Healing is Possible & Affordable
a prompt & a few announcements from my 2nd week on hiatus
I’m offering a new Brave Group Coaching class for 6 weeks on Tuesdays beginning September 10th at 7pm ET via Zoom. This is a sliding scale affordable offering for anyone who is looking to learn more about healing from attachment wounds, trauma, chronic pain and/or autoimmune diseases and how to better regulate your nervous system. This is - except for the diet component (for another post) - how I got myself into remission, and how I saved my own life.
I literally had to learn to self-soothe, something most babies learn as babies that I never learned. I had to learn what a nervous system is and how to manage mine better. How to be done at the end of the day. How to shift gears from fight/flight to rest/digest. How to find the energy to shift from overwhelm/freeze to fight/flight to get to rest/digest, because that’s the pathway.
I had to discover that I am human, and what that means in terms of biology instead of blame, fear and shame spirals, a lot of nonsense I had been taught that had nothing to do with wholeness and health.
The class addresses how to tone your vagus nerve, so that it can serve you better. If your vagus nerve isn’t functioning, you can’t feel full or fully present.
And the most important part of the class, what is parts work? How does IFS-informed Parts Work work? How is it different from therapy? We will practice working with our Parts to heal ourselves so that you can lead with more Self energy. I hope you will join me!
More info on this class here.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
Writing Prompt:
This week’s prompt is from the craft section of this past week’s Brave Space sessions. So apologies to those of you who have already seen it (but I am on hiatus, right?)…
Exposition as Ammunition - if you are worried about exposition, please realize that this might be an issue of trust. Can you trust the audience or reader to understand that [X, your exposition goes here]? Well, why do they need to know this at this moment? Do they? What if they don't know it?
Exposition is not for explaining. If you have an impulse to explain, this may come from a lack of trust, maybe not so much in your audience, but in yourself for not believing you have the skill to give your characters the conviction of their circumstances.
Truth is, you do have the skill. You have been studying this skill all your life. It's just a matter of getting this moment or this scene right. Best way to do that is to create strategies and execute them. LIST 10 different ways to present the material. Try and fail. That's progress.
Consider letting your characters behave (appropriately or inappropriately) based on their personal understanding of the situation, and according to the level of stakes involved and potential consequences. Let them behave based on who they are and how they've been raised... if they are doing things that show their personal investment or how emotionally involved they are, we will be riveted!
Tom Vaughan (@storyandplot on X) says, "it's not about the plot, it's about the emotional reaction to the plot," as the only thing that counts. You want to release information in the moments when it will have the greatest impact on your audience.
This is why I say "exposition as ammunition" because it has to do something (yes, it often has to explode). It's a lot easier to handle exposition if you handle it as an accusation or a threat or an event that will move things forward. You are detonating bombs. And only when you must. Never in advance.
Hold it all back. See how long you can go without it. Create context appropriate to what we need to know, and let us figure it out ourselves. Fascinate us with human behavior we may not understand yet, but we will be interested.
MAKE A LIST of secrets or things you want to make sure the reader/audience knows, as in what needs to be revealed? MAKE A LIST of reasons why these things might reasonably be revealed? I mean for real reasons not because the writer is nervous that no one will get it. But when does a character need to know something? When is it time to spill a secret? To what end?
Who wants to know? What is at stake? Who will be hurt by this? See if it becomes clear how to reveal these things dramatically so that they can fully land in the reader/audiences. Sometimes the lists will not reveal answers right away but only after a nap or a night's sleep. Take a nap. We all need more naps. Then tell me what you discovered! I want to know.
Announcements:
I highly recommend Gina Femia's Novel-Writing Workshop!
FOR ACTORS, Casting agent Jen Rudin does this!
Deadline September 1st! Woodward/Newman Award at Constellations, you can send 2 full-length plays including TYA. More info here
Deadline September 8th! YALE DRAMA AWARD More info here
Work with Me, Here: Jenna Lourenco is looking for Autistic Theatre People for a study Examining Environmental & Cultural Challenges to Autistic Accessibility in Theatre Workspaces" through the end of October 2024:
Brave Space Schedule:
8/12 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/13 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space with workshop
8/13 Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
8/14 Wednesday 7pm ET All Human Brave Space with Brave Sharing Salon!
8/15 Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/16 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/19 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/20 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space with workshop
8/20 Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
8/21 Wednesday 7pm ET All Human Brave Space
8/22 Thursday Brave Space cancelled
8/23 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/26 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/27 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space with workshop
8/27 Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
8/28 Wednesday 7pm ET All Human Brave Space
8/29 Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/30 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
8/30 Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon!
9/3 Monday Labor Day No Brave Space
9/4 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space with workshop
9/4 Tuesday 7pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
9/5 Wednesday 7pm ET All Human Brave Space
9/6 Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/7 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Each week Tuesdays are days to workshop up to a page of writing. Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons. Wednesday night mid-month and Friday end of month when you can share up to 10 minutes of your work.
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