diary: blanket term

by Eva, in category Another Writer's Diary

Mini journal

During the month of July I wrote the first draft of my law of attraction novel, Alemmia. I’m using “law of attraction” as a blanket term. What really attracts me is exploring reality creation – an inexhaustible subject! Alemmia is a beautiful Mediterranean island full of roses and magic, and the series will follow Lucia as she visits on her summer holidays and grows to learn how she can have whatever she wants.

So many beautiful, private signs found me during the composition of this novel that I’m more than eager to begin edits (and the “manifestation travel guide” that will accompany the books)! Be sure to sign up as a beta reader if you would like to be the first to read this story. ;)

Alemmia - a law of attraction novel

The Moon

I’ve mentioned before how the Apple word of the day screensaver is always bringing me messages. During the new moon I was catching up on Leeor Alexandra’s livestream, paused to write about the new moon, looked up and saw floating across my screen, the word, “manifestation”. The time? 11:11.

I was also lucky enough to be in the path of the longest lunar eclipse of the century. There is something very symbolic about seeing our collective shadow, I think.

Synchronicity

I finally got around to reading Jung’s article on synchronicity. It makes a few interesting claims in trying to explain this phenomenon scientifically. To the best of my understanding:

1 | The problem of statistics
Statistics deal with an average world that ignores the exceptions and aberrations. According to Jung, these “outliers” need to be studied for proof of acausal relationships. The fact that this domain disappears as larger and larger numbers are involved seems noteworthy to me. We operate under the belief that scientific studies are more correct the greater number of cases they study. The margin for “error” is diminished. But this also means that what holds true for the statistical “whole” does not hold true when applied to the “real world” individual, which keeps the rule from being universal. Shouldn’t the scientific truth hold for the specific as well as for the general?

The statistically significant statement only concerns regularly occurring events, and if considered as axiomatic, it simply abolishes all exceptions to the rule. It produces a merely average picture of natural events, but not a true picture of the world as it is. Yet the exceptions—and my results are exceptions and most improbable ones at that— are just as important as the rules. Statistics would not even make sense without the exceptions. There is no rule that is true under all circumstances, for this is the real and not a statistical world. Because the statistical method shows only the average aspects, it creates an artificial and predominantly conceptual picture of reality. That is why we need a complementary principle for a complete description and explanation of nature.

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The Life of A Writer

by Eva, in category Writing Worksheets

The Life of a Writer

Writing Journal Worksheet – The Life of A Writer (PDF)

Imitating the way a writer writes is a delightfully private way of learning from them. So is stealing. But sometimes learning about the life of a writer you admire can also help you navigate some of the challenges of your chosen profession.

Or how about studying a writer you don’t admire?

Use the sidebar to:

  1. List your favourite and least favourite authors.
  2. List authors whose work you like, but whose personal life is problematic or controversial.
  3. List the author memoirs, biographies or autobiographies you’ve read. You can find some of my favourites in my creative writing reading list.
  4. List author interviews and documentaries you’ve watched or listened to.
  5. List the authors you follow on social media, along with the platforms you follow them on. Note down the title or the first sentence of that last thing they shared on the internet.
  6. List ideas from authors that you might like to emulate.

You may also like to…

  1. Build an artistic movement.
  2. Give yourself licence to write.
  3. Create your dream writing mastermind group.
  4. Panic about whether you’re a hack or an artist.
  5. Explore the writer persona.
  6. Face your writing doubts by asking better questions.
  7. Write your own memoirs.
  8. Consider building your own author platform.

NEW WORKSHEETS IN YOUR INBOX

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Last week’s worksheet: Online/Offline…

Online/Offline (Journal Worksheet Wednesday)

by Eva, in category Writing Worksheets

Social media - writing worksheet

Writing Journal Worksheet – Online / Offline (PDF)

Most of us spend a considerable part of our days online. In some cases our online interactions define our lives as much as our “real life” interactions do. But personally I don’t often think of documenting my online time in my journal. Do you? Have you considered how to represent the digital world in your writing? What feelings do you experience engaging with the digital vs. the “visceral”?

  1. What content are you drawn to online vs. offline? Is there a divide?
  2. What content do you create and/or share online vs. offline? How does each medium help you define and portray your identity?
  3. List the sites, people, communities or accounts that you’re following right now. What do you check every day? List them in the sidebar and check back in 6 months or a year to see how they’ve changed or evolved.
  4. If you post content online, consider making a list of sites you’re active on. Also, make a list of the things you post or share in a week. I’m sure you’ll gain some interesting insights that go beyond mere follower counts.
  5. Use the reverse to reflect on the discoveries you make while working with this worksheet.

Writing Journal Worksheets

Last week’s worksheet: Best Day…

Best Day (Journal Worksheet Wednesday)

by Eva, in category Writing Worksheets

Journal worksheet - Write your day

Writing Journal Worksheet – Best Day (PDF)

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Instructions

  1. Keep this worksheet in your journal for a rainy day.
  2. When you encounter a day when nothing goes right, take out your journal before you go to bed, and write an account of your day as if everything went swimmingly.
  3. Have a good night’s rest.
  4. In the morning, fill in the “best day” with an ideal day you’ve experienced or want to experience.
  5. Reread your days and feel good!
  6. Use the sidebar to brainstorm the components of a good day, so you can have more of them.
  7. List ways to nip bad days in the bud, so you get better at controlling your mood, your day, and thereby your destiny-ation.

You may also like to…

  1. Plan your dream writing retreat.
  2. Make writing part of your morning routine.
  3. Leave your comfort zone.
  4. Make memoirs.

NEW WORKSHEETS IN YOUR INBOX

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Last week’s worksheet: The Sun…

diary: aim to just know the path you take

by Eva, in category Another Writer's Diary

olive tree

Abandoning all plans, I’ve started a novel novel, the first sentence of which I rather like: “you may imagine me.” There are manuscript pages blown all across my room. It reminds me of that scene in Henry and June. Always number your pages!

I have found an out-of-the-way little seaside café that plays Charles Trenet and Edith Piaf on repeat, where I can drink endless glasses of tea and write for as long as I want and no one pays me any heed. I am, of course, back in my omphalos. But you have no need to be by the Mediterranean; you can recreate it in your own homephalos: turn up the thermostat, plug in a fan, diffuse the scents of jasmine, honeysuckle and labdanum, pick a playlist, and maybe layer on some ambience et voilà!

I’m enjoying spending my evenings practicing Bargue plates and studying Latin, which makes me sound like a retired schoolmaster, I know. Meanwhile my dreams for the past few nights have seen processions of the people who have loved me, even some old unreturned crushes I’d forgotten about. I wake up feeling so loved, not by other people so much as by my sweet unconscious who brings me these messages! I never suspected I would grow to be such a romantic! Or perhaps everyone’s sceptical af when they’re a teen.

I think living through even one season of your life teaches you that… well, that there are seasons… when you open like a flower and close like a flower, when you shake off all your leaves and are naked, and when there are things growing at your fingertips and you’re shivering with anticipation.

It’s my birthday week, which is my excuse for being so sentimental.

Poetry

A reader gifted me the following charming acrostic sonnet…

JUST FOR YOU
by Leon Enriquez

Truth has a way to shine a light,
Opt thus to see what yet may be.
Each strand a play and glimpse of sight,
Voice in clear spree can set soul free;
Ask curious touch to show you how.
Aim to just know the path you take:
Dream offers much right here and now,
Etch a fine show with what you make;
Vouch for beauty as wonder starts,
Embrace sure change in your life quest;
Reach poise savvy with a warm heart,
Enjoy the strange in journey fest;
Live with pure grace the face you own,
Love floods your space with parts unknown.

I couldn’t have written a better memorandum!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before (after all, I tend to consider myself a “secret sonneteer”), but for the past many years I’ve been working on a collection called, The Beginning of a Lifelong Romance: sonnets to myself. I’ve had fun with rhyme scheme monograms, but so far not with acrostics. This was a lovely sign to receive.

You are on your path.

Translation

forbidden love

A few years ago I began translating a fin de siècle Ottoman-Turkish novel (you may have seen it in the Coterie), and I’ve finally returned to complete the project. I can’t promise regular updates – some chapters just take longer than others – but I will be posting chapters as and when I finish them.

Click here to read Chapter 1

It seems appropriate to publish the translation in this manner, considering the original novel was serialised too. The title is Forbidden Love (original: Aşk-ı Memnu), which is precisely what the story is about. It’s set in late 19th-century Istanbul, and it deals chiefly with the relationships between a set of genteel, wealthy characters. The style will be familiar to you from other European and American fiction of the time, and I think you will be impressed by Uşaklıgil’s skill in delving into his characters’ thoughts and emotions.

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My Summer Reading List

📖 Experiencing Narrative Worlds by Richard Gerrig
📖 Linguistic Guide to English Poetry by Geoffrey Leech
📖 Esmond by William Thackeray
📖 Shamanism by Mircea Eliade (this was on last year’s list too, but I never got around to it!)
📖 Idol of Suburbia by Annette Federico
📖 Imperium by Robert Harris
📖 The Ionian Mission by Patrick O’Brian
📖 Forbidden Love by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil
📖 A Romance of Two Worlds by Marie Corelli

Do drop me any recommendations on Instagram!

Not-Beautiful

The first time I watched this video, I thought, “they could have made this really beautiful”, but the more I see, listen, and think, the more this “not-beautiful” gathers meaning, and shifts in its semiotic square.

It is, of course, very purposeful and beautiful in its not-beauty, and I can’t wait for the new album!

“What is the not-beautiful? Our own secret hunger to be loved is the not-beautiful. Our disuse and misuse of love is the not-beautiful. Our dereliction in loyalty and devotion is unlovely, our sense of soul-separateness is homely, our psychological wants, inadequacies, misunderstandings, and infantile fantasies are the not-beautiful. Additionally, the Life/Death/Life nature, which births, destroys, incubates, and births again, is considered by our cultures the not-beautiful.”
– Clarissa Pinkola Estés