Thanksgiving to the teachers who changed me
Mindful gratitude for the people who guide us
Hello,
Welcome to all my new subscribers - there are lots of you since the start of the year and it is great to have you here! Here are some of my most popular posts that will give you a good idea of what goes on around here. Essentially it’s all about writing and life!
If you upgrade to a paid subscription, you also get access to the monthly courses that started this year, and additional posts that are delving deeper into the truths that live inside us, the experiences we live through, and the decisions we make, and how they soak into everything we write.
This week is a Mindful Gratitude post, which I share once a month and include a writing prompt in to get us all thinking about who and what we are grateful for and expressing our thanks for that.
Being thankful has been a huge element of my finding happiness and living and writing more mindfully. This time, I am expressing my gratitude for the many teachers who have helped me to become a better writer and a better human. Some I have worked with in real life, others I have only read and listened to their words.
When I started on my mindfulness journey, it was to manage stress and anxiety. But it has led to a more spiritual one that has transformed how I feel, how I write, and what I believe, about everything.
The teachers who have had helped me find my way on this journey include Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chödrön, Natalie Goldberg, Peter Russell, Mimi Kuo-Deemer, Bruce Lipton, Anne Lamott,
and . My thanks goes to them all for their books, courses, videos, and positive attitudes that inspire me always.It’s Satya that I want to share with you today. I first came across her through her fiction writing when I read her wonderful novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Then the mindful writing practice she devised called Small Stones helped me to focus on the present and find the joy in just being here having this human experience. And the joy in just writing for writing’s sake.
Then in her work as a psychotherapist she helped me to process my tumultuous upbringing and my decision to remove myself from my family, and to be more understanding of all the different parts of myself. Now, she writes the wonderful Going Gently on Substack and is continuing to help me, and many others, with the wisdom she shares there.
Thank you, Satya, for teaching me to be kinder to myself, to notice all the good things, and to accept all the parts of me and what they are trying to do. And for being here sharing your insights into what it means to be human.
With love,
Writing Prompt
Write a paragraph, or more, of thanks to a teacher who has had a profound impact on your life. I’d love to read them if you wanted to share in the comments, or by replying to the email.
Current opportunities to work with me
As well as offering 1-1 Mindful Mentoring, I run online courses and workshops. I would love to help you develop your writing!
The Heart of Your Story course is inspired by the transformation I made to my own writing practice by paying more mindful attention to the people who appear in my stories.
Over the course of writing two novels, a novella, hundreds of short stories and starting work on my third novel, I have come to believe that getting right inside the heads and hearts of the characters we're writing about is where we need to start, so that we can write compelling stories with protagonists that people emotionally connect to.
Stories are containers for change, a shift in heart and mindset for your protagonist is where the resonance lies. So for us to write about the time of change, we have to know what they're transforming from and how they got like that, why they need to make the change now, and what's at stake if they don't. We will dive deep into the protagonist at the heart of your story in order to find the story's heart.
You can join me for a 4-week online course on Zoom to mindfully get to the heart of your protagonist and discover what your story is really about.
Zoom sessions: 10.30 - 12.30 GMT on Sat 2nd March, Sat 9th March, Sat 16th March and Sat 23rd March.
Spaces are limited to 8 writers.
You can use the workshops to work on a character in a novel or a short story. The techniques I will share are ones I use for all of my stories no matter the length. You'll get the opportunity to share your responses to the prompts, and receive feedback from me and the group to help you develop your character and storyline from what emerges.
At the end of the four sessions, you will have a much deeper connection to your protagonist, the people that surround them, and the story that they want to tell through you.
Things to bring with you to the course:
A willingness to work hard, read widely, and give and take constructive feedback
An open mind and a sense of humour
A commitment to developing your writing craft for the writing’s sake
The motivation to experiment and try different things to take your writing in new directions
A commitment to attending all of the live workshops and helping your course mates to develop alongside you (replays will be available if unexpected circumstances mean you can’t attend a session)
Edit Your Novel
A 6-week online course
HAVE YOU GOT A COMPLETE DRAFT OF A NOVEL AND NOT SURE WHAT TO DO NEXT?
This 6-week course will give you the skills and confidence to edit it and take it to a whole new level. What you’ll learn can also be used to edit all the novels you’ll write in the future.
Based on my popular and successful, Novel Creator Course (6 published novels written/edited on it since 2020), it will equip you with the tools and resources to ensure your novel is compelling, that your characters are memorable and three-dimensional, and that the reader is going to be invested in the outcomes so they read right to the end.
All of the content for each workshop will be online for you to access 24/7 and work through when suits you best.
Each week, you’ll share some of your draft based on the tasks set for each workshop to get feedback from me and your course mates. In total, you’ll be able to share up to 12,000 words of your draft throughout the course.
SPACES: 8 (6 left)
START DATE: 6TH MARCH 2024
COST: £250
WEEK 1: STRUCTURE AND PLOT
I’ll show you how to:
be sure that you’re starting in the right place;
tell things in the best order;
align your novel to story structure; and
make sure that your plot makes sense and unfolds naturally.
WEEK 2: BRINGING YOUR CHARACTERS ALIVE
How the characters in your novel are conveyed can make it, or break it, and this module will reveal tools to:
align your protagonist’s character arc with your plot to provide emotional resonance and a believable character transformation that is driven by what happens in the novel;
write complex characters with distinctive voices that seem like real people;
discover the ways your characters are connected and how their relationships are integral to plot and character development;
uncover how the past influences the present of your story and why what came before is a vital part of character development and transformation.
WEEK 3: THEMES AND SUBTEXT
This workshop will get to the heart of your novel and show you ways to:
identify the themes you’re writing about;
make your characters live the themes you’re exploring so the whole novel is centred on them;
use a light touch so that you’re not forcing the themes onto the page; and
use your characters’ beliefs about the themes to drive the story and character arcs.
WEEK 4: PACE AND NARRATIVE DRIVE
Ensure your reader can’t put your novel down by discovering ways to:
compel your reader on from the start and keep them moving forwards through the story
play with pace to create change in rhythm; and
let your reader know information, and keep it from them, in ways that make sure your story has pace, tension, suspense and delivers what you want, when you want.
WEEK 5: BRINGING THE WORLD ALIVE
Make sure your setting is more than just a backdrop for the action, by:
discovering how to use the world your characters live in to maximum effect;
using your descriptive writing to develop atmosphere, theme, character and plot; and
ensuring you’re bringing it alive for the reader in a meaningful way.
WEEK 6: FIX YOUR FIRST CHAPTER
We’ll finish up by looking at the opening to your novel and all the things it needs to do. Everyone on the course can upload their chapter to the course forum for detailed feedback on it.
Why work with me?
As an indie publisher at my creative venture, Retreat West, from 2018-2023 I published 24 books. These were novels, memoirs, short story collections and anthologies. Retreat West Books won the 2020 Most Innovative Publisher Prize at the Saboteur Awards and many of the books I published were commended, listed and won awards.
I have been designing and teaching online creative writing courses, and live workshops, for many years and I’ve worked as an editor on hundreds of manuscripts. I’m passionate about helping writers get to the heart of their characters to create memorable narrators that really come alive for the reader. I also help writers who hate plotting to create story outlines that still allow them the freedom to discover as they write.
I’m also a writer myself and the author of two novels, As If I Were A River (2016), which was longlisted for the Guardian Not The Booker Prize, a NetGalley Top 10 Book of the Month and a Book Magnet Blog Top 20 Book of 2016 and Remember Tomorrow (2019). My short stories have been widely published, listed and placed in many international prizes and were nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023. I’ve just completed a novella-in-flash, have almost finished a flash fiction collection, and I’m now working on my third novel.
So I bring experience of both sides of the publishing world to you and your words, as well as many years of experience writing stories of all kinds.
This was a lovely expression of gratitude and a good reminder of how important our teachers are - even those who don't know us :)
The problem for me in having truly wonderful teachers is that by the time I matured to the point where I recognized what tremendous gifts they'd given me, they'd usually moved on to greener pastures.