| Happy Friday! Spring officially starts today, and warmer temperatures and sun have given me an energy boost. I’m continuing to work on projects, and ideas for new ones are popping up much like the flowers I am seeing around town. So, using my writing time wisely is essential. Two Realizations Our last webinar session was built around a simple but important truth: most writers are not writing full-time. That means the time we have available, whether it’s a few hours on the weekend or a short 20-minute window during the week, is limited and valuable. Because of that, two things become essential: The time we have must be used with intention. We must enter our writing from a calm, safe, and grounded state so creativity can flow. The Exercise We began the webinar with the Beyond Happiness Method. The Self-Acknowledgement Hug, affirmations, and somatic movements released the day’s noise, and we reconnected with our creative selves. From this place of calm, I invited participants to let an image come to mind about something related to their current project or a new idea. They wrote a word or phrase that captured that image in the center of a circle. From there, additional words and images began to emerge. Each participant then used their cluster as the foundation for a short piece of writing. This part of the process often reveals something unexpected. For me, working on a nonfiction project, I realized that an experience from earlier in the day—repairing a printer—could serve as a meaningful metaphor in my book. Beth, who is writing a romance novel, discovered through her meet-cute scene that she could deepen both her characters’ inner and outer worlds. Jaclyn, working on a screenplay, recognized that one of her characters would not play the prominent role she had originally imagined. From Cluster to Structure Once ideas and insights began to flow, it was time to introduce structure. Using a simple six-box table, I suggested placing keywords, images, or discoveries from the cluster into each box. From there, a scene or section could begin to take shape. Like a storyboard, the elements could be seen, adjusted, and connected with ease. But the difference is clear: this structure was not forced. It emerged naturally from a calm, focused, and creative state. What this process shows us is that structure does not limit creativity; it supports it. When we first quiet the noise, the ideas that surface are more aligned, more meaningful, and easier to shape. The six boxes simply give those ideas a place to land, grow, and connect. In our next session, we’ll continue working with this process and go deeper into how to use the six boxes to guide your writing time.  Try It. Begin with a hug, and let a single image come to mind. Build a small cluster of words around it. Then place the words into a simple grid. From there, begin writing. You may find that what once felt overwhelming becomes clear, focused, and manageable. I’d love to see what you discover. Here’s to your personal success, Professor Marilyn Horowitz |
Get Busy! In the next webinar,we’ll continue the conversation on how to take a larger writing project and shape it into clear, manageable pieces that fit into the time you actually have.  Using the Beyond Happiness Method framework, we’ll explore practical ways to structure your writing, build momentum, and move steadily from idea to completed pages. When your work is organized with safety, calm, and intention, even brief writing sessions can become productive and deeply satisfying. Register here. |
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We spend our lives trying to “find ourselves,” as if there’s one authentic version of us hiding somewhere beneath the noise. But that’s the wrong question. We aren’t one self waiting to be uncovered. We are a crowd of selves, a shifting cast of voices, all speaking through the same consciousness.
And yet, beneath that crowd, there is something constant—an unbroken awareness that doesn’t disappear when everything else does. The paradox is this…
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