Although I knew the summer semester began at the top of May with incoming assignments, essays, lectures, readings, responses, etc. I wasn’t sure how soon they would kick in before the June residency. Turns out, it started right away.

As I have adjusted to tackling deadlines, readings, lectures, etc., I have identified some things I plan to take with me on my MFA journey.

Changes I am making:

Time Blocking

Rather than freaking out about the reading list, assignments, word count goals and meetings coming in fast, I am taking a day or two to process new information and then carefully break it down into reasonable chunks to tackle each week. 
This doesn’t mean I am not already neck-deep in work, but it does mean I can tread water and still see the horizon ahead.

Within blocking out the time to tackle each new chunk, I am also prioritizing my mind, body and soul.

Prioritizing Mind, Body & Soul

Meals, exercise, alcohol-free weekdays, sleep, quality time with my daughter and partner, meditation, therapy, unplugged moments to exhale, etc., are all being prioritized in advance to protect not only my ability to output work and study but also to honour the open journey I need to protect and maintain.

End Each Semester with an Exhale moment.

Spending a few sessions at a Nordic-inspired spa recently was intensely rejuvenating. From that experience, I identified that I would like to build into each semester's end a session at a hydrothermal spa to celebrate the work done and to empty the mind, body, and soul to prepare myself for another new semester ahead.

* These next twenty-four months have much in store for me, and I cannot imagine how life will have shifted, changed, and evolved by May 2026, when I approach graduation day.
What I do know for sure is that I want to have said that I sunk into every aspect of this journey and left nothing on the table.

****This is my dedication to my practice, my craft and the beloved act of braving the wilderness of one word at a time.

I often say:

I have many projects up my sleeve.

It’s true.

At any given moment, I am shuffling between a handful of projects.

Not counting the many I have tidied up and shelved or as I like to think about the ‘they are on the back burner simmering.’
I had heard that this was a thing, but I hadn’t truly figured out how to embrace it until I realized I was doing it.

For any writer who dabbles in more than just one medium and one main project, there are many projects in various states.

Some are whims that grow long legs and start running off without me leaving me winded trying to keep up.

These are the ones you often end up seeing relatively as quick as they arrive into existence.
They are concise and already complete ideas that had been quietly processed for a long time without knowing it. Upon arrival, they land all ready to go and quickly set off.
These are fun, quick and often light-hearted meaningful ones.
Some are deep questions of the soul that slowly emerge and grow, allowing me to work on it over a long period.
These are the therapy-like ones where I often find myself weeping over them in both joy and sorrow. They are my teachers, and sometimes I think they exist for only just that, although don’t tell them I said that, for they would be sorely wounded and make a fuss.
Some are riveting and full worlds that grow legs and start running but are not marathoners and not yet sure about which way they are going.
These are the long-suffering heartbeat ones where I tend to overtime and keep hoping they will reveal something in which I may leverage it better.

No matter which one they tend to be, they exist and are in constant motion around and within me.

Projects, stories, concepts, documentaries, commentaries, essays, plays, they whir around me speaking about themselves and keeping them in their place is a bit of a job. I often find that I do more organizing of them than I’d like.

I tell them to sit still, and I’ll be back just as soon as I finish this application- and sure enough, one of them has wriggled free and having a complete meltdown because I hadn’t added this new revelation stumbled upon only yesterday.
Impatient toddlers, they all seem to me at times.

Yet,

this is the way of a writer of many mediums.

Sorting through the projects, adding a little bit here, a little bit there, sending one-off here and one-off there and realizing that one really does need a new wardrobe if it’s really to be taken out in public.

However you see your writing life and your ways of going about it all, I hope you see it.

It is a great and beautiful world full of emotions that I’d like to think we writers are the only ones who can honestly know it.

Thanks to Screen Nova Scotia, I was able to attend Media Xchanges Storytelling for Screenwriters workshop series with John Yorke.

An honour to be allowed to learn and dig deeper into my storytelling skillset. Something I have been seeking the next right opportunity to grow professionally. This turned out to be exactly what I needed.

What I’ve learned so far…

I learned to think more in-depth into the structural dynamics of the typical story/screenplay. Many screenwriters and writers, in general, have structures they apply to their work or writing. Three acts, five acts, beat sheets. All commonly used methods of mapping out a story. In this course, we explored not just a five-act structure but the deeper meanings and intentions behind why a structure can boost a story.

We saw this practically through examples and by applying it ourselves to commonly known work and creating our interpretation of a plot in group work. I was amazed by the joy and camaraderie I felt in the group work.

It was apparent everyone was happy to use their creative skill sets, bounce off ideas and work together. Seeing that collaboration is something I need to find and seek out more often. It's easy as a writer/creator to stay insular, but these moments of collaboration remind you why you do what you do.

To connect, share and find meaning. It's what drives storytellers.

How I am processing it & what I hope to work on in the next month…

John Yorke's Roadmap to Change structure technique was a mind-shift for me. You can know things intuitively, but having the words for them is also essential. That is something that I hope to hone in on and practice more in my craft over the next month and beyond. I believe I have a knack and skill set for a story, but I have lacked the vernacular to discuss the weak points, the strong points and the overall elements of a story.

Gaining this skill set is a massive part of what I have needed and am excited to be growing in.

Until our next session in two weeks, I’ll be putting this knowledge to use.

Since March 19th, I have been getting up Monday - Thursday mornings at 6 am.

I pull on my robe, grab my phone & headphones, turn on a podcast and listen as I let the hot water boil for my coffee or tea.
I light a candle, sit down with my warm drink, switch from podcast to music and write.

So far, during these write mornings over the past three weeks, I have edited and arranged 21 pages of a project I am passionate about & drafted up half of a short film.

Some mornings it comes easy.

Falling out of my fingers like a waterfall.

Other mornings

I stare at the window beside my desk and seek the light that comes brighter every minute.
I have learned that there are some moments in these sessions that I should listen to my antsy body.
One of those times, I made myself sit through the two hours with cramps distracting me.
I should have taken my laptop, tea and settled on the couch. I should not have worried about the potential of being found out by my four-year-old and just embrace what needed to happen that morning.
Another time, up at all hours with a fevered child, I told my spirit that today was not the day to wake up at 6 am and force it.

Sometimes, you have to appreciate what your body, mind and soul are saying.
The skipping is about protecting creativity, not abandoning it.

Find something equally challenging and exciting for you & show up for it.

We like to think that something that was made has been crafted out of genius, ease and good ol’ fashioned hard work. Often times, we view our favourite works of art, be them paintings, films, plays, broadway musicals, songs etc as something mystic, gifted and heaven sent. We view their existence in our space as something we have acquired because we are owed to have it and it should come easily into our presence. We view those who created these things as someone who works hard at their craft and sacrificed all their time and energy to make it. We also in the same token, view them as someone who chose creativity over hard work.

All of these things are true.

None of these things are true.

The truth is,

the flow of creativity comes both easy and hard. It can feel as if it’s all come out of you at once and it can also feel as if it is like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. Utterly possible and impossible at the same time.

In every creative project that I find myself in, I also find myself at war with everything else.
It’s almost laughable at how time and time again this happens.

Right now, it’s as simple as needing nine separate writing sessions to re-write a draft.
All I am wanting is nine days to do it. I could even make it work in five days if I had to.
Yet those five to nine days, of days without a child in my care, allude me and a few scant hours here and there are not the way to put forth your best work. (any true writer / creative knows, you simply can’t perform your best work the moment a countdown begins. You need, as all athletes need to do before they do anything, a warm up.)

So here I am, showing up at my desk early on a Monday morning and doing my best to fit at least one of the nine sessions in while my husband takes vacation hours to get the ‘little’ to and from pre school and hope upon hope that when he returns I will have succeeded, at least, with one of the nine sessions and that I don’t waste the precious time that we are sacrificing to honour the creative call.

Truth be told,

if I didn’t care, if I didn’t have any real desire to create good work, I wouldn’t be here. I would just say “to hell with it” and leave the ideas as ideas on the cutting room floor of my mind.

The real work is in battling the real life that tries to come against starting anything. Doing anything from noting.
The timing is never right.

So it’s do or don’t do.

And I guess I am too stubborn and intrigued to not do.

So I do.