Steven Barnes

Very good!

My standard comment about depression is that depression is fear with nowhere to run and nothing to fight. But there is also clinical depression, which seems to be the brain’s neurochemistry stuck in this mode even if there is no obvious external cause.

Not being a doctor, I have no medical opinion about how much clinical depression can be…[Read more]

Most books contain some clues about the character’s race: something about hair texture, eye color, skin color, ethnicity or cultural background, etc. Try picking up a few books (or stories) where there are black characters, and see how the authors handled it. Imitate them. The fastest way to learn is imitation!

You might try cutting pictures of people out of magazines, and basing your characters on them. Balancing physical and emotional descriptions is an art form. How do your favorite writers handle it? Find ten descriptions from writers you like and copy them by hand, giving yourself a chance to “feel” what it is like to think and write this way.

Internal is NOT weaker. And the male/female split is more of a reference than some kind of definitive statement: there is huge over lap, and sometimes that is reversed, but it is a broadly accurate statement. Absorb the “bones” of some plotting approach, and then write as you wish. The most important thing is reading and writing. The rest will…[Read more]

This is a private site. I can’t imagine anyone considering this publication.

Thanks, Ross!!

Share what you wish to, and ask for the support you desire. We ALL fall off the tightrope with practices like meditation, exercise, dietary control, etc. The trick is that if it is a transformative practice, you CANNOT perform it daily unless your internal states have already changed for the better. Your ego will try to tell you otherwise–it…[Read more]

Sweetie, part of your homework is interacting, asking questions. You are BRILLIANT to notice that the impact of a neutral phrase changes drastically depending upon your mood.

The best thing I can recommend if depression dogs you is that “Morning Ritual”–10-20 minutes of movement combined with emotionalized affirmation, remembering things you…[Read more]

Ellen–you are right that he spends seems to spend little time on compassion for those who are drowning. ON the other hand, you might think that a person who spends decades studying success is SPECIFICALLY AND DEEPLY concerned with the plight of the drowning, and wanted to find the very best methods of swimming, constructing life preservers, and…[Read more]

Amanda–
“Think And Grow Rich” is an amazing look into the minds of people who have lifted themselves up and become “successful” in the sense of “the progressive realization of a worthy goal.” There is an enormous gap between the thought patterns of such people, and the thought patterns of identical people in identical situations who get lesser…[Read more]

This is not TMI…it is precisely what is needed to dig in and get honest. What you said about self-loathing is PRECISELY what stops us. Lack of self-love and acceptance. So you start out hot and heavy, then trail off, over and over again. Which weakens your self-esteem and belief you can accomplish your goals. Note how separate this is from…[Read more]

If this capacity has existed for a long time, I suspect it is more positive than negative overall.

If you will commit to writing 100 stories, I can PROMISE you that you’ll publish long before you get there. Give yourself room to make mistakes. The “Machine” is: write a story a week or every other week. Read 10X as much as you write. Finish what you write. Put them in the mail and keep them there. Keep going until you are publishing…[Read more]

What were your emotions as you wrote this? I imagine it was difficult for you.

How did your 500-word piece go?

Find a partner here on the forum, and exchange work with him/her. Great way to work on your stories!

How have you tried to integrate psychological theory into your work?

I’m still learning how to do this properly myself! NLP is a “toolbox” with no more morality than a screwdriver. There is one exception I know of, the “Core Transformation” technique by Connirae Andreas of NLP Comprehensive in Colorado. But the stuff is powerful. Another issue is that one of the creators of the discipline was…well, not a…[Read more]