FIREDANCE: Musashi's Nine Principles

Doesn't mean I always will. All right, so it is now 12 o'. Clock. So I wanted to welcome everybody. I'm gonna stop the music. It is actually overture. Put out the lights. This is it anyway. No more rehearsing and nursing apart. We know every part by heart. Hi, welcome to Fire dance. This is January 20th, 2024 and my name is Stephen Barnes. I'm creator of the technology. And also on this call is my good lady wife, Tananari Do.

Hi, everybody. Good to see you. Now I'm not muted. All right. Good to be here.

Yeah, it's great to have you here. We renewed our 90 day vows today, actually backdating it to the 1st of January. I we did the first 90 day love feast. I did the first night of Love Feast. Me putting Tonnery above me. The second one was aimed at the integrity of the inner child. And we talked about that and I was curious about what we were going to do next. But I realized that we talked about doing it for the relationship, putting the relationship above everything. But I didn't know how that was going to work and I didn't have a model for that. So we're going back to what we did the first time. Just kind of renewing. I'm just kind of renewing my commitment to placing her above me. And this is important for a number of different reasons. The most important one is that any issues that I can see in my relationship or my family, I have to believe that I am the person who cannot just handle these things, not just handle them with joy, but that the obstacles themselves are the path. That anything that comes up is something I was supposed to have. In other words, like, you go to the gym, the weights are the obstacle. You lift the weights, you get stronger that anything that happens. If my spirit saw this woman's spirit properly, then challenges would be built in those challenges designed by my unconscious mind or my higher self to turn me into the person I'm supposed to be. So if there is discomfort there, it's just discomfort. It's about me. It's about my sense of anger is fear. It's about my sense I can't take care of myself or I'm not going to be a good father or a good husband or whatever that the stuff is in my head. This is just the work. And so I'm going to embrace that work because I believe that looking at things that way is generative. That if I look at things that way, there's no downside whatsoever. And if I'm also looking at the Question that I don't have clarity on who I need to be exactly at this new fit phase in my life. I mean, looks very much like I'm going to Manila. It looks like, you know, this book is turned in that we have, you know, there are various opportunities that are happening at a very high level.

Speaking of which, I want to jump in and talk.

Yes, please.

Opportunities. If you read my newsletter, I just saw the book, so I have a follow up to the reformatory. I do not know what year it will come out. It's due April, May 1, 2025. So do with that what you will. I have not written it yet. So it's not one of those where you sell it and then it comes out a year later. It's one of those where you sell it, you write it. That takes a year plus, then it comes out a year later. But I'm very excited about it. And if any of you have read my short story Incident at Bear Creek Lodge, which won a World Fantasy Award, or returned to Bear Creek Lodge, which is in Ellen Datlow's Christmas and Other Horrors, then you know the world of that story, it's just going to be set in contemporary times. And those chapter chapters, those stories are just basically flash in the past.

Well, it also. You got the best contract that you've ever had.

Well, that's true. It is a damn good contract.

Yes, a damn good contract.

Very happy with the contract. The royalty amount is more than we've ever gotten and more than my agent even asked for because the editor was saying no on giving up the world rights and then offered a higher royalty. So I was like, okay, we'll take that.

You know, and the actual signing amount and the, the total amount for the, for the contract. These are all.

Thank you everybody for your congrats.

Sorry, this, this is, this is all expressive of the way the world is seeing my baby, and rightfully so. If you think that power like that does not come with challenges, that opportunity like that does not come with challenges. You have never had power and opportunity. So this is, this is the moment that we got together for. This is what we saw. We could be together. And it's like, oh, it's that time now. And when I saw that coming and we did the 90 day love feast last year, it was perfect timing.

Oh, yeah.

Talk about that just a little bit, sweetheart.

I mean, look, I was just at the Key West Literary Seminar where I talked to editor Ann Vandermeer, some of you may know her name. She's married to Jeff Vandermeer and she was saying that her husband had told her at one point, I could never be married to another writer. And I think that as great as it is to be married to another writer, the brainstorming, the other lobe of your brain, the fact that you can be staring off into space and your partner gets it and all that stuff is sometimes counterbalanced by the predictable competitiveness and comparisons. And, you know, everybody has. Has ego, so it's.

It's tough for people who do the.

Exact same things sometimes or close enough to be in relationship with each other. And we could tell early on that the reformatory was going to be a bit of a juggernaut. I don't know why we could tell that, but we. We.

Because it took seven years, honey.

Yeah. That's why.

And I.

And I believe in you. I know. I know who you are. So if you put seven years of your life in that book, that meant that book was going to be Godzilla.

So it's. It's basically earned out almost already. And it just came out in October, so I know usually it takes years, which is why we thought it would be a good time to come in with another book outline and sell that, you know, while they're still. And some of it is anticipating paperback sales. It's not like the hardcover is like, flying off the shelves, but it's doing very well, and they're anticipating very good paperback sales. And we did not want any moment of that tempered with unhappiness, any of the negative emotions. I don't want to unconsciously be putting on my breaks.

And I certainly don't want her to put. If she succeeds, it's going to cost us intimacy, love, closeness, happiness. That can happen.

It can really happen.

She's got to have tonight, got to have the feeling that she can fly as high as possible. And that's not just because it's good for our family. It's because it was the implicit promise when we met.

True.

That I would. I would protect her. That. That. That I would not function in any way other than to be a safe place for her to land. And when. When she comes down, it's like, fly free, little bird. Go do whatever it is that you're going to do. I'm going to do the things I'm going to do. And the grounding is our home. I'm not going to pretend that that's always easy.

It's not easy. No, it's not easy. I mean, this man was. When I met him, he was already a legend. And A pioneer when I met him, you know, so. So he has his own world and his own life, which is why I'm especially happy about this Star wars novel and the timing of that, because it feels right. It feels right for. For Steve to be showcasing his very unique talents within the Star wars universe. But also, it's a very Barnesian novel.

Just for the sake of fun, now that you're mentioning that, there's something that I wanted to do.

Share your computer sound. Do you know how to do that? If you share your screen, Hit Share Screen and then hit Advanced and then Share Screen Advanced and then computer audio.

Okay.

That's how I do sound effects for our podcast.

Okay, so let's. I gotta.

Here is the venerable Snoop.

The Glass Abyss A Mace Windu novel by Stephen Barnes 11624 dedication for Cliff Stewart, Dr. John Leterrette, Richard Bastille Hawkins Chum Dawn Callan and Harley Swift. Dear Reagan, true teachers never die. They merely become one with the Force.

3.

Once there was a wounded world, a land of crystalline wonder, a people balanced on the edge of disaster. But spinners never despaired, knowing that all existence is connected through the web and that one day a warrior would come, the fiercest in the galaxy, drawn by duty, but bound by love. By Stephen Barnes.

You get it?

Isn't that great?

Okay, let me.

That is. I mean, honestly, AI Voice readers, and I hate to say it, have been an integral part of my process for a long time now. When I was writing our phone.

How do I get. Turn this off?

I guess if you go back to Share Screen. Yeah, I'm going to. Okay. Yeah, I. I got rid of it. You're fine. We hear you. You're back.

Okay, so now.

Can you hear me? Steve, can you hear me? That's what I'm worried about. I don't think he can hear me. Oh, no. All right, let me go up and. Oh, you're muted, honey.

Yes, I know, but I wasn't muted. Basically, I didn't notice the. The thing that told me how to turn off the sound. But I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Could you hear?

I did it.

Yeah, Could.

Could you hear that, guys?

Oh, yeah, it was great.

Okay, cool. Yeah. So, you know, it just is what it is. It's all just part of the adventure. And if I know that we're going faster down the road, then small bumps can feel larger. And what I need to do is to be able to move as fast as a Ferrari, but have the. The forgiveness of my shocks of a farm tractor. I mean, it's just like, you know, it. It's. I have to be built like a tank. In some ways. I can't be so sensitive that I' I hit a grain of sand, I take a spill, you know, and that can happen. It really, really can. So, anyway, I'd like to you guys to unmute yourselves and everybody say hi to everybody.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello. Hello.

Hello.

Great, great, great. And, oh, boy, there's a lot. A lot of people here. Some people I haven't seen for a while, and it's just wonderful. Just for the sake of fun, there's an A Rakina White. Hello.

Hi, everybody.

Hello. Have we met you here? Have you been here before?

I was here a couple weeks ago, and I've been in some of your other workshops. So, yes, I have been.

Well, that's great. How are you?

I'm doing well, thank you.

That's great. Is there anything we can do for you?

I'm not sure.

I.

Last time that I was here, I mentioned that I have completed a travel memoir. Completed writing it. It's being edited now, probably second or third stage of editing. And it's called Yumbani. That's spelled N, Y, U, M, B, A, N, I and parentheses home, which is the meaning in Kiswahili, and then colon. A travel memoir. So it covers 12 countries in Africa that I've either visited or lived in. The most recent were Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. I actually lived and worked in those countries. So I have lots of stories to tell about my experiences in those countries. I think, you know, they're pretty exciting to me, and I think they will be to others. So I am now negotiating a contract with a small publisher. They haven't actually given me the contract yet, but they're working on it. And I was told that I should have an attorney to look over that contract. I think I emailed both of you.

I mean, that. That is the. The most basic thing that an attorney. They just look at the contract would be a smart investment, just to be sure that there's nothing, you know, untoward, nothing clumsy. It's probably. No landmines. It's probably okay. But it's a good idea to have professional eyes on it.

Mm. Right. So I'm just, you know, I've kind of put the word out. I haven't had any success yet in trying to find an attorney that does that type of work, but I'm still working on it.

Okay, well, if anybody here has some suggestions about an attorney in the. In the chat, you know, reach out to A requina and good luck. Okay.

So thank you very much.

You betcha. All right, so what I wanted to talk about today, we keep coming back to what the basics of this process are. And it's difficult sometimes to nail it down. It can get a little bit rubbery. But the one thing that I do know is the human mind can handle seven plus or minus two pieces of information at a time. So we try to keep the basics way under 9, which would be the maximum average around 3. It would be ideal, except that I noticed that it's like three basic models. But then it's a good idea to have some other models too that you're looking at, because these three are the things that I consider to be the basics. You'll be on this path if you accept those basics. And then you are going to accelerate along this path. If you take some other things that you believe, things that you grew up with, things that you already have as success patterns or whatever, and add them in, you know, it's because you need to. You need to personalize these things for yourself. But if you were taking a look at sort of the overview. Let me do this is okay, so we can take a look there. The overview of the things that I use. The magic formula. First of all, the idea of having a map. Taking daily action, filling your heart with gratitude. You have a clear conviction. In other words, goal and C is. Is that you have to. It has to do with the fact you have to believe that taking these actions is a positive thing for you. Will give you more pleasure than pain. That has to do with commitment, character, congruence. Several different C's sit in there. The second thing is the three gates. The three gates. I could have put the three centers first because the three centers are your path to being certain that the efforts you take will not hurt you. And that means that you need to be sure that things are. You have goals about being healthy physically, emotionally, and in terms of your hunting and gathering your career money. In other words, that takes care of you. But taking care of the external community is the three gates. To be sure that your actions and words. You ask yourself that question. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? Other things walk into this, into this path. The idea that you can improve 1% per week. Number five. By being sure that you are taking a breathing break every hour, 60 seconds. Deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. There are ways in which I will say that the. That. Number four, that taking the breathing break is your way to be sure that you're in this process. If you'll do that, then I can coach you. There are ways in which, if you do that, then I can talk to you about the magic formula and the gates and the centers and so forth. So the order in which these things are is a little. It's a little rubbery. The 1% per week. Very, very important. You don't. You want to be making forward progress. The success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Right. But you don't want to be put so many demands on yourself that you're changing or you're demanding that you change more rapidly than you can and therefore get frustrated, or that you change so rapidly that it creates fear. Because remember, as you change, your ego identity changes and it can shatter and rebuild. And if you, if you change it more rapidly than you can reconstitute, that can cause problems. I mean, this is one of the reasons why we can have fear, trepidation, stress about good things happening. The number six, the morning ritual, is the way you take all this and put all this together and you put it into your body. So you could conceivably put a morning ritual first. That's. That's possible. The Ancient Child has arguably been the single most powerful exercise that we've done to create that healthy relationship between your child self and your adult self. Life Writing was the very first insight that I had at the process of story, that the pattern of a story is also the pattern of action to accomplish things that you can actually a writer especially, who looks at the story pattern of the hero's journey, especially the way we modified it, and not only uses that for plot, but uses that to diagram the process of writing and looking at the way this has worked in their lives. You know, that they had a challenge. That challenge caused them fears, that they backed off of it at first. At some point, they committed to doing it. They took action continuously. They met allies and gained powers. They had their confrontation with evil in which they were defeated. Sometimes that's internal evil. It's not necessarily cosmic evil that throws them in the dark night of the soul. The way through that is the leap of faith. And if they do those things, they win and ascend to the higher level. Those things are all right there. And those eight are really, really important. I was trying to kind of fill it out, saying that I could talk about nine things because I think it's a good idea for us to keep hammering the most basic things, but then talk about how some other models can. Can intersect with those things before I go on to that next. I mean, I never know what's going on, but tonight, would you. You know what? What? Do you have anything you wanted to say about any of this before I go on? Because I can rattle on forever on any subject and that's not necessarily a good thing.

You know what? Come on now. I want to say hi to Monica A. Coleman who just popped in. My former co host for the Octavia tried to tell us webinars which are still available on YouTube. But aside from that. No, honey, take it away. You're doing great.

Okay, so the last thing then. If we're going to talk about seven plus or minus two things, I would suggest that you have at least those top three. The magic formula, the three gates and the three centers. I would strongly suggest that you use the five minute miracle that you actually breathe. You know, 60 seconds deep slow diaphragmatic breathing every hour on the hour, at least five times a day. That is non conceptual. You can be stuck up in your head all you want to. And if you will follow that direction of monitoring your breathing, you'll interrupt that process of staying up in your head. So that's the first step for people who are stuck in their heads. The idea of changing 1% per week. You can do that just by coming to these meetings and doing the breathing and having these conversations. You really can. But you can accelerate more. The theory being, and I would invite you to try to prove or disprove this, that each hour that you spend per week focusing on sharpening your axe, improving the quality of who you are as a person will increase your overall progress by 1%. That's the theory. I mean, it's rubbery, you know, you take a look at it, you know, what are the definitions? How do I mean that? What arena? Those are all conversations we have, but as kind of a rough thing. Not bad. Not bad. It's a good way to wrap your mind around that. But the ninth one I wanted to talk about if I was going to add, you know, go seven plus or minus two and then zero in would be Musashi Miyamoto. As a martial artist, as an artist, as someone interested in what happens when we aim at mastery in an arena in which you can't tell yourself the nonsense that I don't care about winning. Too many people do this, you know, competition is bad, more than one person can win, and so forth and so on.

There's.

There's a way in which that is true. Absolutely. And I prefer to play games where everybody can win. That's really what I like. I don't even. But I also. It's also very foolish, I think, in terms of the way the world works to assume that everybody can win all the time in every context. An editor might only be able to buy one book. If you get into the boxing ring, you better be there to win. One person can have their arm raised at the end of that. There are draws, but nobody fights for a draw. You will lose if you fight for a draw, you've got to try to win. There are contexts in which that is true. If you learn how to win and you're not afraid of competition, then you can decide, hey, let's play Frisbee and just see how long we can keep the disc in the air. I like to play tennis where the idea is, let's see how long we can keep the volley going. I like in martial arts. I love flow exercises where we're just playing with each other. The chi sau, push hands sort of approach to things. The person who tries to hurt me is going to automatically create an opening and I will fall into that opening and hurt them. So if we're just playing, we're just friends, we can just have fun with it. Okay, that's what I prefer. But there are contexts in which, you know, somebody is standing in front of you with a three foot razor blade and not both of you are going home. So in context like that, what makes the difference? And in the 16th century, I believe the 16th century, there was a swordsman named Musashi Miyamoto who is generally considered, you know, more people consider him to be the greatest swordsman in Japanese history than any other candidate. You know, it's impossible to say what's what ultimately, of course, but he's one of the guys and he wrote a book called the Book of Five Rings in which he discusses his philosophy of winning, of becoming a great artist, becoming a great martial artist. Specifically, or to be blunt about it, the science of killing men. I mean, he. That's. That's the honest way that he's looking at this. So the interesting thing is he gives nine principles. And those nine principles are probably not what you'd expect. Okay. There are things like, do not think dishonestly. The way is in training. Become acquainted with every art. Know the ways of all professions, distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything. Perceive those things which cannot be seen, pay attention even to trifles, and do nothing that is of no use. Those are Musashi's nine principles. To be the greatest swordsman in the world. If you cannot see how these principles are really about being awake, aware and alive fully, you're missing it. And it would be very useful for you to ask yourself how these nine principles relate to something we know very well. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? Whereas it's not. What he says there in those nine principles is not about kindness. In the book itself, Book of Five Rings, he makes it very explicit. Live for the good of mankind. He makes it very clear that he is concerned with the welfare of others, with the welfare of a society. But his principles are mostly about determining what is true, true, and what is useful. You notice that? Let's take a look at that. Do not. Do not think dishonestly. He's saying know the truth.

Now.

Sun Tzu says that the art of war is the art of deception. And whereas that may very well be true, I would not argue with Sun Tzu. I don't think the Musashi is arguing with him either. He's not saying don't lie to your enemies. He's really saying don't lie to yourself. Now it's true that it's best to live a life where you can be honest with everybody. But in life and death confrontations, that's not always available. So people who do a lot of lying and say that they had to do it because they were under stress, they are like people who do a lot of cruelty and say, well, I just had to and I'm painfully honest, or something like this. They're looking for opportunities to be dishonest. They're looking for opportunities to give pain beyond a certain point. Notice if this is a pattern with them. Is it true that they had to do this? Well, it was true that I saw no other practical choice but to hit him. Because he was trying to hit me and he had a knife. And I was. I just wanted to get home. I was scared. Nobody is going to is going to question that the way is in training means is about being useful. That in other words, chop wood, carry water. You have to train every day. Whatever it is that you choose to do in life, if you're going to be a master, you have to do it with all your heart and do it and do it and do it for those of you who are here because you loved Octavia. I knew Octavia well. And Octavia was a writer. Writers write. She didn't rest on her laurels. And when she was not able to write, she felt blocked. And it was horrible for her because she knew at that moment she wasn't a writer. She was an author. She had written, but she wasn't a writer who writes. And that she was blocked for a couple of years on one of her projects. And that was not a good time for her because she knew that she was off the path. Become acquainted with every art. Okay, now what? You know, look at, look at this. Let's just, for the sake of fun, let's just connect this to. Let's connect this to writing. Do not think dishonestly with writing. Know where you are. In other words, you know, are you. Are you any good? And when we talk about, you know, in the life writing process, we talk about writing stories and sending them in. If. And a professional editor bets on you, in other words, cuts you a check for a story. And this editor is not your aunt or your uncle. They're saying they trust you, that they believe that your work is good and they're protecting their mortgage, their children going to college. They're investing in you. So it is honest then to say, I have this professional level to know what the standard that you need to reach is and then know where you are. And then to be able to subtract where you are from the standard that is necessary gives you the work that you have to do to. To get to the level where you need to get to. If you're dishonest, if you start by saying, I'm already good enough, you're likely to. That might be something you need in order to protect your ego, but it's not going to help you get better unless you also have a work ethic. Okay, so you can say, I'm the best, I'm good, I'm wonderful. Harlan Allison did that he would tonight. We called throwing her hat, his hat over the fence. That you believe that you're good enough to do it in order to keep the demons away, but you better do the work as if you were not good enough. In other words, that, that if your vision of the person that you need to be in order to accomplish this is a person who is doing a certain amount of work, hard work every day, they get up in the morning, they do the work. They. They work out their bodies or they read, they write. As long as you don't have an image of the person you need to be, that. That denies the work, then go ahead and tell yourself, I am that bitch. I mean, I got knows that I had. I. I just told myself that I could do this. I was this. I. I've got this. And it was a matter of keeping the demons out because everything in the world was telling me I could not. So if I had the clarity that you could say, I'm not good enough yet, but I will be. I have learned how to do everything I ever needed to do in order to get the things that I needed to do in life. I can do this, too. Find a way to be honest about it, because the way is in training. You have to represent yourself and where you are in a way that enables you to get up every day and motivate yourself to act and act and act. Become acquainted with every art. You know, I think that art that writers should study multiple genres. Not only should they study multiple genres, but multiple forms. Poetry, movies, plays. Just what is story separate from the specific container you find story in, Separate from the specific clothing it happens to be wearing.

Right.

Then, before I go on, Tom Brady, has Bob Barkley had his hands up? Tom.

I was going to say, if Tom Brady is in here, he needs to get the heck out of here. Find a Dolphins fan. Okay, Bye.

Oh, you know, I'd rather maybe he was. You were thinking of the mayor rather than the football player.

There you go.

When the voices were telling you you could not succeed, where. Where do you think they came from and why?

Well, from everything. Everything. Tom. There were no other black science fiction writers for 20 years. Octavia and I were the only ones in the world that we knew of that we could find. My mother was horrified that I was trying to be a writer, and she burned my stories because she was scared that I was going to fail in my career like my father had failed in his music career, which destroyed their marriage. The world told me in no uncertain terms that people who looked like me, who were of my skin color, and I was relatively light, so what it must have been, what it would have been like if I had been darker, is horrifying to think about that people of my kind did not do this. Not only that, but my mother had said, in no uncertain terms, she said, quote, unquote. So, Stephen, if you let white people know how smart you are, they will kill you. My mother told me that. So I heard this from all over, but I also felt. So the question is. That answers your question, but I suspect that there's another question behind it, which is how in the hell did I survive? How did I do it? And what I had to do was I had to feel like I had no choice. If I had had any other way of surviving in the world, any other way of feeling like I would being myself, I would have taken it I would have taken anything because this was just too chancy. But I remember the day, the moment which I realized I had no choice. I was in college. I'd actually tried to stop writing. I took no writing classes when I went to college, but I was taking composition. I was taking journalism. I was taking. I was taking radio. I was taking drama. I was taking speech. I was taking debate. I was doing everything except writing. But I was dancing all around the subject. Then one day, because I was trying to respect my mom, one day they announced a writing contest, you know, on campus, and the winner would read their story in front of the alumni. And I wrote a story, and it won. And I'm standing up in front of the alumni, bunch of, you know, these are wealthy donators to the college. And, you know, but not not surprisingly, all white, too. And I had them, man. I had him in the palm of my head. I could feel it. I feel they were hanging on every word. After I got finished with the first page, they were on my train, and I was the conductor. They could not get off. They had to know what happened next. And I looked at them, and I looked at that feeling of total control over these rich white people. And I said to myself, this is my path. I have got something. I can use this to get where I want to go in a way that is in alignment with my ethics. I can. If I can figure this out, this is my way through the forest. It's my way through the minefield that. That if. If I'm standing here, they're looking at me, and now it's a white black thing. But if I'm telling them a story and I can get them hooked into the rhythms of the story, they're not looking at me anymore. They're looking at the story. And now we're both looking at the story. And now. Now I can leverage myself. I could see how to walk into a room and have people and then talk to them and then walk out of that room, have them say, wow, Steve is really smart. As opposed to them thinking, that black guy is interesting. I had to get to the point where my ethnicity was not the first thing they'd remember about me. And I saw that I could do it this way. So that gave me believed that there was a way through this. This maze that I was in and that it was possible for me to walk it, even if nobody else ever had. It was that combination of, I have to and the whole world thinks I cannot. I. I think that the reason I went into the martial arts was Because I could feel that my. That it was a discipline that had within it the secrets of how to win. When winning is important while staying in alignment with my values. It forced me to develop a new relationship with my fear than I'd ever had. I thought that I would eventually not have fear. But what I found out was, no, you just. You just get to the. You get to the place where the fear is, is in its correct position in your life. There's nothing wrong with fear. There's nothing. Emotion is an indicator that you need to take an act, an action. If you take the action, the fear diminishes. It's when you're not taking action that you feel the fear. So if I looked at fear that way and said, well, what action is the fear asking me to take? Is it asking me to run? Is it asking me to fight? Does it ask me to bond to somebody? Then it's in its correct place. I thought the fear meant that I couldn't, shouldn't muscle, that I was small and weak, that I was a coward and so forth, so on. So that's a complicated answer to a relatively simple question, but it's a perfect question, because that's what we're supposed to do here, is when stop me and get me to go deep on anything that occurs to you as, oh, I need to hear more about this. It was if I don't. So there were three things, ultimately, that I was. If I don't find a way to succeed, I'll be destroyed. If I succeed too much, if I project myself as too brilliant, I will be destroyed. The third one was, if I succeed and in the process throw myself out of balance, I'll be destroyed. The movie all that Jazz gave me, that I watched, you know, Jake, you know, get giddy. Gideon. Jake, Gideon. I watched him destroy himself for musical theater, to turn himself inside out for love of people who did not care about him, while the people who cared about him were treated like strangers. And I walked out of that movie theater saying, that's me. I could see myself being that. So I had three different things, like, okay, I have to succeed. I have to find a way to survive the process of success. So the martial arts were about that. And it's like, let me learn how to accept death. Let me learn how to not project myself as a target, but then let me also be the nicest guy in the world. See, if I could have that combination of being extremely nice and extremely sweet and extremely, you know, and genuinely caring about people. But underneath all that, yes, I can also kill you. So in. In this hand. Yeah. All the war you can handle, buddy. You know, it's like, I may not get a ham dinner, but I'm get a ham sandwich. And in this hand is love. And it's genuine. It's, take my hand, let's be friends, you know, can't we. Can't we find a way to get through this with love? Because otherwise, one or both of us are going to die. And I don't have to win. I. All I have to do is be willing to die honorably. You know, the secret of the martial arts is I'm willing to die, and I'm willing to. And I'm ready to die, and I'm ready to take you with me. As soon as you've got that wired into yourself, everything changes. People treat you totally differently. It's really fascinating. That is. That is the diametrically opposed to what abusers want in their victims. So there were those three things. So all that Jazz said set up an interesting thing. In order to succeed, you have to be. You have to do things to the level that most people will not. To have unusual success, you must take unusual actions. You have to, in essence, become obsessive. But obsession throws you out of balance and can destroy you, so you won't have the time to develop the skills necessary to be really successful. So to be successful, you have to be obsessive. Obsession throws you out of balance. Being out of balance will destroy you, so you'll never get to that success. And that was when I had one of the smartest five maybe things that I ever thought in my life. And that was that the only thing it is safe to become obsessive about is balance. Because the danger in obsession is it throws you out of balance. So I become obsessive about balance. I'm creating safety rails. And when I talk about the principle of the three centers, that is saying balance. So the three centers are safety rails that I got specifically from watching all that jazz like this that enable me to. To give it everything I have without tearing myself, my life, my body, my family apart. The three gates enable me to do the same thing, to give it, you know, do whatever it takes without becoming dangerous to others. You know, is it true? In other words, I don't want to lie to people. I don't want to cheat people. Is it kind? I want, as much as possible, people to feel better walking away from me than they felt walking toward me? Can I improve their lives? Is it useful? And that's where Musashi really, really shines. Does that answer your question, Tom?

Well, yeah, it of course, opened a great many more doors. And other questions.

You betcha.

We've known each other for almost 10 years.

Okay.

I bet you don't remember the day at worldcon at Anaheim when you were standing in the middle floor of the Sithwa Suite, looking around and nobody was talking to you. And I came in from running an errand and said, hi, is there something I can get for you? I was. But Mary Lynn and I were butlers for the Syphilis suite via our friend Sheila Finch. And that was the first time we spoke. And I figured out who you had to be from something that you said that led me to the collaborations with Jerry and Larry.

Ah, okay.

But in all of that time, this is the first time that you have told all of that. All of those connected stories from beginning to current day.

Interesting.

I don't think I've ever heard you.

Well, I would like for you to.

In.

In Facebook, would you write out exactly what it is that you feel I just said for the first time, so I don't hallucinate that. I understand, but I want to move on. But I'd love. I'd love to hear more about that. Okay, so let me.

Let me.

Let me go on with this. So do not think this honestly, the way is in training. Become acquainted with every art. Know the ways of all professions. Look for people, in other words, who are experts in different professions, because there is a similarity to expertise. Masters are masters in whatever field you go to, to know one thing, no 10,000 things. The way that you become excellent at anything is the way you become excellent at anything else. And so one of the things that you do is you find areas in which you've already mastered something and everybody has, and you ask yourself how you did it, even if it's only, how did I learn how to walk? And you really look at what you did there. What you did to learn how to walk is all you need to learn to know how to master anything else. Seriously, distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters. You know, I forget one of the. One of the success principles is you identify the thing that you want to accomplish. You find a map of how to get there. You start taking massive action. You notice your results. If you. If your results are getting you the results that you want, do more of it. If they're not change, do something else. So you have to know whether or not your actions are getting you closer. Further, most people don't really look at their Lives more than a couple times a year. What I'm asking you to do is look at them at least every week. Every day sometimes if you. If you do micro patterns enough. You can use every hour. You can look every hour. Did I do this right? Yes. Keep doing it. No. What. What. What problem am I dealing with? Let me solve that and get back to this. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything. And this is, you know, being able to see, hear the music between the notes, you know, the poetry between the words that you understand that. That. Oh, I know a way to put this. If I say the boy. The boy. And Chip Delaney talks about this in his book the Jewel Hin Jaw. If I say the boy ran down the street. The definite article. The boy. Okay, that gives me a picture. The boy ran. Okay, that gives me a clearer picture. The boy is. Is in action. The boy ran down. Suggested direction. The. Another definite article. Street. So now we have a picture in our minds. But what's important there is not just the words but where the reader's mind went in between the words. What's called the trans. Derivational search. That a writer or a poet knows that each word is a frozen moment. But they also develop a sense of what the reader has to do to access that information. If I. Every time I give you a word, your brain is. Is fighting to turn that word into an image or a feeling. If I understand what that is, then I will guide you not just by the words I use, but the gap you fall into in between those words. It's foreground, background. It's. It's the space between. The forest is the space between the trees as much as it is the trees themselves. It's the negative perception of negative space. This is advanced stuff. And most of the time it's at unconscious competence. But this is what Musashi is talking about. Perceive those things which cannot be seen. Also, that would be like you see a tree. You know that once there was a seed, and you know at another point it'll be a log. That it's not just it's seeing the moment, but understanding what it took to get to that moment and what will result from that moment. It's seeing. It's hearing what's behind the words. If somebody says something, what would they have to believe? Who would they have to be in order to react that way? Or say that thing. You can't see it, but as you gain more wisdom, you can sense it. Pay attention even to trifles. Pay attention even to little things. That once you've got that Big picture that each moment is a little thing. And the component parts of the engine are little things. And they have to be made of the right materials and shaped in the right ways. That. In other words, that if with the Glass Abyss, the Mace Windu novel, I'm. I've got the big chunks in there now. Now I. It's like the first draft is. Is hauling the block of marble up from the quarry. That's the major work. Next, I cut away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. And after that, I polish. I polish and make sure. Because people aren't just going to look at it from a distance. They're going to get up close to it. They're going to run their hands over it. So I need to make sure that from the textures to the wide view to the long view, that on every level, this is representing my dream. Okay, so there are times for the big things, the times for the small things, and you need to pay attention even to the little things about your craft. Get the big things first. First put in the big things. You know, first put in the boulders, then put in the rocks, then put in the pebbles, then put in the gravel, then put in the sand, then put in the water. You go from the big things to the smaller things. Do nothing, which is of no use. Don't waste your time. These nine principles are mostly about what is true. Is it true and is it useful? Mostly. But if you know the three gates, you'll also know that these things are all interconnected. That once you decide to be kind, you're going to care about what is true about being kind, and you're going to care about what is useful to facilitate my kindness. These things are all connected together. So looking at the magic formula, if you can see how to apply Musashi's Principles to writing and to fighting and possibly relationships, physical health, then you would understand how to apply this within the context of the magic formula. Within the context of the three gates, in the context of the three centers. So if you take the magic formula, the three gates and three centers, and then add something like this, play with it. You could try a different additional model every day. Just try it on. How does it look? You know, from these perspectives? Take it away. Every time you use a different model, and like I said, I got a million of them, the situation is going to look just a little bit different. And since reality ultimately is outside words, you can use words and models to explain things, but you understand the experience of life is outside those experiences. Explanations. What you're looking for can't ultimately be confined within that structure. But it's all we've got. All we've got to communicate with others is words that either define the thing or point to experiences that people can do that will allow them to experience the thing that can't be put into words. You know, the Zen masters, you know, having somebody do something and then the moment when they've got it, they just say, yes. Or if you don't have it, you know, they slap you with the roach, with the stick, saying, not that, not that, not that. Because you can't put the most important things into words, but you can experience them. They're things that cannot be taught but can be learned. So, for instance, if I say that this path is for people who are willing to stop and breathe. Breathe. I'm doing that for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the process of actually doing the breathing will teach you things I cannot put into words. And you would have no reason to believe just because I said it. So, whew. The dao that can be spoken is not the true dao. That's exactly right. So here we are. And what I would love to do is move from me lecturing at you to you asking me any questions you want about any of this. One thing I would like to say is that on February 17th, we're going to be applying my way of thinking about writing in life and Tananarive's way of thinking about writing in Life to our three hour screenwriting workshop. You can find out about at www.screenwritingwebinar.com. and no one who wants to go to that workshop will be turned away for lack of money. I mean, we expect people to be honest with us about how much they can afford. But there is an option that will enable you to attend for whatever you can pay down to a dollar. I mean, seriously, we trust you. As long as we feel that we're being treated fairly in terms of the money that comes in from that, we will continue this process. Because this teaching is for everybody. A lot of these things, most of these things I learned from teachers who did not charge me. Some of them I paid through the nose for. But we really want to give away as much as we possibly can. And this strikes me as being a good way to do it. We make our money in Hollywood, in New York. We don't need to make it from our virtual family. Teaching our virtual family is one of the things that I do because the path can feel very lonely. I treasure having people I can talk to about these things. As you may have noticed, this is not typical conversation and I really love the fact that you're willing to allow me to express myself about that. I don't know if Tananarive is still, you know, she's actually helping us get a new sofa in the living room.

So she's there.

Okay. I've been rattling for a while. Is there anything you wanted to say about any of this before we open the floor, sweetheart?

Oh, well, now that I've jumped on camera, not really. You've covered a lot of it. Managing fear is important and I'm glad Steve told his story of awakening. In that sense. I had a lot of advantages. I mean, not only the constant support of my mother wanting to be a writer, not just giving me a writer's market every year for my birthday, but specifically telling me because they were civil rights activists, yes, you can contribute as an artist. I mean, that was their attitude. The NAACP put all kinds of effort into their Hollywood branch because they understood the importance of representation. So it was like all kinds of permission. But get that journalism degree, which funny story journalism. Not the steady field that it was back then, unfortunately, with news of impending layoffs that the Los Angeles Times, the entire staff of Sports Illustrated. I don't know if you heard about this. So very rocky times for journalism. But back in the day, that was the way to have a steady income. And I was the kind of writer who needed a day job. I could not couch surf. I could not wait tables. I needed a career path, A two bedroom apartment, an office with a door that closed to really feel like I could write. And I'm glad I took that path.

Absolutely. So this is the point at which the rubber meets the road in the sense of if you have a positive result, if you have a question about getting your result, or if you have a question about anything that either one of us has said, just raise your hands and ask it and nothing is off the table. The more courageous you are about your questions, the more valuable this can be. So Chikesha.

Hi, everyone.

Hey, sweetheart.

Thank you.

So a lot of good stuff is going on.

That's excellent. Can you do your picture, your video? We'd love to see it.

Give me a second. I will be on. I just need. Maybe like that's all of the time that I need.

You're coming. There you are. Thank you, sweetheart.

Thank you. As always. Thank you too for holding this forum and for allowing us into the space. This is so helpful.

You know, in a very real sense, these are just Concentrated versions of the conversations Donari and I have all day long and what we're teaching our kid and what I going on inside my head. So these. Basically, this is a party, you know, every Saturday. We're inviting you guys into our house, and we're just talking about life. So, yeah, we grateful to be there. And the bathrooms over there. Anyway, can I take your coat? Anyway.

All right. So I feel like I am growing. I'm in a. I feel like I'm in an in between place where I need to make a decision if I'm going to go left or some other way. And I'm saying that because I've been able to make some progress on my first story, which I'm really, really happy about. And it's a story I've been trying to write for years. I haven't been able to work on it more recently because of work I teach, so. And I have, like.

Let me stop you right there. You need to commit to writing at least one sentence a day. If you're not writing at least one sentence a day, you are using your work as an excuse. You're using your work. You're letting. You're letting life get between you and you. One sentence ain't gonna break, ain't gonna bring nothing.

No, it isn't. However, I feel like it's a process even. Even getting to that one sentence. Because, you know, if I had. If I started off as being this fabulous writer before I work, before I had a child, before I had to cook and wash clothes and do life, it would be. I think it would be easier. But, you know, I am. I feel like I'm starting to cut the path now, and I'm getting. The nice thing is that you and Tananarive stay on my mind constantly.

Great.

So I'm always hearing your voices in my head.

My voice will go with you.

Right.

So when I'm not actively listening to either the podcast or to courses, you're still present. I'm still hearing the both of you. And so I feel like I'm making some progress right now. I'm at a point in my story where I feel like what I want to do is create a certain metaphor. I had posed this in the chat, but I wanted to see if I can get a more direction before you go on.

Are you talking about a short story?

Yes.

Okay, so the most important thing you can do with that short story is don't worry about your metaphor in the first draft. Just get it out. Get the first draft out. Tell it as Clumsily as possible, as raw as possible. Don't worry about that. Just get the story out. As if I was going to sit in front of you and just say, there's $1,000 right here. Tell me your story.

A thousand dollars.

Okay, yeah, Just. Just get it out then. Look in the rewrite is where you look for the metaphor. You look to pull those things together. Unless you're the kind of person that automatically does that, don't let that stop you. What you need to do is get the story finished. And if it's. If you're aiming at it being short enough, you could make a commitment that you'll finish it by the end of the month in the rawest, nastiest garbage draft imaginable.

Okay?

Don't worry about it. That's why God made rewriting and text editors. You know, and spell check. Don't worry about any of that stuff. Just get it down right to the end that you see. Make sure. Ask yourself, what is it that's necessary? So when somebody asked me, when I start writing a particular type of scene, fight scene, what's the first thing I think about? The first thing I think about is how do I want the reader to feel when they finish reading that scene? So how do you want the. When you finish your first draft, ask yourself, how do you want the reader to feel? Or what is this really about? Or what was my unconscious mind up to? Something like this. But your task this time is just to get the words on the page.

So one of the requirements. This is what you put into the structure of the course is that we read as we write. So I feel like I need to feed this part of me. So I'm really just looking for, like, one example of a writer who does an excellent job with metaphors.

Oh, okay. And I would think in chat. Let's give shakejust some. Some ideas about writers who do a great job with metaphors. The honest truth, the best metaphors are probably going to be found in poetry. So writers who are also poets would be a good, you know, a good way to look. Good thing to look for. Okay.

Thank you.

You betcha. It's great to see you, sweetheart.

Good to see you all, too.

Okay.

Otis. Is Otis Johnson there?

Hey, what's happening? Can you hear me now?

Yes, I can.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Finished story number two. I'm on week six of the Life writing program and just had the.

You've done two stories in six weeks? Excellent.

Yep.

Yes.

And just had the wife edit it, and we're about to send off story number two, I've been having a hard time with story number three. And this is funny because, like, I figured out a, a wall I hit. And I'm going to ask you guys about. The first two stories were low hanging fruit. As in, it was easy to cast myself as the protagonist in the first two, but weirdly enough, and I've written other formats like RPGs, movies and whatever. In that case, it's easy to write about badasses or whatever. But the intimacy of story writing and prose is like making it weird for me to like sit in the head of somebody that's not me doing things that I haven't done. And what, what advice would you give.

Somebody who could do it? Either either model a writer who can write about people like that, or much better, actually read an article or an interview with somebody who is the kind of badass that you want to write about. Right.

And you know what?

Yes. Thank you.

I really, at a point get bored with writing. If it's too much like me, if it's too much my experience. I remember when I wrote the Good House. We were living in the Pacific Northwest. I didn't know anything about the damn woods. I don't know what kind of tree that is. And I started writing it to get through my last two years there because I couldn't wait to leave. And I made my surroundings a setting and I read Ottoman society books. I read about African traditional religious systems that led to Vodou and these kinds of things. The research piece has become such a fun piece for me that I think with every challenging new story where you're writing about someone who's very different from you. I mean, luckily nowadays everybody with a video phone, an iPhone, makes YouTube videos talking about how to do whatever, like anything you can dream of. Put it in a search engine in YouTube and there's somebody who will walk you through his day or walk you through the process. And that's how you start to kind of inhabit. Especially in a short story. You only have to have enough, right? You don't have to convince everyone you actually did this. It just has to be enough to convince yourself and, and the readers that you have authority in the story. So I would say embrace that part. Embrace the, oh my God, I don't know anything about. There's a horror novel that just came out called Whale Fall by Daniel Krause. He didn't know anything about diving, which. He started writing that novel and it ended up on the COVID of the New York Times Book Review. And I feel like I've been in the belly of a whale because I read that book, because he convinced me. And that's part of what writing is.

Right.

Does that help?

That helps a lot.

Fantastic. All right, so let's move on to the next one. Is there. Oh, is there anything else?

Oh, no, no, no. That's about it. Thank you.

Okay, great. Ross, buddy. Where's Ross? Ross. Ross Merker. Okay, you need to unmute.

Unmute. Yeah.

Okay.

Hi, it's me.

Hello, Ross.

I have a brag after. After better than two years of pounding and twisting and turning and struggling to answer. So what is it exactly that you're offering here? It came down to four words and a math symbol. Personal power greater than circumstantial overwhelm. And I can help you prove it.

Okay. If you can help improve it.

That if. Yes, that's.

So you. Have you got your test group of people that you're. That you're working with, or is that your next step?

That's my next step. I just. I have been celebrating internally the whole idea of my God. I finally have something straightforward and simple that accurately describes what it is I'm offering.

Okay, now let me tell you what I think, and that is that after you've helped a few people through it, they will phrase it for you in a way that's even better. But right now, if you've got something that. That really makes sense to you, then that is a huge win. Win. That's a huge win. Roscoe, I know you've been struggling.

Yes, sir.

So it's like, let's say you've got a fantastic medicine, but you can only describe it in terms of its chemical formula. What you have to describe it is simply in terms of what it's going to do. And that communicates different results to a doctor than it does to a parent than it does to a sick child. It being able to describe it so that the pharmacist, the doctor, the parent, and the sick child all can understand what it is that you're saying is going to be the way is going to be an important step. Testing it will be a hugely important step because, you know, the bench model of anything is never going to survive contact with the actual test. That once you have the test, then you start seeing what works, what doesn't work. We need to tweak this. We need to do this. But what sounds like to me is that you actually completed one whole level of what it is you're trying to accomplish, and that is to be able to have a Description of it that you can really wrap your brain around. So now it's test it and be sure. You mentioned a couple weeks ago that some good things had happened for you financially. Is that accurate? Is that still true?

Coming.

Huh?

I said the. The financial stuff is coming and my bandwidth is choking.

Okay. So the financial stuff is happening. I want you to be careful with the financial stuff. Take care of it. Because when we don't have our financial statement stuff, it's difficult to be joyful. It just is. And I want you to be happy, Ross. This is. It's important to me that you be happy. You're a good man. Okay. Is there anything. Well, first of all, congratulations on your win period. Just congratulations. In fact, I would love. I would love to unpin you and I would like everybody to give Ross because this is genuine work. He's been really, really working on this. So. Good for you, Ross. Is there anything else we can do for you?

Thank you. No, sir, that. Making sure that I've got the next step. Accurately as. Okay. Next step will be results. That's pretty much what I was thinking. So thank you.

Sounds good. No, you're. You're right. And you can PM me if you want to talk about anything else. Zacia. Harold.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm happy to.

What a nice smile. Thank you. That smile.

Today I come. I. So I. I love to join you all when I have an open block on a Saturday.

I understand completely.

So thank you for recognizing my hand. I just have a quick. Well, this is probably not a quick question, but I completed a series of poems that I'm going to submit for a competition and I had an editor friend. Well, she edits. So she reviewed them and we did our editorial meeting and there are two poems that I feel strongly about that she was saying, well, maybe these don't resonate well. So I sent them to someone else to read and that person actually felt they did resonate. So I'm kind of at that point where this is just a. You know, it's just this was a passion project and not really sure where you know how to. To deal with editorial advice, I guess, especially if there's a piece you feel strongly about.

So let's get to Nonari in here.

Yeah. Because you saw me speaking up.

Yeah.

You have to really trust your heart. And I'll give you an illustration. I'm not going to name any names, but someone who is a part of my management team. Shall we call it? When I first turned in my manuscript for the reformatory, said they didn't think it was ready, but let's just try this one editor and see if he'll buy it. And that will always stick with me because this has been the best reviewed novel of my entire career and I didn't know it was. I didn't know what it was when I finished. You're looking for other people to validate your work. And at a certain level, you know, even if both of those readers had said I don't think so, sometimes you have to go with your gut. Now often it's like best two out of three. If you're really not sure if you're on the fence, but if your gut is telling you this is, this is the piece, then you have to, you have to trust that first. I think, I don't know. What do you think, Steve?

I think that, that there are two different possibilities. If you are unpublished and you're trying to get published and an editor has shown interest in your book and says, I would like this, then I would say to that person, screw you. No, I would say to that person, I would be thinking screw you. But I would think to that person, I would like to include this poem. If that's a deal breaker for you, I understand and I really want to work with you and. But I would like you to seriously, seriously consider the fact that my instinct tells me that this poem should be in the book. Because it's critical to get across the line of being published. It is critical to do that. On the other side of that line is completely different territory. And you need to trust yourself that you have more poems, more stories, more juice inside you. All you have to do is keep representing your reality. Five years from now, you will have five more years of life to process through your poetry. A year from now, five days from now. So. So the process is what's important, not some particular book or story upon it now. So you. Given that, then you need to trust your own internal voice. Given that, you need to ask yourself, where are you? What is it you're trying to accomplish? What you. What is the best move here? Are you trying to explore your heart and share your heart? Are you playing for position career wise or a combination of both? And which is most important? Only you will have the answers to that. We can offer you advice, but you're a grown ass woman and you need to ask yourself, say five years from now, you are a successful poet. What was your move? And listen to the child you were and the old woman you're going to be on your deathbed. Whatever they Say that's what you do.

Thank you. Thank you all of the. Like I'm taking. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

You're so welcome. See, do you understand that both of us are fantastically grateful to teachers and mentors and writers and people who shared with us and other writers on the path who just, you know, passed us in the hall and gave us one little piece of advice. A teacher who read something early. I just made contact with my junior high school teacher, Mrs. Otterness, who was the first adult who ever looked at my writing and said I had something. And I just, I going to love her to death. It's just like, oh my God, she's a little old lady now. She's in her 80s, and somebody hunted her down. For me, we give to you because the path of mastery is always learning, always doing, always teaching. That's what masters do. So now you are on that path because you're doing, you're learning. And once you get there, we expect you to teach, we expect you to share with others. We have that deal. Then you are absolutely, absolutely welcome here. Hopefully. Come to the screenwriting workshop, the screenwritingwebinar.com Like I said, don't let the money stop you. We'll figure out how to get you in there. Let's continue this journey. And good luck to you, sweetheart.

Thank you.

You betcha. Okay, so, Shakeja, do you still have your hand up or did you put it up again?

That must be. That was a boo boo.

Okay, good. Jaime.

Hey, everybody. So I want a little validation that I really am in my people, what it's like to be me. Here's the setup. I heard about the Sports Illustrated in LA Times stories this morning. And in all of the discussions about him, it was all about AI killing journalism. Then I'm on this session and listening to the wonderful Snoop reading of the novel. And I thought, I thought Reeves little thing about her use of AI in her writing process. And then earlier this week, on Monday, it became my responsibility to help create four websites, different websites for different organizations from scratch. And I have not built a website in 10 years. And so I'm on a learning curve this week about getting caught up. And then I had a moment during this meeting where I got a flash of a short story about an old man like me using AI to help him create a website. And the AI is sentient and it could either be a help and a friend to him or could go to a real dark horror story kind of way. And I've been obsessed for the last half Hour trying to write notes about the idea so I don't lose it.

Okay, well, I love it. You're gonna have it. I would say that you do. You tend more towards writing upbeat stories or horror stories.

A little bit of both. It depends on the story.

A little bit of both. I mean, look, there are. There. There genuinely are issues with AI. The only thing I can say to people is, while we. While we're working that stuff out, be sure you're not in the bottom 20% of your field. Be sure you can prove that you're not in the bottom 20% of your field. Those people are in trouble.

But it's the. It's the whole process of having my consciousness hijacked by a story idea or a poem or something.

Yeah.

Like, it's me away from what I'm doing, and I can't let it go because if I don't write it down or get some of it down, then it's lost forever.

Okay, so. So does this happen to you frequently?

Oh, gosh, several times a day.

Okay. So you need to have a system such that when these new ideas come in, you can capture them. So maybe a voice recorder, a digital recorder, or a program on your phone. Just talk it out. One minute of talking about a story, and you've got it. And then you go back to what you're doing, which it could be. Wouldn't it be fun if your ego, which does not want you to make a movement, a particular kind of movement forward in your career, because you. That will kill you, will come up with ideas to distract you. But if you learn how to capture those ideas expediently, then all that's happening is you're using your own darkness against itself. You are tapping everything you are, even the rocks that your unconscious throws at you to try to distract you. You get to turn into things, to build a fence around your house. See, that it is. Don't be afraid. Don't. Some people try to run from their dragons. Other people are destroyed by their dragons. Some people kill their dragons. I suggest flying that dragon home.

Yes.

Main. Friends with your dragon. Make friends with your dragon. Make friends with your fear. So, like, I am no longer afraid of my fear. That's the only advantage I have over the guy I used to be. I'm not afraid of my fear anymore. It's just part of who I am. I love what you be. The guy. I. I talked with a guy on Facebook named Barry Gordon, who was one of the best fighters in my old school, just far above my level. More than that, he's just a natural. He loves it. Not only he has a psychology for it. He. He was a master psychologist, and he just. He just had that. And I will never be that guy. It's. It's too late for me to be that. That guy physiologically because of my age. But I. I'm not even that guy psychologically. But it's okay. We're friends. It's okay. I'm who I am. He's who he is. And isn't it wonderful? But all I want you to do is make peace with yourself. Don't be at war with yourself.

When I loved what you said at the beginning of the meeting. The obstacles are the path.

The obstacles are the path. That's right. You know, anybody who looks at my relationship with Tananarive, we're not kidding about how we feel about each other. Not at all. But if you think it's easy to be in a relationship with a woman this strong and intelligent and vital, then you don't understand love. You don't understand relationships. You don't understand egos. I have an ego. You think I don't wish I was the one who got that huge contract track? I was the one who got the New York Times this. I was the one who. This. Of course I do. Of course I do. But it's just part of what I have to deal with, being married to a fabulous woman. What kind of bullshit would it be for me to be married to a fabulous woman and then blame her for being fabulous? Come on. And you don't think she has her eccentricities? God knows I have mine. I don't. I doubt seriously there's anybody on this call who thinks I'd be easy to live with. You know, it's just, you know, it's just what it is. This is the meat of what life is. And one of the things that is true is that we contain multitudes. And some of those multitudes will try to distract us from getting where we're going. So what we're talking about here is how do we get all of our dogs pulling the sled in the same direction? Direction. How do we do that? Some of the dogs, you know, you. You. You want to play with them, you want to feed them, you want to do this. Occasionally you have to spank a dog. But it's better if the dogs love the competition. They love being together. They want to pull your sled. How do you do that? By not being afraid to talk to them. Not being afraid of your demons. So you Got a little tweak from something that was giving you an idea. When you should be focusing on this over here, perhaps.

Should you?

Are you? So it's the. How do you. How you can't chase two rabbits at the same time. You won't catch either one of them if you know that you can have six stories going at the same time and you'll finish all of them and send them out, then go ahead and have six stories going at the same time. But most people need to focus on one, just one, and get that one story done. And they do one more, and then maybe it's a little bit like juggling three scarves. You juggle three scarves before you go for nine balls. Okay. By focusing on the smallest thing until you've got that mastered before you move on to the next thing, you are giving yourself the chance to experience mastery. I have a sense. Tonan Reeve, were you thinking something about Jaime's comment about story ideas, so forth, so on? I was kind of wondering whether or not you were.

I was literally typing a comment that I can do three projects, maybe comfortably, especially if they're different. That helps a lot. Like a screenplay versus a short story versus a novel. Trade off. Either topic.

Don't forget an article. And maybe even preparing for class.

Yeah, that's the kind of writing, too. I don't like.

Three writing things and something. Some preparation for a speech or a class is what I've seen you max out.

Yeah. But after. If I start to get more crowded than that, I definitely do lose engagement. And by the way, I didn't do the reformatory any favors that I was working on so many of the projects while I was also working on that. So there is that, too. It took me seven damn years to write that book.

Yeah, but that was not a matter. The projects were doing what they were supposed to do. You. There was a part of you that wanted to avoid the work.

Oh, my God. Yeah. I had to, like, revisit that concentration camp in order to try to write it. But I. But readers. Don't worry. I tried to make it a more gentle experience for you than it was for me to do that research and feel like I was really there.

Great. So, Jaime, did that answer your question?

It did. And I got the validation that I was looking for.

Yes.

And the. And some suggestions in the chat, like, go ahead and write both stories. I mean, if I'm doing the one sentence a day thing with the goal of trying to do however many stories.

A month, one story a month minimum. Yeah, you can work on as many stories as you want as long as one of them gets finished and sent in every month. So it's like be as rubbery as you want, but get it done.

Isn't it ironic that in the hour and a half we have here, I get hijacked by an idea?

It's not ironic at all. It's the process of creativity. The process. Creativity is the ideas come when we're thinking about something else. Our best ideas come. We're thinking about something else. So this is one of the reasons why I would come up with a hundred ideas for Story Man. I've got to come up with a story. I can't just sit around and wait. So I'll come up with a hundred ideas. And I know that if I do that by focusing on coming up with a lot of garbage ideas, a good one will sneak through. A good one will just sneak through. So good for you, Tiny. Wonderful. Congratulations. Love it. Love to see you always. So let's see. Let me. Let me get this. I'm gonna unpin these things. So let's kind of go back over what we were talking about today. And what we were talking about today specifically is Musashi Miyamoto Book of Five Rings or how to take the most basic things that we're talking about, which is the magic formula, which is you have a map or model of what you're trying to accomplish. You're taking daily action, even if it's only one sentence a day. If you're a writer, you fill yourself with a sense of gratitude for life. Because gratitude is the best way to create faith. If you have gratitude for what happened in the past past, it's easy to believe that good things will happen in the future. Simple as that. You have clear intention, clear goals. Crystal clear. And that the doing of the thing, the goal, as well as the process of achieving the goal are both in alignment with your values and worth doing that you're having a good time every day. It's not. If you have a goal that's going to take you a year to accomplish, you don't just have the reward. And end of the year, nobody guarantees you're going to live that long. But if you set it up so that every hour, every day is happiness, you end every day with a smile and a kiss and a hug and feeling like you have you filled your life. Then you're winning short and long term. You've actually defined the game so that it's impossible for you to lose like Mr. Miyagi did in karate Kid, too. He set it up so if he was going to have to fight this guy, no matter what happened in the fight, he wins. That was brilliant. It was wonderful. This is what I want for you. And everything we talk about here is. Is based on just those three, four things. You know, the. The. The magic formula. The three gates, the three centers. Breathing at least once every hour. You know, five. At least five times a day. 60 seconds. Deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. And the notion of increasing our goodness, our alignment with ourselves by just 1% per week. Minimum. That's our minimum. We want to get better. We want to continue to get better, and we want to be happy. The meaning of life is to be joyful and of service. And we serve you because we believe that if you put up with my nonsense, you're the kind of person who will go out and help other people. And that this is the way we change the world together. You look around here, we see younger people, older people, black people, white people, gay people, straight people, writers, non writers, athletes, non athletes. We are the world people. This is where we start. If you believe that you can change your heart, heal your heart and become a person who can lead others to healing their hearts, this is how we win. Right here, right now. Unmute yourselves. Everybody say howdy. I've got an hour and a half from now. I've got to teach another workshop, so I need to take some time off. I have loved being with you and just. Just say hi to each other.

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, people.

Hanging out with everybody.

Good luck.

Come to the The Screenwriting Workshop, www.screenwritingwebinar.com the pricing is flexible. It's $197 if you can afford it. Otherwise, you will pay only what you can afford. Take good care. I love you guys. I truly do. And the divinity. I'd like to close this as I always do, with the Sanskrit expression means that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste.

Bye bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. See you all next week.

Take care of.