The Muse Who Stands Over my Shoulder

Sarah, the Hebrew Priestess
A headdress of purple cloth
Gold earrings jingle
A blast of dust stamps the arid place where she stands
She is alone, calling, reaching to be seen and heard
Her voice buried under sand dunes of time
She’s been hung from crosses and burnt at the stake
She is resurrected with a prayer
The mourner’s prayer, candles eternally lit
Her soul rises and walks clouds toward the Moon
She breathes life into her breasts
Her milk spills across the galaxy
And pours secrets that were buried alive
Sarah haunts me, my lineage cries out to me and she floats
Like a Chagall angel that sings the song of ancestry
My muse Sarah rocks me, wakes me and stands solid

Character Study – Marta Luzim

When the artist's mind and soul is at work, where does it go? Follow the uncharted road on this journey of the one year writing prayer. It is a drop-dead dive into Alice's wonderland. You never know who you will meet. Help, I'm falling down the hole. Where am I?

Rena - Fascination with a Borderline Personality Home Grown by G-D

Rena, the devil in disguise. Her hair, light red, streaked with gold, blue eyes, tiny yet curvy body. Her stunning beauty hid the sickness inside. A gorgeous face that whitewashed her insanity, air-brushed her darkness, hypnotized whoever laid eyes upon her. But once she spoke, once her words hit your ears, and it only took once, she would crash and destroy every healthy brain cell in a person’s mind. Rena hated everyone, which spoke volumes on how she felt about herself. She hated people who didn’t wear the right color socks, who played canasta too slow, who ate their food too loud. How this hatred began, how it grew, how it maintained itself…was a mystery. Oh, one could psychoanalyze her as a border-line personality, as narcissistic, paranoid, manic-depressive, in other words insane. But, why? Really! Why?

Money was god to Rena. Green, slick and seductive. It gave her a reason to live.

Money and hid her insanity. Where is G-d in Rena? Were her ancestors just as crazy? Let's investigate to find the thread of her genetic lineage. We'll pick up on Rena later. She is busy on a shopping spree, the piranha is on the lose. Other characters to be introduced who know Rena. Testimonials to come.

Plot Whisperer Martha Alderson

Martha Alderson, www.blockbusterplots.com is coach extraordinarre, writer, friend and spiritual warrior. Her love, devotion and guidance has been a source of unending food for me as a writer, woman and human being. I will be posting her teachings on my blog from time to time along with my own writing. Enjoy!

Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers

The Importance of Character

A dear, dear friend asked me what I thought of an editor's comments regarding her latest book. Having been told that the book did not have a wide enough appeal to a general audience but rather more valued by family and friends who could fill in the gaps, my friend turned to me.

First let me say that my friend has had / is having an amazing life and that she is a terrific writer -- she has a wonderful way with words and, though this latest book comes closer to a true story than her first book -- a collection of non-fiction vignettes-- I agree with the editor.

Without having dropped the veil on her own personal story and the deeper story of her relationships, the reader never has a chance to see how she is changed by the journey she undertakes in the story. Instead of more closely concentrating on her inner evolution, she focused on the outside. And, by keeping herself at a distance, the reader in the end is robbed of the true joy of reading -- identification.

Universal appeal comes through the character -- the inner plot, not though the dramatic action -- the outer plot. The protagonist (in a memoir, that means you, the author) drives the story and the allows for an emotional involvement on the part of the reader.

Yes, my friend wrote herself in such a way that she comes across strong and both empathetic and sympathetic. However, without a clear goal and an clearly identified inner problem that gets solved, the reader is left to fill in the gaps.

Key elements in the character inner plot:

1) The protagonist must grow throughout the story in a believable and meaningful way.

2) Protagonist goal = must be specific. The goal is what motivates the character and is what allows the reader to gauge when the character comes closer to goal and when she is thrust further away. What does the character want and why?

2) The character must reveal themselves to the reader. This can be accomplished through dialogue and descriptions, and through the actions she takes. In whichever way the writer finds to "show" the character, the character's emotion must be included = Character Emotional Development.

3) The secondary and minor characters act as real people who offer comparisons and contrasts to the main character, thus expanding the readers' understanding of the protagonist and of the overall theme itself.

4) Is the character struggling against herself and an external antagonist? Whether an inner demon or flaw and / or an external antagonist, we must understand the obstacles in the way of the protagonist achieving her goal to more fully appreciate the growth she ultimately makes.

For a simple questionnaire to help develop your protagonist's inner and outer plot, fill out the Character Emotional Development Profile.

Journey Into The Jungle Part 2: Prayer to my writing

This is an invocation to raise myself from the dead into the living word.

Deeper into the darkness of the jungle.

I pray I can hear the messages of my story

The flow of words and voices

I pray that the sad emptiness can pour onto the page and find it's way into my characters

like a possession without an exorcism

I will learn to understand their lives so that they will teach me my own

I pray to share myself fully, and not just a pinch of myself to my writing

I pray that I can see beyond the page into the entire universe that revolves throughout the story

I pray that I will be good enough to channel the craft, the plots and subplots that roam around in my mind

I pray for time

I pray for space

I pray that I even understand why I want to write

Although I know it is my soulmate, my heart, my mind, my best friend

I pray that the loneliness of the search will give me a clue

and my stories will birth something in me that has meaning

and will make me want to live

Journey Into The Jungle Part 1: My writing sustains me.

This is my first trip into the jungle of my writer's mind.

It is the source of my very essence

The core of my truth

My victory over ambivalence

My healing of anger, hurt and grief

It is the inner eye that sees into every person's eye

It is the way into G-d

The way to answering questions and having conversations that I would never have with anyone except myself

It soothes my longing

It fills my cup

The curve of the words, the seduction of the images, the arousal of my libido

It's my sixth sense, my outrage, my judgment and my compassion

It frees me from my own captivity

Write, Pray, Live

Debora Seidman, www.writingtheprayer.com, writer, playwright, poet and guide to the soul of the creative voice, along with two other adventurous writers, plus ME, are embarking on a year long safari into the depth of our artist's soul. We will commune with our writing as our "Beloved." as Deborah terms it.

From time to time we'll jump into the jeep and take in the scenery of my psyche and the unraveling of my writing expedition. I don't know where it will go, or what I will find, but I am thrilled to be diving into the underworld to explode this birth process. It is a behind the scenes look, the planting of seeds to future books, poems, plays and whatever else comes from the belly of the whale. My first entries follow.

A commitment to share my art

Artist (n.) - Someone who chooses to express their creative spirit, revealing the call of their soul, through artistic passions and authentic approaches to living life. Someone who is not afraid to share his or her true self with others.

-Jill Badonsky, author of The Nine Modern Day Muses

www.themuseisin.com