, submission and
repetition of the process throughout a career of ups and downs.
ANYTHING
that disrupts this process is “writer’s block.” Not
reading/researching, not writing, not finishing, not polishing, not
submitting, not beginning your next project and continuing the cycle.
Not
enjoying the process, even if it is the savage satisfaction of facing
the Gorgon of our own doubt day after day. Caring enough about
criticism to learn anything useful, to feel the pain without it
decisively impacting our capacity for joy in process.
No one
can promise you a financially successful career. But you CAN guarantee
yourself a lifelong immersion in the fantastic world of creation. You
CAN get better and better from year to year, and have more pleasure and
satisfaction than most people believe is possible or reasonable.
You
CAN fulfill a childhood dream of self-expression and communication.
All these things are available to you, if you embrace the Machine…or
cultivate your Garden.
Writer’s choice. As always, the choice of metaphor is up to you.
Write with Passion!
Steve
WWW.DIAMONDHOUR.COM
######
NOTE:
If you have enjoyed these notes, please support our movie, DANGER WORD,
at www.dangerwordfilm.com. All donations, however small, are
appreciated. And for the next week, a portion of any purchases of
products at www.diamondhour.com will go directly toward the creation of our first short film. Thank you!
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Completing the "Writing Machine" parts 8-10
I'm off to be the wizard!
Tomorrow, we take off for Albany to create our first short film.
The goal is to use DANGER WORD to leverage ourselves into a full
feature (on the theory that you can move up one order of magnitude per
project, max) that first feature being a feature-length version of
this story, and/or a feature-length version of T’s book “My Soul To
Keep.” We hold the rights. We have the experience, and the circle of
allies. We have powerful motivations that go WAY beyond our personal
careers—so it has been gratifyingly possible to enroll others in this
dream.
Regardless of what happens next, I’d like to thank
everyone who has supported us, in every way that they have. I don’t
really think there are “pivotal moments” in life so much as “clusters”
of pivotal moments, actions, and decisions that create change. But
what winners do it assume they have some agency in their fates,
sufficient to make it worth while to push the edges, to get up early and
stay up late. To totally invest themselves emotionally and move beyond
their comfort zones. Using the model of the Hero’s Journey, I wanted
to once again diagram the process of moving from one level to another
in life, whether that be a model of integration, success, or satisfaction.
1) Confronted with challenge. You have to recognize a problem or opportunity.
2)
Reject the challenge. If the challenge is large enough to change your
life, YOU WILL FEEL FEAR. It is how we’re wired up. People without
enthusiasm are people who have had the hope crushed out of them. They
have been slapped down so many times that it is safer to be blase. Or
they have experienced the pain of accomplishment, and found that success
equaled pain: the pain of losing friends, of attracting predators, of
losing a sense of self.
3) Accept the challenge. You must see a way through the minefield. Deal with the emotions. DECIDE. Or nothing happens.
4)
Road of Trials. You have to realistically assess where you are
currently, and develop a crystal-clear vision of where you intend to
go. Subtract where you are from where you need to be, and divide the
gap into bite-size pieces you can address at the rate of about 1% per
week for a 2-year goal. To do this, you may have to steal a beat from
step #5…
5) Allies and Powers.
a) Find a peer
group who will support your vision, if you don't they will drag you
down. Friends with less ambition or ability are fine, AS LONG AS THEY
SUPPORT YOU, AND DON'T SABOTAGE YOUR EFFORTS. We've all experienced
this: people who bring over cake when you try to diet. "Pity parties"
about how all men are X or all women are Y or this or that group will
stop you, or your history confines you, or...or...
and what
they're really doing is talking to themselves. Because if YOU succeed,
it means they have to look at their own excuses, and feel the pain of
not changing their own lives.
b) role models who have
already accomplished your goal. Find three. Learn what they did in
common to accomplish their dreams. See what they do that you don’t do,
AND START DOING IT. Take action. Study their belief systems, mental
syntax, and use of physiology. What they do, what they feel, what they
think. And start programming yourself with these things. Seek out the
technologies of implanting beliefs, raising energy, clarifying goals,
gathering a mastermind…focus, flow, enthusiasm, sales…whatever. And
especially learn to deal with fear and failure, because you WILL…
6)
Confront Evil—and fail. This could be an internal or external
opponent. “The voices in your head.” The fact that you are not
internally aligned to succeed. Don’t have permission to “break
through.” And in any arena where you have “beat your head against the
wall” I can pretty much promise you that you’re dealing with mixed
internal messages. Negative beliefs about money, or sales. Negative
beliefs about relationships (or unrealistic expectations. Just
recently I met a wealthy, famous gentleman who has never been married.
His beliefs about relationships: a woman would have to be his perfect
partner, share all his values, be able to read his mind and feel what he
feels and think what he thinks about any entertainment or activity.
With a standard like that, he will go through life alone!), conflicting
values about body image (boy is there a lot of that right now. A major
movement to accept your body “where it is.” That’s fine…as long as you
can be satisfied and simultaneously maintain massive motivation to
change. Difficult balancing act.)
7) The Dark Night of the
Soul. You WILL crash and burn on any project that could change your
life. There WILL be a point where it seems all is lost. That’s just
the way it is. But if you know AHEAD of time, before you ever begin,
that you will fall on your face at some point, why do we forget the
lesson? Why don’t we remember that, and lay the plans in advance? Get
your allies together (or be your own ally. One of my favorite tricks is
to wait until a student is “up” and have them write a letter to their
future self, to be opened only when you are “down.” Works like a
charm.
8) Leap of Faith. This is ALWAYS faith in one of
three things: yourself, your companions, or a Higher Power. Optimally,
all three. This is what gets you through when you’ve come to the end
of yourself.
9) Confront Evil—and succeed. IF you have taken
the previous steps: clarified your goal, studied the behaviors of those
who have succeeded, learned as much as they can teach, taken massive and
constant action, maintained a positive attitude and kept the faith,
THEN you have optimized your chances of success. If you have chosen
your goal properly, then external success will be secondary to the
person you are becoming along the way. You become internally focussed,
and at some point, you are simply “becoming” who you are committed to
being. Do this by finding the way that you goal is answering the twin
questions: “who am I?” and “what is true?” You have reached this
point when you are simply doing what you do…and the external results are
happening “like magic.” Even for these evolved beings, it is sometimes
necessary to drop back and punt. To go back to basics, and re-build a
faulty bridge to your future.
10) The Student Becomes the
Teacher. When you have learned a way to do something, share it with
others. Help others. The best way to know that you know something is
being able to transmit it to others. Note that this is not the “those
who cannot do, teach” attitude. It is “those who can do, and teach
others to do, are in harmony with the universe.” They are the ones
responsible for every good thing we have as human beings. As
individuals, we’re not that much smarter than chimps. It is in passing
information from one generation to the next that we SHINE. We are the
only animals with more information in our brains than in our genes.
This sacred progression is a deep current of what we are as a species.
When you swim WITH the current, you’ve found another level of
integration. You have also taken a step toward Awakened Adulthood.
There
you have it, again. I’ve said these things before, and will again. But
tomorrow I take another step toward my future. What will happen? I
don’t know. I simultaneously care passionately and don’t care. Because
the ride itself is so much fun. Because I’m becoming a better version
of who I am. Because whatever I learn, I will turn around and teach
others.
That’s called being the Hero in the adventure of my lifetime.
Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Www.dangerwordfilm.com
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Perfect "Diamond Hour" 8-10
Because of Saturday’s Diamond Hour show, I was forced to sit down and
work out the rest of the “Perfect Diamond Hour” sequence, and I want to
put this out as fast as possible, so BOOM, here it goes today!
We
cannot control external events. What we CAN control is what they mean
to us. And if you have been hurt in the past by aiming at a goal and
failing, it is natural that you will associate pain with focus, hope and
dreams. This is just your nervous system trying to protect you, and
one of the “dragons at the gate” of your performance. Totally natural,
and totally healthy.
That dragon is not your enemy. It is
actually a big friendly puppy which, once tamed, becomes not a monster
or enemy, but one of your greatest ally. The way we’re organizing the
“perfect Diamond Hour” is designed to help you tame your fear, doubt,
and pain. Let’s take a look at the process so far (and btw—you are
watching me formalize this in real time. There will be modifications
now and later, but the basic framework is solid):
1) 5MM. Take a break every three hours and breathe (later, you will briefly visualize, doing a mini version of this process.
2) Re-write goals.
3) Heartbeat meditation. Self-love, centering, relaxation, focus…this and more, in a streamlined package.
4)
Ancient Child. Visualizing your innocent, enthusiastic, loving
self. Most of us can do more for our children than we can for
ourselves. This allows you to harness this tendency. If you didn’t get
the love you needed from your parents…give it to yourself.
5)
Morning ritual. Begin to create a morning ritual of thought, motion,
and emotion. This begins the alignment of body mind and spirit, which
is the highest level of efficiency you are capable of. Sun salutations,
Five Tibetans, joint rotations…start MOVING!
6) Raise
energy. Move with more power, jack your emotions higher. Associate
these powerful positive emotions with your goals and daily actions. If
you have to do it—find a way to ENJOY doing it. As Merry Poppins
said: “in every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find
the fun and POOF! The job’s a game!” Smart lady.
7)Gratitude
for past and current blessings. Find gratitude for what you have
already accomplished in your life. If you think you haven’t
accomplished anything, you are either lying to yourself, or you have
standards that are so unreasonably high they cause you pain. Start
with the things for which you would praise your own child: learning to
walk, and talk, and read. Having a strong healthy body, heart, and/or
mind. Friendships. Family. FIND THINGS TO BE GRATEFUL FOR. If you
can read these words, you should be grateful. If you lost your sight or
reason, you would mourn them. If your child lost those things, you
would be shattered. BE GRATEFUL for another day of life!
8) Gratitude for future blessings (goals). This is critical. Take the SAME
emotional energy you have raised about the things you have now…and begin to give thanks for the
goals you have in the future, as if you have already accomplished them. Say it out loud. If you
can’t say it, you can’t have it! “I’m SO grateful for the new love in my life! I’m SO grateful I
take the time to meditate every day! I’m SO grateful for my five new customers! I’m SO
grateful I look great in my size X pants! I’m SO grateful my children graduated college!”
Use total physiology, emphasis, enthusiasm, body language. The message of “The Science of
Getting Rich” is that gratitude for what we have now is the foundation for our future accomplishment.
9)
Incantation (About three minutes) chanting, aloud, with enthusiasm,
the belief that you already possess the resources and power necessary
to create your dreams.
Success expert Tony Robbins suggests a
statement like “All I need is within me now. All the STRENGTH I need is
within me now. All the CONFIDENCE I need is within me now. All the
LOVE I need is within me now…”
Again, WHILE MOVING, WALKING
EXERCISING. Generate the emotions. FEEL it. If you don’t believe it,
move your body as if you do. ACT the part. Put on the facial
expression of confidence, throw your shoulders back. Smile. Move with
authority, power, unstoppable energy. SEE your goals “As if now.”
And
we’re back to the 30-day challenge. Do this, every day for 30 days. I
promise that at times you will feel silly. You will have huge
resistance on some days. JOURNAL THE EMOTIONS that come up. But I
also promise that you will increase your output, and begin to see truly
strange “coincidence” and instances of “synchronicity” occurring in your
life.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the
chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of
initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of
which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one
definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of
things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A
whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you
can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic
in it. Begin it now.” Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
10) TAKE AN ACTION. You’ve clarified goals, raised energy, visualized your internal world and
the external steps you will take today and this week to create your future. NOW…take an action!
Exercise, write 1000 words of your novel, write an email you’ve put off. DO SOMETHING.
ACT
ON A DECISION. Never leave the site of a decision without taking an
action, however small, moving you in that direction. Mind: form a
goal. Emotions: generate the positive feelings you WANT to have…and
experience them NOW. Body: take an action. DO something. Make a
phone call. Check your goal list. Read an article. Perform a sun
salutation. Push away from the place.
TAKE AN ACTION. Nearing
the end of his life, actor Michael Landon said that it is a tragedy
that we don’t understand from birth that we are going to die. That that
knowledge would lend both urgency and sweetness to our existence.
“Whatever you want to do, do it now.” He said. “There are only so many
tomorrows.”
If you will follow this advice for 30 days, you’ll
understand something I’ve been trying to say all along. You will have
taken responsibility for your existence, and will be acting with greatly
enhanced clarity. These actions in the material world are the path to
being what I refer to as an “awakened adult.” It is the doorway to an
extraordinary life. I wish nothing less for each and every one of you.
Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Sunday, May 12, 2013
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!
One of the reasons Motherhood seems to inspire greatness is that every good mother is committed to something other than herself. Something that goes beyond the edge of her own life. Something she loves enough to die for. You can touch this space by the simple joy of giving to others, of finding something to believe in that is larger than you, deeper than you, that will outlive you. By knowing what you would die for, and start living for it. Let the love you feel for your mother inspire you to be not just a great parent...but a great spirit.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Diamond Hour Tomorrow!
Diamond Hour May show. - Saturday, May 11, 2013 1:00 PM Pacific Daylight Savings time (4:00 PM Eastern)
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/77111
Connect via phone or VoIP (Skype, etc.)
(724) 444-7444
Don't be like Captain KIrk! Diamond Hour #7: Have Gratitude
This is Gratitude both past and present. During your Diamond Hour,
spend 3-5 minutes generating the most positive emotions you can.
Imagine all of the things in your life for
which you ALREADY feel gratitude: life, love, health, family, a roof over your head, etc. As you do, chant out loud something like “I’m SO grateful for my loving children! I’m SO grateful for
a strong, healthy body! I’m SO grateful for a healthy mind and happy heart!” and so on.
The core message of “As A Man Thinketh” and countless other self-help books is that our minds
and emotions create our worlds.
My
very favorite goal-setting technique, the “Time Line” process created
by Tad James, suggests that you need to visualize (or “mentalize”) your
goal, its position on your time line (visualized as a string of actions
and incidents stretching off into your future), the intermediate actions
necessary to support that goal. Then you have to check the degree to
which your internal ecology supports your goal: your beliefs, value
hierarchy, and positive and negative emotional anchors or associations.
But
the “carrier tone” of the entire thing is emotion. Enthusiasm. In
the terms of Aikido master Koichi Tohei, does your “Ki” extend out into
the world, or does the world’s negative energy “back up” into you?
Imagine it like a stream running into a poisoned pond. So long as the
water flows outwards, the poisoned water doesn’t enter the stream.
That
is the power of enthusiasm. And it is impossible to feel enthusiastic
and positive if all you see in your life right now is the negative.
OUR EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT CONTROL OUR EMOTIONS. What we focus
upon, our beliefs and perceptual filters control our emotions…big time.
For 27 years, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, convicted of sabotage
against the system of apartheid.
But instead of becoming embittered,
he used that time to benefit his people, clarify his values, and deepen
his spiritual nature.
He focused on what could be done.
Remember
the success equation? GOALS X FAITH X ACTION X GRATITUDE = SUCCESS.
Because this equation is multiplicative rather than additive, a zero in
any category will KILL your dreams. So no matter how hard it may be, it
is critical that every day you find something to be grateful for, right
here, rght now.
“No, dammit!” I can hear some of you howl.
“I don’t have anything to be grateful for! I refuse to feel positive
about my life!” Like Captain Kirk in The Final Fronteir: “I don't
want my pain taken away! I need my pain!”
Says a fictional character.
Mistaking
this for anything other than childish ego would be a huge mistake. If
you learn the lesson, you don’t need the pain. Only if you insist on
remaining ignorant do you need to hold onto the negative emotions. Dig
deep. Learn the lesson. Then let the negative emotions go, trusting
that you won’t make the same mistakes again.
You can afford to be
grateful. Afford to embrace the small miracles of life, and find joy
in any circumstance, no matter how difficult. In fact, the hard fact is
that the only way to maximize your chances of moving to a BETTER
circumstance is by finding joy right where you are. If this seems a
contradiction, you have my sympathy. I can only say that you need to
wrestle with this one until you “get it.”
Be grateful right now. And then…create an even better future.
Namaste
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
The writing "Machine" part 7: Re-write, reinforcing values and themes
Once you’ve finished your first draft, ask “what is the meaning of my
story” and re-write from the beginning to sharpen this. There are two
things to write about: what are human beings, and what is the world they
see? “Who am I” and “what is true?” These ideas link together
powerfully. Everything you have a character say and do is your comment
on what human beings are. Every plot twist is a statement about the
ethical structure of the universe: how the world responds to us, whether
it is benign, indifferent, or malevolent.
Here’s a note:
classical science fiction tends to be much more “what is true” than “who
am I?” It deals more with the physical structure of the universe,
what is true, how it fits together. Most literary fiction deals more
with the first question: “who am I” and the question of deep
psychological and philosophical structure. In reality, all fiction has
examples that move between these, but another thing to remember is that
they are inseparable, really.
Go deeply enough into either
question, and you emerge at the other position. So my suggestion is
that you need to have a philosophy of humanity. What are we? Why are
we? What motivates us, what is love and what is fear?
Go deep. Ultimately, the question is connected to your sense of self.
And
then…what is the world? How do you understand the flow of history?
The actions of human beings? Not “predict,” but in retrospect
understand, and perhaps learn enough to make more positive choices in
the future.
Meaning, values, beliefs…all of these things affect
our world view. And working through it in your own life will teach you
vast amounts about the world.
Then…develop a sense of the flow of
history, human and cosmic. How did we become what we are as a
species? It took me years of research to devise and refine the
theories of social and human evolution in my novels LION’S BLOOD and
GREAT SKY WOMAN. The concepts about race, gender, consciousness and
social structure are at the core drive the books and define the
characters, their worlds, their choices, thoughts and more. All in the
service of an emotional charge.
So…what is your story about? Can you define it clearly?
And
if you can, what is the opposite of that value? That position? Is
there a character or situation that expresses that opposite? Can you
set the two values in story opposition to each other? Sharpen them?
Force them to clash?
Now, I DON’T suggest that you do this in
your first draft. In the first draft, just write and have fun. But
during re-write, it is quite valuable to (as I believe Paddy Cheyefski
said) extract the meaning from your piece, write it on a 3 X 5 card, and
post that card above your computer. Then be certain that every scene in
some way explores your theme or counter theme. Do that, and you can
create a core of power and emotion that will carry your readers along
without them ever consciously realizing how and why they are responding
so intensely.
It’s almost cheating.
Write with passion!
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Friday, May 03, 2013
Parenting Yourself
Two weeks ago, a young man named Terry H. was preparing to train
for his 4th Degree black belt. His test involved serious physical and
intellectual work, and part of the test was interviewing a martial
artist he admires, who has integrated his physical skills into other
levels (that's a great exercise!)
And although I did not know
this gentleman personally, he reached out to me to ask my help. I was
honored, and we had a wide-ranging hour-long phone interview during
which I answered questions about my training and life. During the
interview I poked a little to determine whether he was solidly set up
for what was going to be a grueling test. How did I know? Here was the
prep, according to Terry (I assume this was all to be done in the weeks
before the test):
“Thanks again for the interview. It was one of the coolest parts of my 4th Dan test.
6000
pushups & crunches, 4000 basic kicks, 1000 advanced kicks, 1200
forms, 60 miles of roadwork....400 random acts of kindness (not so
random, really) one day mute, one day blind folded, one day in a
wheelchair….”
That was serious. I knew that it was designed
to push him beyond his ordinary concept of self, and that at some point
he would waver. So I gave him the ANCIENT CHILD meditation, teaching
him to see the light within his heart, to then concentrate that into a
child self, and connect it to his “Elder” self, the most generative
process imaginable. And indeed, he hit his wall. When he did:
“A week before, my inner child had an inner meltdown. I got him
talking to my future old man, and it was cool. "I just want to do good!"
the child said. “I’m very proud of you” the elder replied.
There are voices in our minds. If those voices are destructive to
you, it is crippling. To begin to align them opens the door to
coherence, to congruency. To align your emotions so that you are not
fighting yourself any longer.
This is a way of looking at the
meditations where you observe your inner chatter without fighting.
Where you throw an Ericksonian “Parts Party” to have your different
aspects cooperate with each other. With the imaginary “board meetings”
of role models discussed in “Think And Grow Rich.” With looking in the
mirror and saying: “I love you.” (And if you cannot do this without
flinching, you need this process!)
The “Ancient Child” is a
way to access your own power, taking off your brakes. To move through
life with the enthusiasm of a child and the wisdom of an elder. That
gives your adult self the clarity it needs to fulfill its daily tasks
with meaning: you know that every step you take is in alignment with
your deepest values, beliefs, needs, and emotions. This feeling, if you
haven’t experienced it, is just miraculous.
When Terry’s
“child” felt despair, felt unequal to the goals he had set for himself
(an inevitable part of the “Hero’s Journey” cycle) and cried “I just
want to be good!” the part of him on the other side of the issue, the
part who had already accomplished the goal reached back to take his
hand. In this case, all that need to be said was “I’m very proud of
you.”
Last night at Aikijutsu I watched a young father who
had taken his seven year old son for instruction. The son kept trying to
master a difficult technique, and failing. Again and again he looked
up at his Dad, searching his Dad’s face for understanding, approval,
encouragement. And the Dad smiled, and nodded, and gave him a “thumb’s
up.” And the kid dove back in and tried again, and again…until he got
it.
Anyone who had a parent who supported your dreams knows
how important this is. Anyone who didn’t have this critical support
knows how much it hurts.
I’m telling you it is not too late. Never too late. You can give yourself permission to be good, be great, to thrive.
In fact…in reality…you’re the only one who can. Please get your FREE copy of the ANCIENT CHILD today!
Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Diamond Hour #6: Raise your emotions
First, a recap:
1) Five Minute Miracle. Take five sixty-second “breathing breaks”, one every 2-3 hours.
2) Re-write your top 3-5 goals once every day. Be certain to have a tangible, photographable
goal in each of your top three arenas (body, finances, relationships). And Journal your emotions and
observations.
3) Begin to expand out the “5MM” breaks. For instance, spend extra time during session #1 by doing
it first thing in the morning on awakening, listen to your heartbeat.
4) Begin to implement the “Ancient Child” technique to contact your intuition and passion, clarify
your goals for the year and your actions for the day that relate to them.
5) Create a 15-minute (minimum) “morning ritual” of motion and emotion to center and begin to move
your
goals and intentions from concept to motion. This means things like
Joint Recovery, Five Tibetans, Sun Salutations…something basic and
powerful that requires no equipment.
Something you do every day to anchor yourself into your physical body, your vehicle for this world.
6) Raise emotions MORE. Yep, we talked about emotion in Step #5 but
we’re going deeper. We have focused our intentions, begun to move our
bodies, and now we’re going to begin the magical alchemy of combining
body, mind, and emotions so that everything we are is going in the same
direction.
Charles Darwin believed that emotions were
heuristics, simplified instructions for life that help us sort between
numerous choices swiftly. Without emotion, it is difficult to clarify
values, and without values, how do you know which of life’s countless
options to take?
Now, the evolutionary emotional “flash” is best
for short-term decisions (“should I walk down that ally? Ask that
person out, or accept an invitation? Watch that movie?”) but long-term
decisions require BOTH emotion and logic (buying a house, marrying a
partner, designing a career). People who are not in touch with their
emotions can have a difficult time making rapid decisions. People who
are not in touch with their logical centers can make disastrous
decisions about their bodies, their careers, and/or their relationships
if they don’t hook both together at the same time.
So learning to
deliberately raise and channel your emotions not only enables you to
overcome inertia, but also make short-term decisions. Your ultimate
destiny is shaped by your capacity to make daily decisions that lead to
massive action, those actions in alignment with your long-term goals.
The massive action allows you to “fail forward fast” and gain more data
about your environment. While other people are trying to make a
decision a week, you’re making ten decisions a day, and you’re going to
blow their results away, if you just pay attention to the results you
get.
ANYTHING that interferes with the process of action,
interpreting results, and adjusting action must be eliminated. And
changing beliefs or re-aligning values requires…wait for it…emotion.
You
must learn to master your emotions. Part of this is learning to “ride”
them like a surfer. Another is learning how to “tack” into them like a
sailor. Part is learning to “direct” them by controlling your focus.
Part is learning to find the “center” of your existence so that the
emotions can rage and storm around you, while you remain calm. And part
of it is simply being able to “Observe” your emotions without being
attached to them.
In my own life, fear was a major concern in my
martial arts training. This is precisely why it took me SEVENTEEN
YEARS to earn my first black belt. I had a morbid fear of sparring. I
was good at it. I’d never been hurt. Hell, I’d taken second place at
the 1972 National Korean Karate competitions, and been congratulated on
my technique by Joon Rhee himself, the “Father of American Tae Kwon
Do.” But I had only wrapped technique around my fear like a candy
shell around a Tootsie Pop’s chewy center.
Under stress, the whole
structure collapsed. And friends, if you are trying to move forward in
any hierarchical activity, you will be stress-tested to ego
destruction. No matter how you twist and turn, eventually life lays
you bare. And I couldn’t face the Gorgon.
It took me years of
searching to finally find my answer, in the shape of a Shorei Chito Ryu
instructor named Terry Letteau, and HIS instructor, Harley Reagan.
These men opened the door to real understanding, that my fear was just…a
feeling. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, or mustn’t, or
that I was small and weak, or that I was a coward. It was just there,
and the labels I added to it were what was draining my strength away.
That’s
another subject. The point is that every day, you need to directly
engage with your emotions. You both use them as fuel, and study them as
a source of conflict. If you say “Ever day in every way I’m getting
better and better” what voices come up in your head? Whose voices are
they?
If you say “I’m grateful for my life” do you believe it?
If you seek things in your past and present that you can be proud of, do
you lie to yourself and say “there is nothing. I’ve never done
anything” and disempower yourself?
If you are going to direct
your life, to have your dreams, you have to use all your tools. And
that means keeping them in the very best condition. And that means to
inspect them, under controlled conditions, like a pilot inspecting his
plane and going through his check list BEFORE he is in the air…every
damned day.
Raise your emotions. Think of what you love, what
you are proud of, what you hope for. All the things you have to be
grateful for. Look for “tiny” miracles if you want: the fact that you
can read, walk, talk. That you live in a world where you can share
knowledge you didn’t have to shed blood and skin to learn…just by
opening a book. That you didn’t have to hunt your own meat, grow your
own fruit, pave your own roads. That you are part of a web of
association, billions of individuals working together to increase the
possibility for all. Be grateful for your children, parents, friends.
For health, for love, for your past accomplishments and future
potential.
Yes, there will ALWAYS be storm clouds. Everyone has
them. But the way you get through them is by shrinking your ego until
you can fit into whatever specks of blue sky you can find. And when you
do that…the storm clouds shrink, and you’ll find the room to do your
dance.
So…raise your emotions. Every day. And then…surf the wave!
Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Monday, April 29, 2013
The Writing "Macine" Part 6: Model Success
The “naturals” in any field can learn their craft, sport, or discipline simply by observing other people’s finished product, and working their butts off. But the truth is that anyone can learn anything more efficiently and effectively if you make a specific study of learning techniques. I will leave most of this homework for the student, but here is your basic assignment:
1) Identify three writers you admire who have achieved the kind of quality and success you desire, and have also written or spoken (in some accessible manner) of their career.
2) One at a time, study them. Seek most specifically how they use body, mind and emotions. NLP refers to this as “Belief Systems, Mental Syntax and use of Physiology”. In writing, here are some possibilities
:
A) BELIEF: What do they believe about the role of art and the artist in life? What do they believe are the most important aspects of writing and art?
B) MENTAL SYNTAX: What is the specific pattern they work in? How and when do they research, outline, write first-draft, rewrite, submit, revise, promote? Each of these arenas ALSO has sub-belief and syntaxes. Study them.
C) PHYSIOLOGY: How do they actually position themselves in their work? What physical environment creates their work? What time of day? What healthy stimulants or relaxants do they use?
3) Look at what all three writers say in common. Concentrate on this.
4) Filter out unhealthy activities. Writers are just human beings. They make the mistake of using drugs or alcohol to relax, they engage in self-destructive behavior, they have ugly relationships and do stupid things. But what you seek is the “critical path”—the actions which are most generative. The actions that professional, successful writers practice that unsuccessful writers neglect.
Then…begin to implant these attitudes in your own life. And watch your results soar! Remember: success leaves clues. Footprints. Recipes. Practice them today, and share them tomorrow!
Write with passion!
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Creating the perfect “Diamond Hour” Part 5: Create a morning ritual.
The “Diamond Hour” concept says that one hour out of every day belongs to YOU. Not your job, your kids, your spouse, or anything else. You. Period. And the absolute best time to take that hour is the first hour of the day.
If you can’t work that out at first, take the morning to do your first sixty-second ‘breathing break.” Then…leverage that up to influence and control the first 15 minutes a day. Consider this your time to control your input, and designed to put the rest of your day in high gear.
Here are the basic things you need to do in this time, ideally:
1) Wake up mind and body.
2) Raise energy and enthusiasm.
3) Imprint your long-term goals on your unconscious.
4) Clarify the steps you must take TODAY to move toward them.
##
The idea is to create a 15-minute session that combines mind, body, and emotions, and moves them all in the same direction.
1) For instance, Five minutes of Sun Salutations, joint rotations, or Tai Chi can be combined with incantations (like “every day in every way, I’m getting better and better”) said WITH EMOTION. Yes, your demons will sneer at you. But if you are actually moving with power and purpose, and speaking with emotion, you will drown them out. Cynical about this? Imagine what would happen if you spent fifteen minutes every day frowning into a mirror criticizing yourself and calling yourself an idiot. Think that might influence your performance? By what logic doe the opposite case not make sense as well?
2) Next five minutes: Continue moving, increasing intensity and focus. Remember the formula? GOALS X FAITH X CONSTANT ACTION X GRATITUDE = RESULTS. What you do now is remember things already in your life that you are grateful for. Health. Friends. Life itself. Generate the emotions powerfully, as you walk or exercise. MOVE, damn it! Don’t just sit there. Actually move your body as if you are happy to be in it! Then…once you are filled with a sense of gratitude, TAKE THAT SAME FEELING and flow it out into your day, your week, your year. Visualize the goals you have, the actions you have to take, and feel AS IF THEY HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED. Give thanks for your success, visualize your actions, take a bow for the “win.”
3) Next Five Minutes is Faith. Prayers, affirmations, sacred songs and such exist in all cultures for a good reason—they imprint faith on the unconscious and conscious mind, and FAITH is what keeps you moving forward when you have lost confidence in your own ability.
In the Hero’s Journey, Faith is faith in one of three things: faith in self, faith in your companions, and faith in a higher power. Any one, or preferably all three of these varieties should be in your arsenal. “Incantation” is the process of chanting a powerful statement, with emotion, WHILE YOU ARE MOVING with authority and energy. Congruence is the key: your facial expression, body movement, vocal tonalities…everything you can consciously control should be engaged.
A popular incantation is: “All I need is within me now!” a statement that you already have everything you need. All the strength, power, intelligence, passion, love, creativity, courage, resilience, sensuality, potential…whatever you need to learn, grow, sell, create, persuade, evolve, or whatever else you need to fulfill your destiny.
Imagine taking the first fifteen minutes of every day for 30 days to raise and focus your energy and clarify your dreams. Increase gratitude. Wake up your body. Start your day like a tiger. Anyone want to take a 30-day challenge with me? Try this for just 30 days? It takes no money…but it does take a willingness to win, to wake up from your dream and start shaping reality. I dare you.
Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
The Perfect Diamond Hour #4: The Ancient Child
Let's recap:
1) Five Minute Miracle. Take five sixty-second “breathing breaks”, one every 2-3 hours.
2) Re-write your top 3-5 goals once every day.
3) Begin to expand out the “5MM” breaks. “Heartbeat” meditation.
And now:
4) Begin to implement the “Ancient Child” technique to contact your intuition and passion, clarify
your goals for the year and your actions for the day that relate to them. This is where things start to get fun. Step #1 will break the cycle of stress that creates fatigue, fear and tunnel-vision. Step #2 begins to focus your energy in the direction of your passions and values. Step #3 starts the process of deepening your practice, opening the door to self-knowledge and true healing.
Now Step #4 begins a process that can last a lifetime, anchoring this new awareness to your intuition and sense of “aliveness” and creativity. Anyone who has been a parent will recognize the fact that people can do things for their children that they cannot do for themselves. I remember working with a life coach once who discovered that any time he mentioned my daughter Nicki my energy jumped. Most of us know that we would live, and die, for our children.
Friends…that is a sliver of what you’ll get when you connect with your “inner child.” Now, note that this is a mental-emotional construct, but it works just fine. The idea is to connect with the oldest part of yourself that pre-dates the damage, disappointment, aversive conditioning and limiting beliefs that impact our psyches as we move through life. All of the creativity and aliveness anyone could ever want is still there, waiting within you.
The basic process is to, while meditating, visualize yourself sitting in front of a mirror. See the light inside your body. Concentrate it into a human form, the largest you can make composed primarily of light. For a normal, average person, that will probably be a kid about 9 years old. Sometimes older, sometime younger. Or an embryo. Or a single cell. The point is to find something that predates the damage, and align with it.
There are multiple ways to access the instinct, creativity and wisdom of this part of your psyche. Writing with your non-dominant hand works fine. Simply sitting quietly and asking your I.C. For input works nicely.
It may take time to make contact. I made a serious error back a couple of decades ago, and violated my own values. As a result, that “kid” inside me stopped communicating, and for the first time in my life, my creativity dried up. I began a process of visualizing myself at a place that was a favorite as a child (the beach) and bringing toys for that child to play with. It took weeks, maybe months for me to see any sign of that child on the beach: footprints and disturbed toys. More weeks before he approached me. And when we finally embraced, he sobbed that he’d missed me horribly, and I swore I’d never betray him again.
And I never have. The “Ancient Child” meditation, available FREE at www.diamondhour.com, is a phenomenal gateway to your inner world. But the synopsis given above will keep you going for months, if you just begin to apply yourself for 15-20 minutes a day.
Namaste,
Steve
Monday, April 22, 2013
Note from a student...
Just got a note from a student I thought I’d share:
Steve:
I
bought your Life Writing course about three years ago after attending
your lecture at a Creative Screenwriting Expo. Your ' s is the best
writing course ever. A true life-changer (I've been meaning to tell
you that for a while now though I'm sure you already know). I was the "
computer guy " at the expo, helping Bill keep it together behind the
scenes. Anyway, since I got your course, I've written a pilot for a
Sci-Fi series and a full series bible. I will be
pitching it later this year. I'm now living in Portland, OR and hoping
to do the show here as a web series. I'm so looking forward to your
forthcoming info on writing, producing and distributing ! Again,
congratulations and thanks for all the great, life-changing work you do.
-Gentry S.
#####
I
love hearing things like that. The “Lifewriting For Writers” course
is just spectacularly good, and I don’t say that because I created it. I
say that because I get notes like this all the time, every week,
sometimes every day. It is unique, unlike any other writing course in
the world…and if you don’t have it, you’re cheating yourself.
Order
your copy today…and you’ll be helping us make DANGER WORD…and the
experience from DANGER WORD will feed right back into the education
process, helping me be a better instructor for all of you. And that’s
something we all want!
http://www.diamondhour.com/LifewritingYearLong.en.html
The Writing “Machine” Part Five: Don’t try a novel until you’ve sold ten short stories.
One of the most common problems I run across is that people try to write novels before they’ve published anything at all. They ask questions about plotting, characterization, sales, editing, agents, finances and more…questions that they often would have answered themselves if they had written short work first.
There are a whole raft of things that cannot really be taught…but they can be learned, if you place yourself in the arena of conflict. Things that cannot be put into language, things that cannot be planned in advance, things that are too individual. Things tht are too dependent upon the time and place in which you begin your struggles. And such things are best learned in small lessons, without huge things at stake.
If it takes an average of a year to write a novel, it is reasonable to consider that a “huge” expenditure, capable of straining even a healthy ego. Rejection or failure on that level has crushed many a writer.
On the other hand, a short story is, or should be, the expenditure of a week’s effort, or a month at most. But 100,000 words of short stories will teach you FAR more than writing a 100k novel. Novels are just larger more complex expressions of the same patterns that exist in stories, and therefore short work is the perfect practice for the larger. What other reasons are there?
1) The most common response to this idea is that “my ideas come out novel sized.” Nonsense. Core ideas have no length. EXPRESSIONS of an idea have a length.
2) Novels can spin out of control easily, becoming longer and longer until they become trilogies and worse—before they are ever submitted. I watched one person work on an idea for DECADES, before finally realizing the whole thing didn’t work. It would have been better to find that out in a month, don’t you think? That’s when you can adjust and decide to do something else with your life. Or try another tactic. Your demons are tricky. There are many ways to be “blocked” and some of them involve keeping you too busy to notice you aren’t accomplishing anything.
3) You don’t need an agent to sell a short story. But selling short stories will definitely impress a potential agent more than a blank slate.
4) Editors know agents. Sell a few short stories, and you will have made connection with the “other side” of the game. Editors and agents in New York have lunch together, run into each other at parties and conventions. An editor who likes your work can be a powerful ally in getting yourself hooked up with good representation.
5) Short stories allow you to explore new and different stories and approaches, styles, genres and so forth. You can literally try out a whole new personae, and if it doesn’t work…you’ve only invested a week or so.
6) Short stories are how you develop your skills. Novels are how you get paid.
7) Asking a pro to read one of your short stories is asking a LOT less than asking them to read an entire novel.
8) Reading one of your short stories gives an experienced writer or editor a MUCH better sense of your skills than reading a comparable chunk of a novel.
When someone asks me to read their novel, I decline. I might be willing to hear a pitch or read an outline (and usually can detect problems in such a fashion). But reading a short story is an EXCELLENT diagnostic of their skills.
9) Writing stories teaches you to complete your projects. How to create an ending and work toward it. The most common error people have is not knowing how to end what they have begun. Might as well apply your greatest efforts to what has the biggest bang for your buck.
10) Short stories are fun. You can literally write the whole thing in a single burst of passion. Re-writing is “work.” When I say “write with passion” I promise you that nothing exemplifies this more than the joy of creating a complete project in a single sitting, you haven’t touched one of the purest experiences in all of art. It is wonderful, often taking you into a flow deeper than anything you’ve ever experienced.
11) And what if you’re a screenwriter? Writing short films like little Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes is a great way to practice the same things.
No matter what your excuses are…I’m standing firm on the same advice I’ve given people for twenty-five years.
###
For these, and many many other reasons…if you haven’t published short stories, PLEASE don’t try to write a book. I’ve seen too many people crash and burn going that route. On the other hand, I’ve never seen anyone who tries the story route fail to publish, if they just don’t quit, do the work, and continue to model the success of professionals.
Write with Passion!
###
Just got a note from a student I thought I’d share:
Steve:
I bought your Life Writing course about three years ago after attending your lecture at a Creative Screenwriting Expo. Your ' s is the best writing course ever. A true life-changer (I've been meaning to tell you that for a while now though I'm sure you already know). I was the " computer guy " at the expo, helping Bill keep it together behind the scenes. Anyway, since I got your course, I've written a pilot for a Sci-Fi series called, Gary-X, and a full series bible. I will be pitching it later this year. I'm now living in Portland, OR and hoping to do the show here as a web series. I'm so looking forward to your forthcoming info on writing, producing and distributing ! Again, congratulations and thanks for all the great, life-changing work you do.
-Gentry S.
#####
I love hearing things like that. The “Lifewriting For Writers” course is just spectacularly good, and I don’t say that because I created it. I say that because I get notes like this all the time, every week, sometimes every day. It is unique, unlike any other writing course in the world…and if you don’t have it, you’re cheating yourself.
Order your copy today…and you’ll be helping us make DANGER WORD…and the experience from DANGER WORD will feed right back into the education process, helping me be a better instructor for all of you. And that’s something we all want!
http://www.diamondhour.com/LifewritingYearLong.en.html
Sunday, April 21, 2013
42 (2013)
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Oblivion (2013)
Just saw "Oblivion." Pretty, and sort of sincere, even spectacular and moody at times, but I just can't think of a way it all fits together and makes sense. Maybe someone could explain all of what seem like plot holes, but when I sit there asking: "well, why...?" through most of a film, it's not a good sign. The basic set-up: Tom Cruise is sort of repairman for the whole planet, caring for these gigantic ocean harvesters that are the key to humanity's future, humanity having moved to, um...Titan. Don't ask. One guy? And he never seems to leave the New York area. At least, I assume that's New York, because we return to the Empire State building. Earthquakes or something have changed topography so much you'd think you were in Colorado. Well, there are plot twists, and naked swimming, and Morgan Freeman does his sacrificial negro routine. But overall, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. But the parts are pretty. Give it a C.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Want to make a movie?
My wife Tananarive and I are making a short horror film, “Danger Word” based on our novel DEVIL'S WAKE. Starring Frankie Faison (“Silence of the Lambs” “The Wire.”), it's going to film in New York in late May. After its done, there will be a TON of new lessons about writing, producing, distributing and other things to share with all of you who may have the dream of creating your own work. You can follow the progress at:
Www.dangerwordfilm.com
Have a look, learn how it happens, cheer us on, or even help us create!
Let’s put on a show!
Steve
The Writing "Machine" part four: Put your stories in the mail
Now this is a piece of advice most specific to unpublished writers, but can be generalized to any phase of your career. It combines advice from Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury: Write a story a week or every other week. Finish What you write. Put it in the mail, keep it in the mail until it sells.
Don’t re-write except to editorial request.
(And by the way, yes, I suggest that you start with short stories. Sell five-ten of them before you try a novel. Otherwise, it's like trying to run a marathon before you've practiced jogging around the block. And no, I don't care if your ideas come out novel-size. Ideas don't have length. Expressions of ideas have length.))
This pattern, subsumed in the pattern of the “Machine” is designed to get you off the dime and working. If you define “writer’s block” as ANYTHING that disrupts the process of creation and publication, it is clear that some people “block” themselves by not beginning, while others “block” by not finishing. Still others by not submitting once they’ve finished, or letting a rejection slip discourage them. ANYTHING that interrupts the flow of ideas to rough draft to final draft to submission to publication is a “block” and you need to root out every obstacle, and work on the technical, emotional, psychological, commercial and other aspects of your chosen trade.
It’s really a matter of doing the chunks of work until you feel the flow. Or flowing until you can identify the component pieces. Either approach works.
One of the biggest confrontations is risking rejection, the big “no.” But if you don’t understand that it’s a numbers game, that there is some unknown ratio of “no’s” to “yesses”, you must learn the lesson. Every salesman knows he has to knock on X doors to get one sale, on average. He just focuses down and handles the rejection.
The same ratios exist in life in so many arenas: asking for dates, hitting a ball, breaking a bad habit…and on and on.
The problem is that every goal that can actually change your life is accompanied by both excitement and fear. The demons in your head are looking for any opportunity to convince you there is no point in trying, that the risks are too large.
In my own case, early in life I knew that discouragement would devil me, and could sabotage my chances of a career. There was so little external reinforcement for my goals that the demons in my head had enough allies to fill a football stadium. So I set a number: 100 stories. I would write, finish, and submit 100 stories, and if necessary have them ALL circulating between magazine editors at the same time, before I even STARTED asking whether or not I could “make it.” 100 stories. That was 2-4 years of clear space, in which I could tell the nasty voices in my head to shut the #$%% up.
Two-four years to learn to deal with rejection, fear, sloth, all the negative chorus. That gave me the room to have fun with it. Every time a story got rejected, it was just another step closer to my goal of 100. One of Tananarive’s teachers said that “a real writer papers his office with rejection slips.”
Yes! I was a real writer!
I just wasn’t an AUTHOR yet. But I knew I would be. Come hell or high water, I was. Why? Welll…
Let me tell you a little story. When I was in college, I took a creative writing course from a very nice lady named N. She doted on a guy named R. in the class who wrote exquisitely polished little gems about guys who seek the meaning of life by riding their motorcycles to places other people had never gone. Beautiful stuff, much better than mine. In contrast, I was writing stories about big amoebas that devour towns in Montana. Oh, well.
She lavished praise on this fellow, deservedly. Me, she called “the king of slick”, and I doubt it was intended as a compliment. Everyone looked at R. and expected him to be a literary success.
That was all right. I knew something they didn’t. I had watched him when, on rare occasions, his work was criticized. He lost it. Couldn’t handle it. He was defensive and complaining and attacking. Sheer fear.
I sat back and hid my smile. Friends, it was like noticing that someone pulls their right earlobe before they bluff in poker. Or drop their shoulder just before they throw a cross. Or a girl dropping her eyes south of the border on your second date.
Oh, yeah, it’s like THAT, is it..?
He wasn’t going to make it, and I was. I knew it. Because for all his literary polish, he didn’t have the emotional strength, the knowledge of his own center, to withstand rejection. So long as N. Praised him, R. was fine (and I later found out she was…umm…”praising” him rather thoroughly, off-campus. If you know what I mean.) But he had a false ego shell, and any hint of criticism cracked it.
That meant that eventually it would crumble, and when it did he’d have to start building his way up all over again.
And even though I was behind him in technique, I was ahead of him in terms of actual self-knowledge. And in the real world, that’s what makes the difference. I knew I’d make it, and he wouldn’t.
And…I was right. Nice guy, great technical skills, but he didn’t know himself. He thought his attitude and skills would sustain him, and was dodging and twisting to keep from taking the very hits that might have informed him of the true structure of the world, and therefore genuine knowledge of self.
The only way to get that is to actually place yourself in the arena. Submit the stories. Take the hits. Ask the girls for dates. Take chances. Get knocked down. Learn to stand up again. There is just no other way I know.
Write. Finish what you write. Put it in the mail. Keep it there until it sells.
Do the work, damn it!
Write with passion!
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Perfect "Diamond Hour" #3: Expand a 5MM break into Heartbeat Meditation
The perfect Diamond Hour #3: Expand one of your “5MM” breaks to 15-20 minutes.
So we have our first two steps of the “perfect” Diamond Hour.
#1: Take one sixty-second “breathing break” one every 2-3 hours. This interrupts the cycle of stress devolving into strain.
#2: Re-write your top 3-4 goals every day. This clarifies your purpose hugely, so that every day you are moving another step toward whatever forms your fondest reality.
And now, #3: Expand one of your “5MM” breaks out to 15-20 minutes of “Heartbeat Meditation.”
Meditation starts with the ability to focus your mind wherever you want it to go, for as long and as deeply as you need to accomplish a given result. The usual benefits are quality of attention, relaxation, increased capacity to resist stress, to think clearly under pressure, and so forth. There are deeper benefits that arise from the capacity to inquiry into the nature of mind, Self, and reality at deeper levels…but you’ll discover those as you go. First, let’s help you deal with the stresses that generate fear and confusion.
Of all the forms of meditation I’ve studied—and there are dozens—the best for beginning and intermediate students WHO CURRENTLY HAVE NO METHOD is Anahata meditation, simply listening or “feeling” for your heartbeat. Sit quietly, spine erect. You might want to make this your first “Five Minute Miracle” break of the day, perhaps first thing upon awakening. Take your pulse at wrist or throat, and feel your heartbeat for fifteen to twenty minutes. When you can, stop “taking” your pulse and just grow quiet and “soft” enough to feel your heartbeat throbbing in your veins. Rotate your awareness through your body, seeing where you can “feel” your heartbeat most strongly.
If you are relaxed enough, you can feel it almost anywhere!
A few thoughts:
1) Your first 10-15 minutes will be sheer confusion, voices in your head, urges to twitch and scratch, urges to clean the neighbor’s cat-box, or literally anything else to get you to stop inquiring into the nature of your mind. Why? Well, that’s a subject for another time. Let’s just leave it at the fact that this garbage is completely normal, and analogous to cleaning out the garage. Yeah, it seems that there’s an infinite amount of crap in there, but eventually you will reach clear sky. Just the effort places you into an entirely different category of humanity: those who choose to wake the #$%% up.
2) You may find yourself going to sleep. Another trick of the ego, which seriously wants to stop your inquiry (oops! I said I was gonna stay away from this subject. Oh well..) Find a position that is comfortable but not TOO comfortable.
3) If you have a hard time relaxing, you might try playing soft jazz, classical music (without human voices, preferably—unless they are speaking a foreign language you don’t understand), ocean sounds, meditative music, etc. There are great apps for smart phones or Ipads that create relaxation sounds, and cost about two bucks.
4) You can spend days, years, or the rest of your life with this exercise, and it will take you all the way home. If you want to go deeper, after you have found stillness (for the average person, this might take months) during your meditation, begin to ask the most important questions a human being can ask: “who am I?” and “what is true?”
5) Observe the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and images that float through your mind. Do not try to stop them. Do not resist them. Let them go. Watch without judgement.
6) Write down your experiences in your journal. As the weeks, months and years pass, your written record of your experiences will become a guide-book to your inner world.
Again…these first three steps might take weeks or months or years to outgrow. There is nothing but the process, really. Go deeper, and if you have any questions about these suggestions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Perfect "Diamond Hour" Part 2: Rewrite your goals daily
Re-write your top 3-5 goals once every day. Be certain to have a tangible, photographable goal in each of your top three
arenas (body, finances, relationships). And Journal your emotions and observations.
This should take about two minutes. If you can’t write your goals quickly and simply, you haven’t formulated them yet, and without clearly formulated goals, you are at risk of drifting, wasting your energy, and not seeing opportunities when they are presented to you. Your brain works partially to filter out 99.9% of the millions of pieces of data presented to you every day. It is like knowing your destination when driving across the country. If you know where you’re going, and have talked to others who have journeyed there, you will know which routes to take.
A road map doesn’t guarantee your arrival, but sometimes Route 10, which takes you directly to your goal, has ugly scenery. Take it anyway. Route 30 is very pretty, but ends up some place you never wanted to visit. If you know your goals, you know how much gas you’ll need, what kind of vehicle, how many night’s lodging you have to arrange, how much cash you’ll need for food along the way. You can get descriptions of the territory. The journey may be difficult, but you vastly increase your chance of getting somewhere you want to go than if you simply jump in your car and drive randomly.
Frankly, that is too close a parallel to what most people do. I was initially surprised at the resistance people have to writing their goals down, and have concluded it is because that is an investment, a statement of purpose. At the point you do that, you are admitting that you care. You have something to lose, and if you don’t get it, it will hurt.
Do it anyway. Nothing hurts worse than the sense that you’ve wasted your life. I see that kind of regret in people every day, and it is devastating. If your goal is clear enough to be photographed, it seems to engage a different part of your brain. It may take work, but it’s worth it. If you can’t think of a goal, then try taking a meta-position on it:
Your goal becomes to get a goal. “In one year (date), I have clear goals in my body, career, relationships, and finances”
An excellent body goal might involve fitting into a particular size of pants or dress. Career might be publishing a book, or finishing school. Relationships might be new love in your life, a second honeymoon, or time meditating every day. Finances might be an improvement in net worth or bank balance.
Specificity is power. From that, you can see if you fall short. If this generates fear or shame, you know you have emotional work to do, and that goes on the list. Fear is usually at the bottom of negative emotions, so any technique or perspective that reduces unhealthy fear will increase joy, creativity, confidence, focus, and gratitude.
Your “Diamond Hour” is the adult version of the “Morning Ritual” for children. It is designed to channel your adult actions into creating a safe “play” space for your inner child. I can’t express how important this is, the amount of sheer aliveness in your days. No effort, no ethical sacrifice is steep a price to pay for this quality of “owning your own existence.”
Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
The Writing "Machine" Part 3: Express your deepest values and beliefs
The “Writing Machine” Part Three: Write stories that reflect the values, beliefs, and concerns of your own life, in indirect form.
We are investigating the basic structure of “The Machine”, a writing concept I’ve taught, implicitly and explicitly, to thousands of students over the years, without ever formalizing it. It is designed to produce, not a particular piece of work, but a body of work that gradually cuts closer and closer to your ultimate potential. To that end, please absorb what is said here, mull over it, adapt what is useful, and discard the rest.
The third principle is to WRITE STORIES REFLECT THE VALUES, BELIEFS, AND CONCERNS of your life, in indirect form.
Most of the time, you’ll start a story with one of just a few motivations:
1) A character you wish to explore.
2) A story situation you wish to explore.
3) A fact or idea you find fascinating, and wish to explore in story form.
A fine suggestion is to “write hot, and edit cool”. In other words, when you have your idea, you write your first draft at mach speed, enjoying the heck out of it, riding the flow of emotions. The REWRITE, on the other hand, should be done with deliberation.
When you’ve finished your first draft, it is time to read what you’ve written. What is the meaning of your story? That meaning is generally expressed in your final scenes or images. Once you extract that meaning, you begin your rewrite process, expressing or attempting to “disprove” your basic theorem in each scene (for instance: love is stronger than hate, versus hate is stronger than love.)
As you move from project to project, you should also be deepening and refining your sense of what is important in your own life. Refining your sense of self, and the world you see. This could involve your sense of the divine, of the ethical structure of the universe, or the core rules of nature. You might dig into your personal concerns about abuse, success, love, or whatever else that has affected you deeply.
This is especially good when it comes to issues that have deviled you in the past, stopped you from progressing or reaching your goals. What emotional or perceptual issues have hurt you? Continue to hurt you?
What are the lessons you wish you’d earned earlier in life? If you could create a “time capsule” and send it back in time to your younger self, 10, 20, or 30 years ago…what would you say? What might have made your days easier? Helped you survive emotional turmoil? Steer you clear of a bad relationship? Give you more understanding and compassion for yourself and others? Lifted you from depression? Helped you survive the death of a parent or loved one?
What have you learned about life, the world, yourself over the years? REFINE THAT AND MAKE IT THE BASIS OF A STORY.
Now, note…you should never, ever state your basic premise directly, for a variety of reasons. But allow the images, actions, and language reflect and expand upon your theme, your basic idea.
Decide that the dominant emotion you wish to project to your audience will be something uplifting, inspiring…or that you will use horror to cleanse, release emotion, warn or illuminate. Shine a light on an unexplored corner of human experience. Or just send a message to those a little younger and less experienced than you.
Now, your primary motivation MUST be entertainment, but the actions and reactions of your characters, as well as the way the universe responds to their efforts, reveals the meaning of your story, as well as your view of humanity.
Learn to control these things. When your stories begin to reflect the REAL issues of your life, you are resting your craft upon emotional truth, and opening the doorway to art. Harness those emotions and skills properly, and everything you write makes you a better person (by deepening knowledge and working out issues), and everything you do to improve your life makes you a better writer (by increasing knowledge of character and reality.)
And that…is a very sweet outcome indeed.
Write with passion!
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Monday, April 15, 2013
The Writing "Machine" Part Two: Read 10X What you write
So our first rule was to create an output target and stick to it. The second rule is designed to keep you from creative bankrupsy. YOU MUST READ. Lots. Tons. Everything you can get your hands on. But too often, I encounter people who want to publish, say, SF, and confine their reading to the very magazines they wish to write for.
I think this is a bad, bad idea. The first generation of SF writers seemed to know two things: literature and the sciences. If you have, say 100 units of ability, and have to spend 30 of them on world-building, guess what? You only have 70 units of ability to use on the quality of your writing.
An SF writer would actually have to have about 130 “units” of ability to write fiction that is as good, measured purely as fiction, as a writer who has 100 units but doesn’t have to world-build and extrapolate. This is why I like to have students write non-genre stories BEFORE experimenting with genre. Do you understand character, poetics, plotting? The elements of genre can disguise the quality of poor writing. Easily. A great idea is forgiven much bad presentation.
There is another factor. If you eat steak, you know what comes out the other end. So if you eat crap, what do you think you get? Sorry for the image, but it is critical to disabuse yourself of the notion that you can be lazy about your input: garbage in, garbage out. If you take the position that you must read ten words for every word you write, and not only that but must strive to read “up” from your target market, it is hard to go wrong.
What this means, of course, is that if you have the ambition of writing popular fiction, read bestsellers. Want to write bestsellers? Read classics. Want to write classics? Well…choose your grandparents very carefully.
That’s kind of a joke, but contains some truth, of course. Ultimately, there is a limit to what focus, modeling, hard work and so forth will do for you. There are undoubtedly inborn limits. Personally, I’ve never met a human being who struck me as being at the absolute outer edge of his potential, although I know a few who come extraordinarily close. If you concentrate on getting the very, very best from whatever potential you have, you’ll accomplish hella more than if you lament that you don’t have as much “talent” as someone else. In fact, one of the first clues that a person is focused on the wrong things is if they spend time complaining about the success of others.
Do what you can, to the best of your ability. And one core element of the “Machine” is to write a story a week (or some other serious output goal), and then read 10X what you write, one level “up.” The truth is that if your ambitions are the very highest, then you should be spending the majority of your reading time with the classics of the ages. Also immersing yourself in the mastery of some area of human knowledge. And stripping away your perceptual and emotional illusions and masks, so that you are free to cut closer and closer to the truth of your existence every day.
We’ll touch on that again, soon. But today, look at the application of these two rules in your life.
Write With Passion!
Steve
Friday, April 12, 2013
The Writing "Machine" Step #1: A Story A Week, or every other week
All right. Let’s take another look at the Ten Steps of “The Machine”.
Please understand and bear with me. I never formalized anything
beyond about the first four steps, but definitely “clustered” my advice
around the areas I’m going to be discussing. The point is to create not
a given story, but a pattern of action which will, over time, lead you
to your own methodology, your own way of controlling conscious and
unconscious, of expressing yourself cleanly and honestly. Of building
the healthiest career your heart and mind can construct, and taking your
art as far as you possibly can.
A lot to ask. But I think
that much of this is doable, if you focus properly. I’m going to be
tinkering with the “10 Steps” as I go, so bear with me.
The first step:
1)) Create an output goal (a story a week, or a story every other week. Or a
thousand words. Or five pages).
You have to look back from five years from now. What output will take
you to your chosen goal? I wanted a hundred stories, all circulating
in the mail at the same time, before I began to evaluate the wisdom of a
writing career. That meant that at a story a week, I’d have it in two
years. A story every other week? Four years. Cool.
Or…look
at it as “a million words of crap.” At a thousand words a day, that’s
about three years. Five hundred words? About six years. Cool.
Or…Scripts.
At one script page a day, that’s about two scripts a year. Five pages
a day? LOTS of room to throw crap away, and still have three scripts a
year. Cool.
And remember…the gut-grinding work is the
writing. Craft is in what you throw away. Art is found in telling the
truth, and if you write enough, you simply run out of lies.
Are
you willing to do your five-six years of work? Your million words? Your
hundred stories? Think about it: in the process, you will learn all
your basic skills of research, flow management, typing, grammar and
spelling, plotting and characterization. You will learn about the
market, and how to submit, and how to handle rejection. You will in the
flow of that time begin to shift your definition of yourself to
“writer” in some core, unconscious ways. The books, stories, scripts
are by-products of living your life in a particular way. If you act in
accordance with your own deepest wisdom AND learn everything you can
along the way, you will “cut away” everything that is not you, and
reveal whatever “talent” you have to offer.
But the real talent,
the CORE talent, is doing the work. And learning one new thing every
day about your chosen field. Just one new thing. Every day.
And write. And write. And write.
Have
you got what it takes to do this? Can you make your peace with doing
this day after day, year after year, for the sheer love of craft and
self-expression? Even if you never publish? If you can, joyously…you
have a damned good chance of being an author. You're already a
writer, dammit.
These ten rules are designed to help you craft a
process that will bring you joy and satisfaction regardless of what the
external world says about your work. You CANNOT control the world’s
reactions to your dreams. You CAN choose to live a life of
self-expression and growth. And it is when you do that…without
worrying about the external results but applying yourself to excellence
in every conscious way…
That beautiful things happen. The work always belongs to you. But sometimes, blessedly, the world responds with a “yes.”
And that, my friends, is magical.
Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Thursday, April 11, 2013
The Diamond Hour--Simpliified
Ten Principles For Your Perfect “Diamond Hour”
I’ve been
promoting the idea of one “Diamond Hour” that belongs to you, every
day. And want to zero in on the ten most important principles
connected with that idea. So, just as with the “Writing Machine” I use
in coaching, I wanted to see if I could extract the ten most important
principles behind this. It will take me a little time, but hopefully
you won’t mind if I work this out in public over the next couple of
weeks. I’ll enumerate them, then go back over them day by day, o.k.?
1) Five Minute Miracle. Take five sixty-second “breathing breaks”, one every 2-3 hours.
2)
Re-write your top 3-5 goals once every day. Be certain to have a
tangible, photographable goal in each of your top three arenas (body,
finances, relationships). And Journal your emotions and observations.
3)
Begin to expand out the “5MM” breaks. For instance, spend extra time
during session #1 by doing it first thing in the morning on awakening,
listen to your heartbeat.
4) Begin to implement the “Ancient
Child” technique to contact your intuition and passion, clarify your
goals for the year and your actions for the day that relate to them.
5)
Create a 15-minute (minimum) “morning ritual” of motion and emotion to
center and begin to move your goals and intentions from concept to
motion. This means Joint Recovery, Five Tibetans, Sun
Salutations…something basic and powerful that requires no equipment.
Something you do every day to anchor yourself into your physical body,
your vehicle for this world. As you do, you will go through a
three-step process (Steps 6-9):
6) Raising your emotions. (About
three minutes) While moving, use an affirmation like “every day in
every way I’m getting better and better.” The trick is to do it WITH
FEELING and WITH MOTION. Walking, exercising, breathing deeply IN
MOTION. You bring up the emotions you want to feel. Charles Darwin
believed that emotions were heuristics, simplified instructions for life
that help us sort between numerous choices swiftly. Without emotion,
it is difficult to clarify values, and without values, how do you know
which of life’s countless options to take?
7) Gratitude—past and
present. (About three minutes) Imagine all of the things in your life
for which you ALREADY feel gratitude: life, love, health, family, a roof
over your head, etc. As you do, chant out loud something like “I’m SO
grateful for my loving children! I’m SO grateful for a strong, healthy
body! I’m SO grateful for a healthy mind and happy heart!” and so on.
The core message of “As A Man Thinketh” and countless other self-help
books is that our minds and emotions create our worlds.
8)
Gratitude—future (goals). (About three minutes) Now, and this is
important—take that SAME emotional energy you have raised about the
things you have now…and begin to give thanks for the goals you have in
the future, as if you have already accomplished them. Say it out
loud. If you can’t say it, you can’t have it! “I’m SO grateful for
the new love in my life! I’m SO grateful I take the time to meditate
every day! I’m SO grateful for my five new customers! I’m SO
grateful I look great in my size X pants! I’m SO grateful my children
graduated college!” Use total physiology, emphasis, enthusiasm, body
language. The message of “The Science of Getting Rich” is that
gratitude for what we have now is the foundation for our future
accomplishment
9) Incantation (About three minutes) chanting,
aloud, with enthusiasm, the belief that you already possess the
resources and power necessary to create your dreams. Guru Tony Robbins
suggests a statement like “All I need is within me now. All the
STRENGTH I need is within me now. All the CONFIDENCE I need is within
me now. All the LOVE I need is within me now…” Again, WHILE MOVING,
WALKING EXERCISING.
10) TAKE AN ACTION. You’ve clarified
goals, raised energy, visualized your internal world and the external
steps you will take today and this week to create your future. NOW…take
an action! Exercise, write 1000 words of your novel, write an email
you’ve put off. DO SOMETHING. ACT ON A DECISION.
These are the
ten steps I’ve been teaching, and using myself for years...and in some
cases, since childhood. Start with five minutes, while keeping a
commitment to stealing a hour back from the world. Then begin, one
step at a time, to walk The Thousand Mile Road. You may notice that I
don’t specifically speak of Spirit. That is deliberate. But if you
raise your energy, fill your life with love, learn to serve your
community in a way that they exchange value with you, and remove the
fear from your life…you will automatically begin to seek a higher
connection, never fear. Take care of the roots, and the rest of the
plant will grow.
I’ll look at these again, very soon.
Namaste
Steve
(Www.diamondhour.com)
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The (Writing) Machine
Over the last decade, I’ve used and taught a writing model I call “The Machine” I’ve decided to try to boil down the basic advice to about ten steps, and you will probably excuse me if I do this in public. Here are the ten steps that come to mind. In the coming days I’ll work to refine and explain them:
“The Machine”
1) Create an output goal (a story a week, or a story every other week. Or a thousand words)
2) Read 10 X what you write.
3) Read one level “up” from your writing goal.
4) Keep your stories circulating in the mail
5) Don’t try a novel until you’ve sold ten short stories.
6) Once you’ve finished your first draft, ask “what is the meaning of my story” and re-write from the beginning to sharpen this.
7) Model the healthy attitudes, actions and beliefs of the writers you admire.
8) Follow structure until you have mastered it (selling at least 10 short stories), then try freestyle. If you have problems, revert to structure until it is internalized.
9) Separate the “Flow” state from the “editing” state.
10) Develop a circle of writers and readers to evaluate your work. Choose the smartest, toughest critics you can find, and learn to take the discomfort.
These ideas have served me and my students well. Study them, absorb what is useful, and reject the rest. More later…
Namaste,
Steve
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Morning Ritual--for adults
(An expression of the "Ancient Child" meditation available FREE at: www.diamondhour.com)
Tons to do in the next week. Under stress we tend not to remember the most important stress-smashing steps:
1) Stop every three hours and breathe for sixty seconds.
2) As you do, "listen" quietly and softly for your heartbeat.
And healing:
3) Visualize the light flowing within your body, as if watching yourself in a mirror.
4) Form the light into a living being within you. The amount of light will determine the size/age of the being.
5) "Sink" this image down to your root. Listen carefully to what this "child" has to say to you.
And performance
6)
Remember your top 3-4 goals for the next year. Be sure you have one
for each major arena. See how these goals will benefit you, your
family, and your community.
7) Remember your top 3-4 goals for the next month. Be sure you have one for each major arena.
8) Remember your top 3-4 goals for today. Be sure you have one for each major arena.
9) Move your body: joint rotations, power-walking, dancing.
10) As you do, see your daily actions leading to success on the daily, monthly, and yearly level.
11)
If possible, launch into your morning exercise session. If not, give
thanks for another wonderful day of life, love, and possibility.
With
practice, you can do all of this in 3-15 minutes. And the benefits,
once you learn to ride a wave of gratitude and purpose...are amazing.
Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
Monday, April 01, 2013
Owning Your Emotions
You have to admit that you want change in your life. Admit that you want that passionate relationship. Admit that you want a dynamic, lithe body. Admit that you want success in a career that empowers and expresses you, and contributes to the world. Admit that you want financial stability. What stops people is fear of disappointment. Success will always belong to those who step up and take the risk. The others will have some story about how they can't, or shouldn't, or mustn't. They'll blame their genetics, their environment, society, their parents, their spouse. Anything, everything, but taking responsibility for their own lives. Adulthood is the point of conation--the point at which you stop blaming and start taking responsibility for your emotions, your actions, your beliefs. Children can fault others for their emotions, say "they made me feel X." But if you would own your life, you must draw the line, and take responsibility.
Response-Ability. The ability to respond. Not guilt, blame, or shame, but response-ability. I know I'm dealing with a child when I hear "they made me feel..."
And an adult when I hear "They did X, and I felt Y about it." That subtle shift denotes awareness. And awareness is where it begins.
Namaste,
Steve
