☞ The cheatsheet in this video can be found in the Bestseller Over Breakfast collection.

The Story Structure of Your Life – Transcript

This is the one page story structure that I’ve been teaching for over a decade now. And over the years, I found that the real value of a story structure like this isn’t to plot a story quickly or to get a really interesting character arc. It can certainly do those things. But for me, the real value of learning and studying something like this has been the way that I can use this framework to study different narratives that I come across and especially the narrative of my own life. I feel that a framework like this really gives you perspective. It really gives you a bigger picture of the things that are happening in your life. The things that you feel you need to do, the things that you want to do and accomplish, the Resolutions you have, the the goals you have, and how you feel along each stage of the journey to receiving them or accomplishing them. I really feel that having a framework like this that you can apply to, for example, the novels you’re reading, the stories you’re reading to better understand them, to grasp the nuances better, especially if you’re a writer, because then you can use those insights yourself in your own own stories to guide the narrative or even to to do stylistic work, to understand why certain ways of saying something work better. But that’s still a very granular approach. So I think if we look at the the larger picture and we look at each of these stages and we understand what goes on in each of these stages and we gain a better understanding of how that feels in our own life, in our own experience, then I think there’s a lot of amazing insight. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned there. And I found, as I said over the years, that that has been the real gem for me in this one page novel method. So, let’s take a closer look and let’s maybe find some clues in our own lives that we can apply. I genuinely feel that by the end of this video, you will have gained at least some insight into some aspect of your life.

So, let’s begin with the Stasis. As you can see by these numbers, this is the plotting order that I suggest because it helps you see the patterns and develop the patterns within the larger story. But the reading order goes Stasis, Trigger, Quest, and then it swaps round to the Underworld stages, the Bolt, the Shift, the Defeat, the Power, and then again back up into the ordinary world of the Resolution. So let’s start with the Stasis and how that feels. The Stasis is the ordinary character in their Ordinary World doing everyday things. But there may be a sense of stagnation. There may be a sense that there is unfulfilled potential there. And if you feel those kinds of things, then it’s possible that you’re in the Stasis. And that’s no bad place to be. None of these stages are better than any of the others. They are all important in their own right.

And perhaps I should also say that you know when you have this overview of the one page novel as a whole. You have the cycle going around from the Stasis through the other stages and to the Resolution. And there is no sense that your entire life is always in one stage. There will be aspects of your life that are in the Stasis. There will be aspects that are in the Bolt perhaps or the Power. There’s often a lot of layers to the different things that we do and think that sort of encapsulate the different stages. And also I should say that of course this is a structure that’s overlaid onto something that isn’t structured. You know, it’s just a framework for understanding narratives. It’s a framework that you place on top of things that are not structured. It’s like putting something that is analog into a digital format. There’s always going to be losses. There’s always going to be compensation somewhere.

But the way I think of this particular framework and I really love that it fits on one page like this because I think of it as different panes of glass in a window. So if you think of those old leaded windows and each pane is a different filter. It’s a different colour maybe and you look through it and you see different things. Even though what’s outside is the same. You’re looking through your perspective. You’re in this particular stage in this particular frame of mind and you’re seeing different things in the — possibly the outside world, possibly the inside world. These stages colour your perception. And again, of course, these stages are arbitrary. They don’t need to follow in exactly the order. They don’t need to include the exact scenes that I suggest in my various cheat sheets. These are just sort of archetypal examples of what these stages might contain. They are overall ideas of what you might be experiencing. By no means exclusive, by no means complete. But if we think of each stage in that way as a sort of lens on the world, then I think that also helps you understand that none of these are any better than the others. None of these have any kind of hierarchical benefit. There is no sense of improvement because it’s a cycle and it’s a spiralling cycle. So once you get to the Resolution which is the end of the story then after a while it turns naturally back into the Stasis. So essentially they’re the same and there is a sense I feel nowadays for myself personally that there is a way to jump directly from the Stasis to the Resolution. You can absolutely make that switch in just a moment. And maybe you want to write a story that just encapsulates that brief moment where one thing changes directly into another. You know, you have just one flash of inspiration and that’s it. It doesn’t always make perhaps the most compelling stories. Perhaps we want a longer narrative. Perhaps we want to be more engaged in the story. And perhaps that’s why we go through these stages in our own lives. To some degree or other.

So going back to the beginning, let’s say you’re in the Stasis, let’s think of a practical example like, let’s say you are a writer. You probably are, but let’s say your Resolution is that you want to write a novel and let’s say your Stasis is that you haven’t written a novel. Very simple. These are the opposites of each other, right? So, we have a a place we’re at and we, in whatever sense, don’t want to be there, or perhaps we don’t realise that there is a lot more for us to accomplish in another state and maybe even in the opposite state. Maybe you’ve experienced this where you have a very strong opinion about something and then the world just seems to turn you 180°. So suddenly you are the absolute opposite of that state. I think that’s just the cosmic joker, the cosmic trickster at work, but it absolutely does happen. And I think that’s a really good example of how close these two stages are. Really, you have the entire cycle to work with, but it just comes down to one line between these two stages. So, what do you do if you feel like you’re in the Stasis? Well, you might just wait for the Trigger. The Trigger is the Call to Adventure in the Hero’s Journey or the monomyth of Joseph Campbell. So you might be waiting. You might not even be aware that there is any kind of stagnation in your life. You might be going along merrily. There might be hints. There might be things that other people can see that you can’t see. And that’s where the Trigger will show you those things. The signs that you have outgrown your previous state will just continue to increase until you absolutely have to notice it. In the monomyth structure, the Hero’s Journey, you have the idea of the Refusal of the Call to Adventure as well. So that’s when the character ignores the signs or when they go away and hide as if they have not noticed them. Slowly the world around them just begins to show this kind of stagnation, this kind of wasteland appearance almost. It just begins to deteriorate until they have to take notice, until they have to push forward out of their old state. And this is only the first step, right? So if you’re feeling like you have noticed that there is something in your life in whatever area it can be just a very small area of your life where you want to accomplish something more where you feel like you have untapped potential then it really helps to notice the signs around you and these can be such simple things.

I think a lot of people think of signs as just grand gestures of the universe that absolutely force you out of your house. The way that sometimes a stranger comes to town in fantasy stories. But that doesn’t have to be the case. There is a sort of mini challenge I made on the Lady Writers League called the Calling to Adventure and that is just about noticing daily, — but also within the course of a day, — the sort of words that come up, the pictures, the symbols, the ideas that fall into your head. And when you list them out on a page, you begin to see themes emerging. So lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of swans around. And I’ve been thinking especially that that has something to do with the state of flow and that maybe I need to look into that more. Maybe I need to write more about the idea of flow and writing in flow. And so if you’re a writer and you want to write a novel, well, what is your Trigger? Maybe your Trigger to beginning or maybe your Trigger to picking up your manuscript that you put aside… Maybe it’s something like, someone asks you, “Oh, how’s that novel going? Have you written your bestseller yet?” Someone might come up to you and say, “Oh, I saw this online course about writing. Why don’t you consider taking that? Maybe it’ll help you make progress on your novel.” Or maybe you come across this video and you say, “Oh yeah, I’ll look at that later.” But maybe you do, maybe you don’t. That depends on how quick you are to accept the Call to Adventure. And I think at least in my own experience, I have noticed that the quicker you are to accept the Call to Adventure, the easier your path is. So instead of denying it, instead of trying to push it aside, if you say, “Oh yeah, there’s something there.” And you don’t have to really take action on it necessarily. I think the awareness is what’s most important because when you look at this page, each of these stages as you go through this cycle represents an increased awareness, an increased awareness of the central theme that you’re working through, the pattern that’s coming up in your life. So when you move from the Stasis to the Trigger, you have a greater understanding. You actually are aware that there is something that is maybe requiring change or maybe that you want to improve. I don’t really like the word improvement, but maybe you want to sort of nudge yourself in a new direction. Maybe you’ve grown bored. Maybe you, again, have untapped potential. That sort of thing.

So then you move from the Trigger to the Quest. And the Quest is really the stage of intense outward motion, intense outward focus, trying to get things done. And it’s a very fun stage. If I didn’t love the Underworld so much, I would probably say the Quest is my favourite because it’s where you enter a new world. If you’re a writer and let’s say you took the call to action, the Call to Adventure and you said, oh yeah I’ll try that online course and you take the course you pay for it and you enter and there’s the community and it’s so lively and bustling and you’re so excited and there are so many interesting things to learn there’s so much potential in there and you’re so excited about doing things someone else’s way. And that’s usually, after a while, where things kind of go downhill because this entire structure, any archetypal story in my mind, they are all about finding your own way. So, I know I’m here showing you a way to do things, but really at the core of this one page novel method and again any kind of mythical story, any kind of story that has that heart to it, that core of truth to it, any of those are about finding your own path. They are not about following someone else’s formula, someone else’s journey, because that can only lead you this far. Literally, this is as far as you can go with someone else’s story. Once you go down to the Bolt, then you’re kind of on your own. But having said that, there’s no need to worry because the Quest is still a very fun stage and it is important. It is helpful to  learn from other people. It is helpful to look at other people, even if all you’re doing is saying, “Ah, no. I don’t like that very much. I think I would prefer something else.” But often in the Quest, you have this elaborate Quest plan. So, you’re probably saying, “Oh my gosh, so I’ve heard of this one page novel method, and I’m going to print out everything I can find about it, and I am going to tackle this novel, and I’m going to go at it in a scheduled, planned, precise way, and absolutely, absolutely go ahead and do that. I think it will absolutely be helpful.” But again, it’s most important to find your own way. And if you are past that stage, let’s say you tried that and you got to a certain point and then maybe something happened with life, maybe something happened where you got more work to do. There was something that needed your attention away from your novel, away from your plotting, away from this fun online community that you found.

And that’s the Bolt from the blue. So, it kind of derails your Quest plan. You had this grand plan to do everything right. I’m laughing because there is no right way, right? That’s what it means to find your own way because only your own way is in a sense the right way for you. But that doesn’t mean that you can be on the wrong path because again, you know, you have this idea of the spiral. So, you’re essentially going around in circles. But every time you complete a revolution then you’re back at the same place but also kind of not, because even if you are coming across the same kinds of patterns, you’ve been through this cycle of the story and that has made you a different character, that’s made you a different person and some people would argue that it actually has made you an entirely different person. Not just, oh you’re the character with different characteristics, but no, you’re actually physically a different person with a different history. So, that’s an interesting way to think about it as well.

So, the Bolt is the Bolt from the blue and it’s a turn inward. So again, if we’re looking at the overview of the page, we can see that this central fold represents the Threshold of Adventure in the monomyth or the Hero’s Journey, if you’re familiar with that. So this is kind of a turn inward. Inward means it’s a turn into yourself. So you’re not outwardly focused anymore. You’re not looking at what society is doing. You’re more focused on your inner world in your inner guidance. And that is why these stages are upside down because this is the Underworld. These four stages represent the Underworld of Adventure. These are the Ordinary World. So this is the world of light. This is the world of darkness. But only in a very symbolic sense. There is, again, nothing bad or wrong about the Underworld. In fact, oh, I absolutely love it because that means when you’re in the Underworld, it means that you are really making progress. Again, I don’t like the word progress very much, but you are getting places. You’re in the thick of things, and that’s quite exciting.

But you can see then that the Quest is a transitional stage. So, this is where you’ll have the crossing into the Underworld. So, that can often be a kind of symbolic place that that leads into the ground. So, it might be a well shaft, it could be like a basement, something like that. You might find it interesting in your own life to think about, if there is a symbol, that kind of symbol where you crossed into the Underworld. Another sign is that that there might be a threshold guardian. So there might be someone guarding that entrance. Or there might be someone guarding the entrance to the new world. So we said that the the Quest is kind of bringing you into a new world. It’s bringing you into maybe a new subculture. It’s that kind of energy. And once you enter it, there’s a sense that all the things that you thought were the absolute solution to your problem, they kind of morph slowly back into what you were experiencing in the Stasis. So if you had a sense of the world in the Stasis and let’s say that in the Stasis, everyone around you was saying that, oh writing a novel is really difficult. And then you came into the Quest world this subculture this community where everyone was saying no writing a novel is easy. It’s just a matter of getting an overview and oh, you just sit down and write it. There’s no problem. Well, then at the beginning you’re really excited. You’re like, oh wow this is an amazing new method. I can just employ this and it will change everything for me. It’ll change my life. I always laugh at that because I always wonder, wouldn’t it actually be more difficult to keep your life the same? You know, you can be in the Stasis and you can do nothing and a Trigger will come along. I just don’t think it’s possible to stay still to keep your life the same.

Anyway, that was a tangent. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So, you come into the Quest world and everyone’s saying, “Oh, it’s easy. It’s brilliant.” And at the beginning, you really feel it. You’re not just going through the motions. You’re really engaged in everything. And you’re feeling, oh, it’s so easy. It’s so flowing. And then slowly the same kinds of problems that were existent in the Stasis world begin to appear. You get this sense that actually like it’s not that easy. I’m having difficulty. The character arc isn’t working. My character is doing weird things. And then the people in the community itself… maybe you notice there’s a schism where some people are saying one thing, some people are saying another thing. And people are repeating the things that the people in the Stasis were saying. So they’re saying things like, “Oh, writing a novel is hard. You know, I know that this method makes it easy, but at the core of it, when you sit down to write it, it’s really difficult work.” So if you’re writing a novel, that’s a great parallel to have, where the Quest world begins to repeat the things that are in the Stasis world.

But anyway, it’s okay because the Bolt  will take you out of it, will take you out of it in a flash of lightning. So that’s why the Underworld stages are upside down. They are mirroring what’s going on in the upper world and the Bolt in particular. So if we think of the Quest as a transitional stage, then the Bolt is the first stage that you have that’s entirely in the Underworld of adventure. So I like the Bolt particularly because it’s like, finally I have turned inward. Finally I have stopped chasing what’s outside of me. Finally I have stopped turning to others for advice or guidance or something that I believe isn’t within me. That’s the Bolt. It might also come as a betrayal. It might be a sort of secret attack or ambush. So if you’re writing your novel and you were in this community and everything was going kind of swimmingly, kind of. Kind of failing. And then the Quest plan just falls apart when… let’s say… perhaps someone in the community is doubtful that this method actually works. Maybe they have finished a novel and maybe they’ve published it and they come back and they say, you know, actually this method is not that great. Like, it takes you a certain part of the way, but really you have to do the rest yourself. So that’s kind of a shapeshifter. Maybe it’s even the person who runs the community or is sort of an integral person within the community and they tell you, you know what, yeah, it’s okay.

Or a scene where you’re tempted or diverted away from the Quest plan. So that can often be, again, it can be a problem that you have to deal with in, quote unquote, the real world. Or it can be something that just takes your attention away from it because it’s more interesting. So, let’s say you’ve been trying to write this novel, but then  you start reading something that’s more interesting and then you forget about your novel or maybe you write start writing another story and that really grasps your interest. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. And I really want to actually emphasise that the Bolt, and none of the Underworld stages, none of the stages are in any way bad. A diversion — we think of it as, you know, we have to be consistent. We have to stay on track. We have to do this every day or it’s not worth doing and it won’t come to anything. But really, when you have a diversion like this, when you have a, let’s say you’re going along the road and there’s road works and you have to go around it, it’s no use just staying there and persisting and saying, “No, I have to go this way. I have to do this every day and I have to do it in exactly the same way.” This kind of diversion from the universe is actually often a huge blessing because it stops you from going in a direction that wasn’t going to be as fruitful or as easy or as quick as another direction. This is divine guidance at work. This is taking you from a kind of misdirection in the Quest because you are still looking for things outside of yourself. You’re looking for things that are a quick fix to your problems. In fact, the quick fix is often just stopping and not doing anything for a while. just being calm and collected and taking stock of where you are.

And another very classic Bolt experience that I feel is, that someone comes from the home world. So someone, maybe from the Stasis, comes to visit you where you are or maybe you kind of retreat back into that family environment, having faced kind of a failure of the Quest plan. So you take refuge among the people who are more familiar and safe to you. But the problem with that is that you’ve come a long way from the Stasis. You’ve been through the Stasis, the Trigger, the Quest, and now you’re at the Bolt. You’re almost at the halfway mark. And there’s no turning back now. So the people in the Stasis, they no longer feel like the people you knew. They no longer feel like you do. They feel strange and you realise that you can’t go back to that old way of thinking, especially if you’re thinking of a kind of grander cycle not something smaller, on a smaller scale, if you’re thinking of a grander cycle then there may be people that you actually have to leave behind that you just can’t really communicate with in the old way anymore and so it can be a bit difficult. But it’s still the easiest way to go through this.

So next we have the Shift. And the Shift is a paradigm Shift. It’s a Shift in perspective in point of view that absolutely overturns everything you thought you knew about the story, about the narrative. So, if you’ve been thinking as a writer and you thought you had got to the Bolt and your Quest plan had fallen apart and you didn’t know what to do and you didn’t really know anymore what you wanted to even accomplish. The Shift might be you realising that you don’t even need to write a novel. Do you need to write a novel? Maybe you need to write a novella. Maybe a short story. Maybe you just need to write a few words on a page. Or maybe it needs to be a script. Or maybe it needs to be a a comic. Maybe it needs to be a script for a play or a film. This is the kind of Shift in perspective that can change what you thought you knew coming into the story. What you thought you knew in the Stasis and the Trigger when you were first beginning. What you thought you wanted. When you get to the Shift, you might realise that there’s actually something bigger that you wanted or that there’s something bigger that you can grow into through the stages of the story, through the journey that you’re on.

And it’s almost like you’re not really on this journey. It’s sort of moving through you. You’re standing still. Maybe you’re standing still at the centre point of this narrative. And this entire cycle is just going through you. It’s moving through you. So you have a kind of separation of the character from the story. And that is such a pivotal point where you have that realisation where you have the moment where you can say, you know, this is what I’m going through but actually it doesn’t have to be what I’m going through because I am a character. I am this consciousness that is above and beyond this. Here I am. I’m looking down at the entire structure of the thing and I can see how I can change it. I can see that all I need to do actually is to change my perspective on the issue and the entire thing changes. And that is what is so amazing about the Underworld stages, about the turn inward because you realise that in the Ordinary World you did things through action, through physical action and that’s how you thought that you were getting things done. But when you enter the World of Adventure, all the rules are flipped. Everything is mirrored. So you come here and you realise that the old actions don’t have the same effects that they used to. You know, you were used to maybe writing a chapter and you’d be done with it. No, in the Underworld, that’s not how it works. You write the chapter and it’s almost like it’s still unwritten or instead of writing it, you have a moment of inspiration where it’s just all laid out for you there. Obviously it can play out in different ways because this is your narrative and remember, it’s your own path that you’re going through and it’s going to manifest in different ways for you.

That’s why we have infinite infinite stories. We can we can generalise them. We can look at them in an overview and say, “Oh, yeah, they’re all kind of similar in this sense.” And the character goes through this journey and for most of the stories that we tend to like, the character gets what they want. They get a happy Resolution. But we have infinite variety because there is infinite variety to go through the same cycle, the same journey of change and transformation. And again, I’m not entirely keen on anymore on calling it change or transformation because it really feels like you are the centre point to all of this. You are the unchanging consciousness that is experiencing all of this. So it’s almost like the story is the software and you’re running it and you can make changes to it.

And that Shift in perspective which is going to be fulfilled in the Power — that is huge because it’s often just a small thought that changes everything. It isn’t an action that you’re taking. It’s the thought that comes first and it’s the thought, whether you act on it or not. Sometimes you don’t even need to act on these things. Sometimes the thought alone allows you to focus in a way that brings you the things that you need, that makes you realise the things that you need were all around you anyway. So it’s not even the idea of it being brought into your consciousness. It was there and you just realised, “Wow, I’ve had this thing all along.” Like maybe you had this one page novel cheat sheet or a similar one saved in your computer hard drive for many years and you suddenly realise, “Wait, wait, wait. I had that thing all along and now I can look at it and now I understand. Now I finally understand how this all fits together and how I can use it.” Perhaps if you’re currently writing a story and you’re stuck with it somewhere, maybe this is the moment where you realise the missing piece. You realise, right, that’s what that’s how I can get through that.

So, it’s often described as the stage where the character goes from being reactive to being proactive. And that’s what allows you to kind of get ahead of the narrative in a sense because you’re not waiting for someone to say something to you so that you can respond to it. You’re not waiting for someone to give you something so you can take it. You have an entirely different approach to things that makes everything so much smoother and easier. And again, it’s just one thought away. And that’s what really I find so amazing with understanding this kind of thing because when you experience this kind of thing in your life and you can recognise it and you can say, “Oh, right. Right. That was just the Shift that I needed to make in my thinking.” And then over time you you get more accustomed to this idea of thinking in a new way. You get more accustomed to looking at the narrative from  another angle. Even the absolute reverse angle, the upside down angle that you might not have seen it as before. And once you get that kind of experience, you get that kind of habit of looking at the narrative of your own life in that way, then it becomes easier and easier to ask the questions that make the Shift easier to see. It makes it easier to you know… the Bolt also leads you into the Shift because it puts you in that stage, in that state of distancing yourself from the Ordinary World in a sense. So it’s brought you inward and it’s also detached you from the people and the places maybe that were creating the Ordinary World story, the direction that was taking you in the outward direction. You can see that the cycle kind of changes direction at different points, right? So, we have a circle and the Bolt really prepares you for the Shift because it puts you in a quieter place. It really calms you down. So, you’re not listening for outside sounds, you’re listening for internal guidance. You’re listening for intuition. And that’s when the Shift has a chance to find you. It has a chance to drop into your head with divine inspiration. Or if you do think that it comes from your mind or perhaps from a divine source, wherever you think it comes from, it comes. It never fails. It always comes.

And once you’ve made that Shift in perspective, then you might be shocked to see the Defeat. Oh, woe. The Defeat. Perhaps I could have given it a better title, but the idea is that this is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Is that the right way around? No. This is snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. So it feels like a Defeat. This stage feels like all hope is lost. It feels like you are in a way experiencing if you’ve heard of the term “ego death” this is kind of that stage and it sounds scary but actually again it’s such a positive sign that things are clearing away for you to become this new identity that you want to be. I think it’s a really beautiful stage. It always reminds me of Odin hanging in the world tree sacrificing himself to himself. So, it’s a sacrifice, but it’s not really a sacrifice because you’re basically leaving aside the old identity that you were, in order to pick up the new. Because you can’t be two people at the same time. You can’t be one thing and the opposite at the same time. You have to choose. You can’t serve two masters. And so if there are things from your old identity that are falling away, then it’s easiest just to allow them because that’s the quickest way that you’re going to get to the new identity. And when you do allow them to leave, you realise that the loss was no loss at all. And you realise this with everything. And I know it can be difficult if it’s a person that you’re losing in any sense of the word, but once you gain some perspective on the issue, you do realise that yeah, there was some benefit to it. And yeah, I was being led along what might be the easiest path to where I wanted to go. So, it’s kind of a Defeat, but it’s also a temporary Defeat. And it and again depends on your perspective. So you’ve had this Shift in perspective. So if you see this and especially once again you’ve realised over many cycles that you come to understand how the Defeat works and you accept that it’s just a matter of being more open to letting go of things.

Letting go of control is a huge one because there’s an internal paradox. There is an  essential paradox where you think things are happening to you, but at the same time you feel like you have to do something to control them. And so which one is it? Are you the victim of the things that are happening to you or do you actually have control over them? Are you the one controlling things? You can’t have it both ways. And if you say, “Well, maybe it’s a bit of both.” Then how do you decide? How do you decide what happens to you and what you have happen to you? What you have control over? I don’t know. To me, that sounds way more complicated. And I think physical reality tends towards what’s simple. You know, the idea of Occam’s razor. So I think the simple explanation is that you have control over the things that are happening. Maybe not granular control in the sense that you might think but you have the ability to have a point of view on it and that’s all that matters, because as we saw in the Shift the point of view changes the entire story.

So the Defeat might be your worst case scenario. The Defeat might be your worst fears come to pass, but once it happens, it happens. And you realise that you’re still alive, you’re still conscious, you’re still going on with your life in whatever way you can. And the Defeat, the heartening part of the Defeat is always that, if this is rock bottom, then you can see this is the nadir, and from here everything is uphill. Everything is going upwards. Everything is going to get easier and better as you progress.

So next we have the Power and as I said the Power is the external manifestation of the Shift. So you had this huge realisation in the Shift; in the Defeat, you let go of the old way of thinking completely so that it allowed you to then move into your Power. So in the Power you are being extracted from the world of adventure, right? We talk about how the Power is actually the counterpart of the Quest. So the things that you did in the Quest that seemed difficult and slow, now in the Power, they become easy. You do them quickly, you do them more efficiently, you do them quicker than you thought you could possibly do them. It’s just so simple for you. And the people around you see this and they’re astonished. You know, maybe in the Defeat, you completely gave up on the idea of writing a novel because you realised, maybe I don’t need to write a novel. Maybe I can write something else and still consider myself a writer. And then in the Power you write something else. You might even just write one line of poetry and people see this line of poetry and it’s the best line of poetry anyone has ever seen and you become famous for it and people are astonished to behold you and the Power that you have over your words and maybe then you realise that you can disseminate this knowledge to them and you say that, actually you don’t need to write a novel.

So you disseminate the knowledge to the society at large and you teach them how to write that one perfect line of poetry. And that’s your Resolution. That’s what you went through this entire story cycle to accomplish. You thought it was one thing. You thought it was to write a novel and to finish it. But actually, it was to go through this whole story cycle and learn the lessons that you learn. It was to see how the entire picture fits together. It was to accomplish what you accomplished that no one else could have done. Even though you may teach them by disseminating the knowledge of how to write the perfect line of poetry, it’s still your path. And just as you went on that path to learn how to write a novel, the people you teach will go through and they will extract the knowledge that you give them about writing poetry. But then eventually they’ll come to a threshold where they can’t move further without going within themselves and finding there the missing piece that really makes it their own, that really allows them to integrate this new identity, this new story, this new story that is going to run through them like the software.

So, I hope that’s given you some insights about your life. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll see you next time.