Office Hours: Plotting, Re-plotting and Artists Setting Boundaries

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What’s New:

  • Getting the hang of this quarantine thing: virtual schooling, family time, and staying sane

  • Virtual Happy Hour with James River Writers might just inspire a KHLS meeting on Zoom

  • Remember these words and keep yourselves safe “asymptomatic spread” Say it again, “asymptomatic spread” Stay safe everybody.

Productivity:

  • Still working away on Act 3 of Book 4

  • Plotting flexibility - I’m a plotter, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to shift gears when inspiration strikes (Another mention of beat sheets from Save the Cat Writes a Novel


A Word about Artists, Vulnerability and Boundaries:

Going to write this one out because it’s important. This past week saw Outlander star Sam Heughan share in Instagram about some of the bullying, stalking and privacy invading that he and his family and friends have been subjected to over the past few years. This week I talked about the fact that art whether it is acting, writing, painting, singing…requires creativity and comes from a vulnerable place inside all of us. I refer back to a blog post that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago by Lisa Cooper Ellison (I was close) on on Writing from the Bottom Wrung in which she talks about the difficulties of being creative when you’re worried about your health and safety. While artists show us vulnerability which may make the audience feel close to them, artists of all stripes still have the right to set boundaries. They get to decide where the line is that divides their work from their personal lives. Those boundaries are important so that they can feel safe enough to continue creating. When those boundaries aren’t respected, it makes it very difficult for them to do the thing that we love them for doing. So, if you want to continue enjoying artists work, you have to respect their boundaries.

 

What I’m Reading:

  • Fiction: Daring to Fall - Shannon Stultz

What I’m Watching:

What I’m Crafting: