Author Archives: Jennifer

How I write in Flow – nonfiction

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The process of Flowing nonfiction is slightly different to fiction – at least for me – and much easier.

Creating structure

I find creating a planned structure essential for nonfiction, whereas for fiction, I let my unconscious mind take care of that for me.

Personally, I find seeing structure easy: dividing content into chapters and then points of interest, but if this isn’t you there are some easy processes you can use to clarify the structure of what you want to say – I’ll talk about one of those further down.

Who is the audience, and what do they want?

The first thing is to know who I want to write for, and how I want their lives to change as a result. It’s an easy question to answer, and in answering it, I clarify my direction.

Creating the document

Then there is the mechanical process of creating a document for the book, with chapter headings, sub headings and point by point headings. I put all these in italics, and appropriate heading styles, and get the word processor to create a contents page automatically.

Filling in the blanks

Writing from here is very, very easy. Any time I have a gap in my schedule, and time to write a little bit, I scan down through the headings to see what I feel like writing today. It works really well if the headings are in small, bite-sized chunks, so lots of them. Then I can write that small piece, turn off the italics, and either go on to another one or come back tomorrow.

The first time I wrote a book in this way, I didn’t even realise I had finished. I came back to it to write some more, and there were no more italic headings, I had done them all!

If writing isn’t your Flow

If writing isn’t easy for you, think about what is.

  • Could you record a short audio for each heading, and get it transcribed and edited?
  • Could you get someone to interview you, creating questions for each of the headings, and speak your content in conversation to a fascinated listener? These questions can make thought-provoking headings in the text, often more engaging than a factual heading.
  • Have you already recorded the content in workshops or speaking?
  • Do you have a series of blog posts you could adapt?

Or is it the size of the task that daunts you, in which case just having it divided into small sections may be all you need to make it possible to write.

An easy way to plan

If you tend to think big picture, and three-dimensionally, with ideas connecting in many different directions, an easy way to create a structure and order to your book is to get a pile of blank cards and write a point on each, in whatever order they occur to you, until you have everything you can think of down.

Then shuffle them up, go through them and divide them into piles of related ideas. Five to twelve chapters is usually about right, so group or separate the piles until you are in that range. Think of chapter headings that will appeal to your target audience.

Divide and divide

Then take each pile and divide that up again into logical groupings. Think of more subheadings – and consider the use of questions again for these, to engage the reader’s thinking.

The last step is to put the cards in order, then type the headings into your document, and get started on Flowing your content, step-by-step.

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please ask!

Would you like some help?

Email jennifermanson444 @ gmail.com.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

How I write in Flow – fiction

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People often ask me about my writing process, how it is so easy for me; so it seems a good idea to describe how writing works for me.

The process has evolved over time, refining and simplifying, until it is very, very easy, very consistent, with just one or two small provisos about sitting down and getting on with it, no matter how I feel on the day.

Most often it’s exhilarating, sometimes it’s not

Perhaps that has been the big key, the big element to my consistency of Flow – ignoring how I feel in any given moment, not waiting for the moments of inspiration, just trusting they will come once I get the keyboard under my hands. Most often it’s exhilarating, exciting, energising. Sometimes it’s not. But we’ll get to that…

I work with clients mostly on non-fiction works, taking their message and getting it out to a wider audience in book form. Most of my own big projects have been novels, however, so let’s look at how those have worked for me.

Going off-piste

I started writing when I was six and I’ve always known it was what I wanted to do. Then at around 15 I went off-piste, into the wilderness of science and IT, through the wilds of small business, writing always in my spare time, but generally just distracting myself from what I knew in my heart I needed to do. It was a momentous, but at the time insignificant day, when I promised myself that whatever else I did, I would take at least five minutes a day to follow my passion.

Five minutes a day

So I did just that. Every day (or almost, I wasn’t fanatical about it, just felt a strong tug in my heart at the end of the day if I had missed) I sat down at my computer, document open, and let out whatever came through my fingers. Most days I had no idea what I would write; but I always knew something would come. Sometimes I would hear the words before I started to type; sometimes my fingers would begin to move and the words formed on the screen, coming from a deeper part of myself than conscious mind. But they always came.

I used to plan my novels, but then I’d sit down and write something different; so I gave up planning and trusted the creative process, the single creative arc that happens when you reconnect with a project every day.

No jugdement…

And here’s the thing: I had no judgement about how much I wrote on any one day, as long as I reconnected with the story. Some days it was one sentence, and that was enough to reconnect. Most days, however, I would look up and see an hour had gone by, there were 1500 more words on the word count, and the story had significantly progressed. Most days. Some days not. And that was okay.

I also had no judgement on the quality of the writing, just kept going, head down, every day, and this turned out to be the game-changer, the thing that allowed the Flow to really accelerate. More about that later, too…

Building momentum

An interesting thing happens when I write in this way, every day, reconnecting… the story becomes part of me, sitting in the background of my life with the characters continuing off-stage lives. I get drawn in, caught up, and the story builds momentum, to the point that once the final act climax is in sight, it takes me over, and in a two day rush the last 10,000 words appear at speed – that has been my experience for each of my novels so far, and that time is such a buzz, such an expressive, creative joy, it’s almost worth engaging in the process for that alone.

The single creative arc

So what about when the story is complete? Where does the book go from there? There were two things I discovered once I started to write in this consistent way: first, that even though there were days when the writing seemed to flow and it felt great, and other times it was the opposite, when I looked back, there was no difference in the quality of writing at all! This astounded me, and it was immensely freeing. It meant I could keep going, with no judgement, day to day, just trusting the process.

The other thing was that when I reconnected to the story daily, there was very little editing required. The story structure was perfect, I just needed to change a word or sentence here or there to make the writing more elegant; the story as a whole needed no change.

So editing became a simple task, I’d do what I could myself and then hand it over to a professional editor for a last run through, engage my team of selfless proof readers and be ready to publish.

Last tips

Robert McKee’s Story: Even though I’d been writing my whole life, my craft as a writer took a significant leap when I read Robert McKee’s Story, a comprehensive study of the structure of satisfying, successful stories through history. I also attended his workshop in New York, delivering the same content – an enormously valuable experience.

Painting myself into a corner: If at any time I felt the story was flagging, I would paint myself into a creative corner, have a character do or say something surprising, that I would then have to explain and incorporate into the wider story. This creative pressure produced some of my best moments as a writer.

Find my novels online

You can find my novels online at bookdepository.co.uk, amazon.com or search Jennifer Manson on any ebook site; or have a look at my author page.

And now, non-fiction – see the next post.

Would you like some help?

If you’d like some support and guidance to start, or to move a project along, email jennifermanson444 @ gmail.com.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Life at full speed

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It seems that all my life, people have been telling me to tone it down, pull it back, lighten up, not be so intense…

Nah, not doing it.

Watch out, world, maximum expression and speed is on its way, is here. Accelerating today, terrifying tomorrow. Get used to it.

Anyone care to join me?

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Life, marketing and sales made easy

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Amongst the many wild theories I am known to expound at length any time someone or something sets me off, is that everything is easy, and in many cases, things are far, far, far easier than they seem.

People seem to like this idea. They take enough interest to stay with me as I fizz with enthusiasm, and tell some of my stories of when this has been the case for me.

The vision of Project Flow Days

We did our first Project Flow Day on Saturday, a glorious day, filled with sparks and flashes of inspiration, of vision, and of seeing how those projects could be easy, too. For me, being in that beautiful room, with those beautiful people, being part of that flowering of life and purpose, was in itself a vision come true – I’d seen it, experienced it, in moments of daydream – to the point that I surprised myself when I remembered I had not actually lived such a day before.

Relative speed

I was also surprised when someone pointed out to me how quickly the day had come to fruition. “You were only talking about it three weeks ago, as an idea, and now here you are!” My head tilted to the side as I considered this. In my world three weeks is a long time, but their surprise that something could happen so quickly triggered curiosity in me. How had it happened? What made it so easy?

Well, it just was easy. We set a date, my co-host Dave Kibby called someone he knew who had a stately home library for hire, and we started inviting people.

First Project Flow Day, Library, Cobham Hall

What is it for you?

I already knew the idea captured people’s attention, because for the few weeks before, I’d been asking everyone I met: “What is it for you? What is that you know in your heart you need to be doing?” and seen their faces go pale, or light up, or their mouths drop open. I knew people knew what they wanted and needed to do, I was pretty sure the offer of space to do it would be attractive and I knew, deep down, it was a good thing to do.

And as soon as we started talking about the day online, people started taking notice, sharing it, talking about it, and then they started booking to come.

Vision unfolding

From there, what? My vision was of a day of space, for people to work on their projects away from their everyday lives. The plan of how the day would unfold came to me complete, easy. It took me five minutes to write it down. I had some thoughts of what to say at the start, about how life is easy for me, and had a chat to my friend Stuart, who knows about these things, about how to introduce Dave so that his genius and vision would flow easily from there. All easy.

Endless examples

I was going to talk here about other examples, of similar moments of ease, but I won’t, for now. There’s just one more point I’d like to make: for me it’s passion, excitement and clarity of vision that fuels my choices of what to do. It’s that light in the eyes of another that tells me, “Yes, this is it, this is the next thing, this is something that will make a difference.” When I feel that, I don’t even need to think, “how will I do this?” – it simply unfolds.

With thanks to Lucy Whittington for her wisdom on “doing your marketing Thing”.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

The New Universe

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These last few months have been a time of huge personal growth for me, letting go of the last of fear and hesitation, guided and supported and challenged by two exceptional coaches: Dave Kibby, www.davekibby.com and Saskia Clements, www.nzlifecoach.co.nz.

Part of the learning over this time has been of interdependence, and the realisation that two are more powerful than one, many are more powerful than two, and developing the skills to harness and revel in that possibility. I knew this before, in my head; now that learning has reached my body and become an integrated part of who I am.

There came a time a month or so ago when I found myself asking a question: “once we’ve got to that point beyond fear, and are looking at a world of truth, of destiny, of following our true path, what then? How does the world look different from here?” It’s a question I didn’t immediately get an answer to. In fact, it’s a question I couldn’t immediately get people to understand.

Bit by bit, however, the answer is emerging; I get snatches of phrases, glimpses of visions, exhilarating, exciting ideas of how things might be. I see, long term, a world without money, as everyone contributes their unique part with joy. Resources stretch and expand because people only take what they need in the moment, trusting tomorrow for tomorrow, like the lilies of the field.

I see health as distinct from medicine, focusing on the delights of the human body in its flexibility and strength. I’ve been working with Martha Grover at Joie de Vivre, London, on effortlessly creating a body that moves easily, and is a source of joy; and here has been the reinforcement of a truth I’ve suspected, that everything is so much easier than we have believed it to be.

Things can be easy, effortless, if we only open ourselves to that ideal.

Every aspect of life has a new vision in this new universe. I know I’m only just beginning to see. Just running the thought experiment gives me a deep sense of satisfaction, of purpose, that we might have the vision ready when the world as a whole steps forward, and asks how we would like things to be.

Today’s imagining: The beginnings of education in the New Universe… in audio format here, because it’s time I speed up my thoughts, to keep pace with the changing view. (Right click and choose Save link as… to download.)

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Adventure – managing the gaps in the action

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One of the things about adventure is that while the action, when described, sounds exciting, a lot of the time there’s pretty much nothing going on at all.

Joan of Arc waited around for a year for Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, to give her the men-at-arms she was commanded to wait for before presenting herself to the Dauphin, the King – and by any and all standards, hers was a fairly exciting life.

We’re used to our stories being distilled down to their essence – a 22 minute sitcom; a 90 minute movie – that’s the most effective way for us to consider those stories, and integrate their relevance into our lives.

The trouble with that is, we get to thinking that action happens in a continuous stream, one event after another, with no waiting, uncertain, perhaps doubting, in between.

I tend to take my action in the inspired form: I get a clear sense of what is needed, and whether it delights me or fills me with dread, the result is the same – I do it. That’s the easy part. More challenging are those times when the voice inside me, clear as a bell, tells me “there’s nothing to do, do nothing”, or simply goes quiet and I’m left twiddling my thumbs, a menace to myself and others, searching for something to fill the time.

I’m getting better at it. Sometimes, now, I can go easy on myself: stare out the window at the glorious view; listen to music; watch a film. And at other times? Well, let’s just say I’m working on it, masterpiece in progress, hoping the artist, whoever that might be, can repair the chisel damage that happens when I have a go at sculpting life myself.

To generate greatness, significant actions are few and far between – that’s what I’m learning – and the less I keep myself busy, or thinking, or planning, or trying to do it all myself, the clearer the voice inside me, the one that dictates those significant actions, becomes.

(By the way, for inspiration, I recommend Mark Twain’s biography of Joan of Arc – he spent 14 years researching and writing it, and considered it his best work.)

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Why do people keep saying there are only six senses?

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Why do people keep saying there are only six senses? It is time to open our minds much broader than that, and acknowledge the vast range of things we sense beyond sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch – and whatever sixth sense the speaker happens to be considering at the time.

What about the sense of where our bodies are in space, without reference to sight? What about the sense of our bodies moving? What about the sense of another person’s mood, even if they’ve left the room before we enter it? What about the sense that it’s about to rain or thunder, or the exhilarating sense of imminent lightning?

What about the settling we feel in our bodies when we have a cat sitting moulded onto our knee, or after we’ve finished a bout of laughter? What about our sense of direction, however that works? What about the prickle of premonition or deja-vu? What about pain, in its myriad forms? What about hunger, what about thirst, what about knowing we need to exhale?

What about our sense of space, or of order? What about the sense of rightness, of certainty? What about our sense of justice? What about the sense of intuition or the sense of logic? What about the sense that a loved one is with us, even when they are a long way away, or no longer in this world? What about the sense of belonging, and being loved?

Some of these things could be rolled in together, but none of them come under one of the five standard headings, unless we stretch those headings beyond “sense” as well. And there is more, so much more…

There’s the sense that we have been holding ourselves back for many, many years because in language we acknowledge limits to our world that do not need to exist.

What would you sense if you took an expanded moment of freedom to breathe into? Is there something there for you that your body, in its most intelligent sense, has known for a long, long time, that your mind did not?

What about the feeling of love for another? Where does that come under the headings of the big five?

And our other emotions: fear, anger, joy, excitement, peace, happiness, grief… ah, yes, grief?

These things we feel in our bodies, but not with the sense of touch, taste or smell. These things we feel in our hearts, our tight muscles, our headaches, our expanded arms; the lifting of our chest in anticipation; the bowing of our shoulders in pain.

In describing our world we can limit it, it’s true; but we can also open our view, widen our horizon with a few, deep, heart-chosen words.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

The compelling call of adventure

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Forgive me for thinking aloud here, for beginning with no end in view, for making this offering a small adventure in itself, undertaken with the primary motive of just launching into the unknown. Forgive me, because without that outlet, I feel I might burst.

Who else feels the keen need for adventure? Who else closes their eyes against the smell of wind and sea and pictures themselves as Jack Sparrow, departing for an unknown, uncertain destination? Or is it just me?

And I wonder, why should it come so strongly today?

A good friend reminded me of our very human competing needs for certainty and uncertainty, the balance of which possibly influences our lives more than we realise.

“No,” I said, “my actions weren’t driven by the need for uncertainty,” but then I took another honest look, and realised that, just possibly, they might have been; and then I couldn’t help but smile at myself and start looking for another, more constructive avenue to stretch my wings, test my strength, get that need met.

There are various cliched ways we find variety in our safe western lives: we fall in love, we go on holiday, we dabble in legal and illegal drugs. Compare this to the great historic adventures, however, and the contrast is a little sad. So what else can we do? I feel my heart beating against the confines of my chest as I ask this question, impatience at not seeing an immediate answer…

The same friend suggests that if I allow them, answers, fresh thoughts will come, and my response is somewhere between a laugh and a scream: “When? When will they? I want them now!” In my mind’s eye I see him smile, a warm, infuriating smile, laughing in turn at my impatience.

From experience, I know the call to adventure can be a challenge, requiring courage and conviction to follow through. Okay. I’m ready for that. I’m ready to answer the call – just call, adventure. Please come.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Soul of a Nomad

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I wonder what it is that makes me happiest when I’m wandering from place to place.

The flow of the road or the waves or the tracks brings a sometimes ecstatic joy to my heart, which rises in a soaring movement in my chest that is an expression of pure joy.

The view through my car window of a familiar and unfamiliar landscape: sunshine on brilliant green foreground hills against a backdrop of thunderous sky; light through autumn leaves in a glowing, glorious display of colour; the sparkle of sunshine off water; the shifting pattern of cloud as the road worships a rising moon; the glimpse of a long snaking train as we round a curving bend, the transient view of the engine like the promise of infinity – all these things combine into one truth: that all that matters is that the view keeps shifting, keeps changing.

It is the constant change, the truth of now and the unknowability of the future that makes me feel so at home in the journey.

This week I’ve stopped and taken rest with some wonderful old friends. This, too, is part of the shifting view. I love to connect and reconnect, to ask the questions that only seem to get asked within a limited time-frame – the bigger questions of health and happiness and life.

The potential frictions of people living together are suspended when the visit is closely finite; an impertinent question brings a moment of surprise, the head of the person questioned pulling back a fraction; then comes the moment of magic: the eyes shift focus to a point not in the room; there is a pause of sacred anticipation, and then the answer comes, fresh, true, honest, enlightening. Reality may change or not from that moment, but somehow, their hearts and mine are touched and altered by the space of honesty and truth that is outside our normal, everyday experience.

For me, the epic journey requires being at the level of land or sea – it cannot be made by air. Perhaps it requires the physical connection the the medium of travel: up and down with waves or landscape. Perhaps it is that our eyes have evolved to make sense through a horizontal view, that looking down on something makes it unreal, unrelated to ourselves and our lives.

I recall the two great Australian train journeys I have made, one with each of my children at the sacred age of twelve: the Indian Pacific with my son, Perth to Sydney and with my daughter, the Ghan, Adelaide to Darwin, with a side trip to the nowhere-ness and everywhere-ness of Uluru.

I still have the sense with me of endless desert, not empty as I expected, but always dotted with scrubby trees, points of curious interest on which to momentarily rest my eyes  before the train whisks me on to the next view; that magical pattern allows me to be in two places, two worlds, on two planes at once, with the rich added dimension of the spirit of my children accompanying me. I am here on earth, and I am floating in the world of my imagination, free and connected simultaneously.

I look at my business card now and see it gives no location: there is no physical address, no country-based phone number; it is a virtual homing beacon, with web address, email address, Skype ID. With this I can be found and not found anywhere in the world. For the person wanting to connect, it doesn’t matter where I am, or rather, there is the illusion I am always in the same place… which I suppose, given that my heart is my home, is the truth.

My heart, in connection with the hearts of others: that’s home.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

The Illusion of Control

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I had a great conversation with my good friend, Yvette Lamidey, The Business Locksmith, on Monday, one of those conversations where prophetic things get said; we both heard Oracle statements for our futures.

In amongst a wide range of subjects, the idea of control of life came up. It’s an idea we like to cling to, that we can directly manipulate the objects and events in our lives, that things are stable, that the possessions and people we live with now will be with us forever.

But actually, we know that isn’t true. We know that things are temporary, that even the ground beneath our feet is less stable than it seems.

So what is going on here? Why do we ignore the evidence, and keep holding on tightly to what we know? Perhaps it’s the devil we know… that the things we can’t imagine look more frightening than the things we can. Perhaps it’s that we doubt our ability to handle something new. Perhaps it’s just the energy that it takes to run a hundred different scenarios, pre-planning contingencies, exploring the “what-ifs”. For lots of different reasons, it seems simplest to assume what has happened before will happen again, the same action will produce the same result… but we know, deep down, this isn’t always true.

So what then? What’s the alternative?

How about this? What if we were to surf life, moment by moment; watch the waves with a sense of the direction of movement, and trust in the thrill of the ride? What if we were to allow the roller coaster of emotions to freely move through us, bringing vivid experience, a continuous rush of beautiful, wild life, exhilarating?

There’s a lot to let go of to do this. Loosening the grip on possessions is the first, looking at everything we have around us, everything we hold in our hands, as a momentary thing that may or may not continue into our future. It requires letting go of thinking ahead with rigid expectation, of the sense of disappointment when things don’t go as planned, of judgement, comparing this moment to what it might have been; and then, once these are let go, living life this way consists of simply looking around the moment we have with wonder.

It also involves letting go of people: letting go of the picture we have of who they are or ought to be, and letting them be who they actually are, in the moment. None of us stay the same; we change powerfully from moment to moment: sometimes serious, sometimes sad, sometimes playful; but always, deep down, we are always love. We just bring that love in different forms, moment to moment.

It’s that truth that makes it safe to trust life, in the moment, and let go of the illusion of control.

(Thanks to inimitable Thinking Coach Dave Kibby: I can no longer tell which ideas are yours, and which are mine…)

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…