Writing from Your Body with Anna Willman

January 24, 2024 Valerie Ihsan

Announcements:

Registration is open for the 2024 Writer Craft Writing Retreat and Workshop in Marcola, Oregon. At this point, there is only four private tickets left and three shared tickets. We'll likely sell out again. ValerieIhsan.com/retreat for more info.

UPDATE:

Valerie:
meditation: Balance app
updating website slowly
pitch conferences (Accountability for Authors)(What could I teach?)

Erick:
ice storm cabin fever
novella in Strange Air series on 2nd draft
still developing second series; plotting from beginning to end
Happy Birthday! (48)

Just finished: Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

I'M READING:

What's a Poor Girl to Do?: Prostitution in Mid-Nineteenth Century America by Elizabeth A. Topping

Praying with Jane Eyre by Vanessa Zoltan

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

Up Next:

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

Erick's Reading:

A Prayer for the Crown Shy

Anna's reading:

Dortmuder novels (Donald Westlake)

Show Notes:

Bio: Anna Willman has been a certified Focusing Trainer since 1982. She has a Master’s degree in International Studies from Claremont Graduate School and a Master’s in Comparative Politics from Columbia University. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1971 and 1972. She retired in 2008 after fourteen years as director of the Confidence Clinic, a Focusing-oriented community wellness program for women. Since retirement she has written extensively about the program’s history, its philosophy and practice, and its outcomes. She has also written and published six novels and a humorous short story about disappointed expectations.

Our bodies hold our experiences in its cells. You feel your emotions in your body. (Pain, etc.)

It starts like meditation, but with focusing you create an inner space and listen to Self and garner wisdom from it.

Shift = noticing how to carry my experience of past trauma TODAY.

It's always healing. The shift that happens is a big sigh of relief. Because now you know. A Knowing. A Clarity.

A way to heal and understand yourself better.

Your characters also (as they become more and more real) have past experiences that they feel in their bodies.

Select a character (problem, won't do what I want, motivation issues, or discomfort with the character).
Slow down and relax, feel your chair, your feet, aware of body, notice rhythm of your breathing, ...
Bring your character into your body, see if you can sense your character's discomfort in a situation. Can you feel your character's body? Do they notice what they are feeling? Any physical discomfort?
Sit with the experience. How is your character physically feeling it? Where is it? What is the quality of the sensation--lethargic, energetic, restless? Does it have a color? Soft, hard, loose, tight? What words can you use to describe it?
When you have a strong sense of it, how does your character respond to it? If it is painful, how do they escape it? Hide from it? Run away? Whimper? What is their normal response? Do they have to respond out of their ordinary? Is this a normal response to them or brand new?
Given nature of your plot, pause and write down the words about how character is feeling, etc. How aware are they showing their feeling? Show not tell. Write what they do. Is there an awakening for them? How do they act afterwards?
Sit with your char, let your body feel your char's body, write down everything (even if it doesn't make sense), ask "What else?" Listen with compassion and curiosity. You want to understand. Not judging. If you do, your character will clam up on you.

If I let characters do what they want to do, instead of plotting it, they get where I want them to be regardless, usually. (Anna)

Use when you have limited actionable responses for characters. Deepen the char, improve the writing, character's interact with each other is more Real.

Use this to develop metaphors.

Loose Ends (novel Anna wrote with the serial killer character)

Kaleidoscope (novel Anna wrote about focusing and D.I.D.) (Whole Body Focusing.)

Anna's Amazon page with all her titles.

Focusing Initiatives International: webinars (check for any workshops Anna does).