New Workbook Launch! Twelve Basic Concepts to Influence Your Story

New Workbook Launch! 

Wondering how to link your stories to timeless connections?

In Twelve Basic Concepts to Influence Your Story, we’ll learn how to strengthen our stories by digging deep into concepts and definitions that enable us to examine timeless precepts. When we can make connections to enduring and universal themes, plots, characters, and settings, we stir emotional motifs that resonate with readers regardless of genre. We’ll examine tools that enable us to write with impact, read with intent, and watch with insight to nourish seeds of creative exploration and focused imagination.

Build Your Story:  Where do you want to dig deeper?

Write with Impact workshops are a compilation of techniques, exercises, and observations gleaned from mentors, students, authors, and writing communities. It might be said that there is nothing new under the sun, but the slant in which we perceive our writing can make a difference.

What exactly does it mean to Write with Impact? When we go deeper into our stories with heart-to-heart connections and associations, we can write with impact.

Journal With Impact: Nature Perspective Inspire

Workshop: Six Conversations for Writing Creative Journals

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord had done this?” Job 12:7-9

Scripture often reminds us of the power of creation in our lives and inspires us to see through a new lens, or another different perspective. One summer I shared some inspiration I found after some investigation regarding the unique characteristics of birds as a family devotional. Here’s an example.

“Bird Struck! Woodpecker

Family Devotional

“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it” Psalm 139:14.

Although they differ in length, all woodpeckers have a straight chisel-like self-sharpening bill and straight stiff tail feathers, which help them to lean against tree trunks.

They are like living electric drills similar to the jackhammers workers use to break up sidewalks for repair. The woodpecker can pound up to twenty some blows a second on a tree. That’s a lot of hard battering.

At the back of their lower jaw is a muscular pad that acts as a shock absorber. They are specially designed for the work they do.

Not only do they drill into branches and trees to eat insects and grubs, but the holes they excavate often become nests for other smaller birds such as nuthatches, wrens, and elf owls.

Jesus tells us that God knows when each sparrow falls and how many hairs are on his head. We are each unique to Him—a one-of-a-kind design that has specific abilities for special tasks.

Sometimes He has a very special job He asks us to do. If another bird tried to imitate the woodpecker, he would be badly hurt without the shock absorber. So it’s important not to imitate other people but be our unique selves.

When we follow Jesus, He Himself protects us and becomes our shock absorber. Then we can freely live our lives in His protection doing the work he asks us to do.

Action

What are some special things you know how to do? How can you help someone else with your abilities?”

What have you been reading, or seeing, recently in nature in your investigations that inspires you to see through a new lens and a fresh perspective whether land or sea or sky or animals. What insight have you discovered to share and how do you want to share it?

Action Steps:

1.     Take a walk in a familiar setting such as a walk around a few blocks or a nearby park, or a trail you jog or walk whenever possible.

2.     Deliberately choose a characteristic to look for or listen for: foliage, or animal, or wind and concentrate on that specific detail.

3.     What do you notice that you have not noticed before?

Share: What is your fresh insight that inspires you?

Read deep, marcy

Journal With Impact: Nature Perspective Investigate

Workshop: Six Conversations for Writing Creative Journals

“Material objects are used to express spiritual truths and reveal that nature is more than it seems. Nature is book of symbols…….’This empty world which we do see is an exact picture and pattern of the spiritual and heavenly  world which we do not see.’”

                                                                                                                           Herbert Lockyer

With an expanded language to push us out of our comfort zone consider what symbols are the most representative to your habitat. Begin with the familiar ones that speak across languages and cultures. For example, we all can relate to symbols we see daily such as the sun, moon, and stars.

And yet at the same time we may see each from a different perspective depending on where we live. Extended summer sun may be experienced as a joy of longer days, or, for those for whom the sun lasts long hours in the summer, it can mean sleep deprivation. For example, in Fairbanks, Alaska, the summer sun means twenty-two hours of daylight.

Once you have your list of symbols investigate their meanings. Which are positive or negative to you specifically. Are they different from what others might perceive them? Why? Which sensory connections have the most impact for you physically, mentally, or spiritually?

When you have investigated the top few symbols that you relate to write up a brief letter to yourself as to why they capture you. Then consider how you would like to share in some form of art, whether or not you have the skills to do so.

Why would that symbol in that presentation best express a truth you have discovered?

Action Steps:

“In a parable, there is nothing contrary to the truth of Nature.” Herbert Lockyer

1. Now make a list of potential symbols that fit your spiritual truth you recognize in your habitat.

2. What truths do they best represent—both positive and negative?

3. Which one do you think best fits a parable? How can you share it in a creative format, whether as a short story or a song or another form of visible art?

Share: What symbol best fits your perspective truth?

Read deep, marcy

New Workbook launches NOW

Six Core Essentials for Ongoing Creative Inspiration


Tried-and-true techniques help you to stay on target creatively.

In Six Core Essentials for Ongoing Creative Inspiration, we’ll examine basic tools such as: intent, brainstorming, research, organization, perspective, and feedback in order to stay focused and creative throughout all the varying stages of our projects. The tools you use for one novel might not be what you need for another. The point is to focus on each central purpose and discover how to get there within your particular time frame. The ideas and approaches help find the particular code for each particular story without getting stuck.

These tried-and-true techniques help you to stay on target, enjoy the process, and go deeper into a heart connection with your reader in both fiction and non-fiction. At whatever stage you are, from first draft to final, these techniques will help unblock barriers that might surface.

Build Your Story: What story bridge do you want to connect to your reader with words, thoughts, and feelings that go beyond superficial to relational? Where do you need extra focus to stay on track?

Write with Impact workshops are a compilation of techniques, exercises, and observations gleaned from mentors, students, authors, and writing communities. It might be said that there is nothing new under the sun, but the slant in which we perceive our writing can make a difference.

What exactly does it mean to Write with Impact? When we go deeper into our stories with heart-to-heart connections and associations, we can write with impact.

                                                    Read deep, Marcy 

New Workbook Launch! Six Core Essentials for Ongoing Creative Inspiration

New Workbook launch COMING SOON

In Six Core Essentials for Ongoing Creative Inspiration, we’ll examine basic tools such as: intent, brainstorming, research, organization, perspective, and feedback in order to stay focused and creative throughout all the varying stages of our projects. The tools you use for one novel might not be what you need for another. The point is to focus on each central purpose and discover how to get there within your particular time frame. The ideas and approaches help find the particular code for each particular story without getting stuck.

These tried-and-true techniques help you to stay on target, enjoy the process, and go deeper into a heart connection with your reader in both fiction and non-fiction. At whatever stage you are, from first draft to final, these techniques will help unblock barriers that might surface.

Build Your Story: What story bridge do you want to connect to your reader with words, thoughts, and feelings that go beyond superficial to relational? Where do you need extra focus to stay on track?

Write with Impact workshops are a compilation of techniques, exercises, and observations gleaned from mentors, students, authors, and writing communities. It might be said that there is nothing new under the sun, but the slant in which we perceive our writing can make a difference.

What exactly does it mean to Write with Impact? When we go deeper into our stories with heart-to-heart connections and associations, we can write with impact.