I now understand, as a licensed and working psychotherapist, that beneath anger exists hurt. We grow angry and we hurt when someone or something transgresses our boundaries.
And while small amounts of frustration lead to growth and creativity, continual frustration indicates a seething bed of continual anger.
Astrologers warn
Of Anger, Frustration, and Uranus Aspecting the Moon and Saturn … Read More »
Writing teacher and mentor, Clive Matson, always said that if a writer found her or himself wanting and/or needing to explain her or his story that the reader might gain the author’s intended message, the author needed to revise their story further.
Completing a manuscript requires more than simply writing the story, editing and revising it for clarity regarding grammar and typos, or even for development of plot.
Within each story or novel lives the narrative of that story, and how it came into being.
The author’s understanding and exploration of this process informs
Of Memoir, Climax, and “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”… Read More »
A beneficiary of the Civil Rights Era, I entered integration in third grade carrying with me the missive delivered to many middle-class African-American children around the country: “Integration [of schools] offers an opportunity to work even harder. You may sit next to white students, but you will need to prove yourself. You will need to work hard and be better at all that you do.”
While my mother and father loathed slothfulness and laziness, this missive added pressure to an already weighty responsibility.
The result has been that I, like many African-Americans of my age and social class are and continue to be over achievers.
The concept of always giving your
Of Alice Miller, Amy Chua, and Parenting as a Way of Growth and Transformation… Read More »
I’ve been gone most of the summer, first to Brussels, then to Maui where vacation each year.
As the opening of the new school year approaches I am amazed at how it seems that just yesterday I was bidding a enjoyable and safe travels to fellow parents and their daughters and sons who attend the same school as my children.
Now nearly 2 and half months later I have received the first in a line of requests from the service that provides lunches at the school our youngest child attends the choices of entrées our child desires.
Change, Challenge and Seasons of Growth… Read More »
The display the revelations that take place during the denouement and resolution, end, of a novel must take place in scene, not summary.
End of story revelations work much like the action taking place during the crisis and climax points where the immediacy of the characters’ actions impress upon readers the significance and meaning of the ordeal the central character/characters are undergoing, surviving and ultimately growing stronger by enduring.
Just as the crisis and climax point of a novel provide places of major transition and transformation, so to the revelations presented during denouement and at resolution offer one last stage of growth and change.
Of Symbols, Change and Arc of Growth and Transformation… Read More »
Recently I’ve been helping my high school teenager with the story they are writing. Now that school has ended and summer vacation has begun they are spending more time writing on their work.
It is wonderful to watch them pour their energy in passion into the project.
Doing so revives wistful memories of when I began writing nearly two decades ago.
Recalling my first attempts at writing a novel, brings to mind not simply the excitement and angst at setting out accomplish such a great feat.
I doubt we would have succeeded had most of us who have accomplished this goal understood the full nature of our undertaking and what it would and has required.
And so it has been with care and caution in choosing my words and responses that have and sought to nurture my child’s passion when they have sought my guidance and consultat
Introspection, Thought and Nascent Creations… Read More »
“Summoned or not, the god will come.” –motto on the door of Carl Jung’s home. Archetypes help writers clarify a character’s function and role in the way of plot development and the evolution of personality regarding the protagonist. Stories are about growth and change. And archetypes carry energies.