“Consistency is key” gets touted a lot —

but what about allowing yourself to be drawn aside from futile action?
what about listening to your intuition and finding the quickest path?
what about not always exchanging actions for results?
what about remembering actions that have their own rewards?
what about the leverage that doesn’t require constant repetition?
what about the vitalising influence of variety?
what about quantum leaps rather than baby steps?
what about a pattern interrupt?
what about awareness and presence instead of a tick on the chart?
what about being kind to yourself?
what about it?

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
In the One Page Novel story structure, the Bolt is the stage where any Ordinary World techniques that aim to control outward circumstances just… flop.

You may have been doing quite well with your Quest plan. Perhaps you were drawing, quartering, and checking off your daily tasks with superhuman diligence. But now you’re in the Underworld, and the rules here are different. Events don’t seem to follow a logical cause-effect chain, and virtuous actions are without merit; or else surely your diligence would be paying off?

Instead, you’re derailed by:

• un(fore)seen obstacles,
• detours or diversions,
• illness,
• burnout,
• travel or holidays,
• easy temptations,
• other interests,
• ghosts or revenants,
• dream visions,
• will-o-the-wisps,
• (surprise) family visits,
• dispossession,
• betrayal or exposure,
• shapeshifters,
• strikes or mutinies,
• ambushes,
• or outright attacks.

All these “Bolts from the blue” look like minor or major frustrations of your purpose when you view them in isolation. Perhaps you (and your character) are tempted to rail at the divine forces that brought you to this pass. Perhaps you’re tempted to blame others for your present sense of failure.

But you’d be doing yourself (and them) an injustice.

If you look at the overview of the One Page Novel, you’ll see that the Bolt is the first stage that takes place entirely in the underworld. It’s firmly in unknown territory. And that’s why, personally, it’s one of my favourite stages both to write, and to experience. Because all that’s new, and vital, and self-expanding is in the unknown, and it’s in encompassing it with your awareness that you grow, become more of yourself, and rendezvous with your desires.

Without the influence of the Bolt, you might continue indefinitely to do what you’ve always done, and hope for different results.

☞ You might consider the Bolt-diversion as increasing the distance between you and what doesn’t work.

DIVERSION
In Northern Lights, Lyra goes on a side-quest to investigate a mystery that the alethiometer brings to her attention. She’s a seasoned enough heroine at this point not to ignore the promptings of her intuition, and the result is that she learns something absolutely crucial to the main Quest and to her place in the massive power struggles of her world. Without this Bolt diversion she may never have been able to learn the sinister nature of the opponents she’s up against.

Pullman’s brilliant storytelling uses the revelations of the Bolt almost methodically to increase the stakes and the narrative tension.

“She lifted the lantern high and took a step into the shed, and then she saw what it was that the Oblation Board was doing, and what was the nature of the sacrifice the children were having to make.”

No sooner does Lyra understand the meaning of the sacrifice than she finds herself being dragged towards the same terrifying process…

ISOLATION & SHEDDING
A surprise attack in the Bolt separates Lyra from the rest of her party. This is often a consequence of descending into the Underworld of Adventure: Ordinary World supports that define us as characters — our friends, our family, our occupation, our material possessions, our beliefs and communities — all fall away, become distant, or lose their significance.

She decided to play slow and dim-witted and reluctant, and dragged her feet as she stepped over the high threshold into the building.

The archetypal example of this process is the myth of the Sumerian goddess Inana’s descent into the netherworld. She travels alone, and at each stage of the descent, one piece of her carefully-chosen outfit is removed, until she stands naked before the queen of the netherworld.

… one by one all Lyra’s clothes came off, to her resentment and shame; but she still had the presence of mind to conceal it and act dull-witted and compliant.

UNDERWORLD RULES
In the One Page Novel, the underworld stages are upside down to remind you that they mirror the Ordinary World. Thus the Queen Ereshkigal is Inana’s sister and her dark counterpart, and it’s through confronting her that Inana is able to fulfil her goal.

Being stripped of our old sense of self is what allows us to take on the new character and the new story, and we craft this through the synthesis of opposites that also cancel each other out.

In contrast to the Ordinary World, in the Underworld, pretending to be someone else can lead to being more true to yourself, being diverted can lead to greater insights than sticking to the “right” path, and a moment’s lapse of focus can lead to a paradigm Shift that any amount of assiduous study might not discover…