Finding Your Sweet Spot
While the first lesson centers around some serious self-examination, this one is all about cutting your right brain loose and letting it have some glorious, messy fun.
Disclaimer: Apparently if you're heavily left-brained, this is about as fun as pulling teeth. Luckily not an issue for me!
Lesson 2 is where you build your Sweet Spot Map. It's a way to dig up the things you're passionate about; the things that make you cringe, the things that make you laugh, the things that make you sit up straight and say, "YES! That." You're giving your subconscious permission to tell you everything that makes it sing.
The result? Is some pretty cool, strange, and occasionally unexpected stuff.
These are the things that are going to make your writing fly, because these are the things that matter to you.
I've already done a Sweet Spot Map, made when I started the course about a year and a half ago. I debated skipping out this time around since I already had one, but then decided it might be better to start from scratch and compare the two. See how much changed, and how much stayed the same.
Spiders popped up on both maps twice, under (shock) I Fear and I Hate. At first I was about to write that off as a left-brained response (you usually get a few until it decides that it doesn't like this mapping nonsense), until I really thought about it. My fear of spiders is completely irrational and totally visceral. It's not my rational left brain that sends me screaming from the room when one appears. Metaphorically speaking. There's more terrified whimpering than screaming involved.
The ocean is all over both maps. On the first map, it popped up under I Get Shivers From and, strangely enough, both I Fear and I Love. On my new map it cropped up under I Love, I Am Drawn To, and I Get Shivers From. On the last one I wrote down deep fathoms, but I think it's close enough to count.
What does this tell me? That I have an undeniable fascination with the ocean that I never realized was there. My rational mind knows that it's a big body of water with lots of cool fish. My right brain? Sees the last unexplored frontier on our planet. It wonders what kind of creatures lurk in the cold, dark depths. It knows that there are things far more dangerous than sharks sleeping beneath the waves, the same way a kid knows there are monsters in the closet. My left brain says, "Giant swimming pool." My subconscious says, "Here, there be dragons."
It's a perfect example of what makes this exercise so cool.
Nature is a recurring theme on both maps. Storms and tornadoes appear on both maps under I Get Shivers From. Wild places appears under I Love on one map, and I Need on the other. Nature's fury crops up under I Am Drawn To and I Get Shivers From. In fact, the only place nature doesn't make an appearance in some form is under I Hate.
Starting to get the idea that maybe I have a bit of a thing for nature. Especially the wild, untamed variety.
Ghosts crop up more than once, as do tattoos, wings, magic, mirrors, control and the loss thereof, music, shapeshifters, the unknown, pirates and old gods. To name a few.
Writing and related things also turn up several times on both maps under I Love and I Need.
These are only a small portion of the things I have on my map. A lot of the others are more general concepts, emotions, and some are just plain wacky. Like to paint a thousand pictures under I Need.
Building your sweet spot map is both very revealing and very useful. It will help you keep writing about the things you love and the things that matter to you, regardless of genre.
Oh! Almost forgot! I know a couple of people mentioned an interest in Holly's classes, so I wanted to mention that the price will be going up by $150 on May 1st, due to all the new content she's added over the three years since the course was released. So if you were considering signing up on the near future, might as well get in before the price hike.
Disclaimer: Apparently if you're heavily left-brained, this is about as fun as pulling teeth. Luckily not an issue for me!
Lesson 2 is where you build your Sweet Spot Map. It's a way to dig up the things you're passionate about; the things that make you cringe, the things that make you laugh, the things that make you sit up straight and say, "YES! That." You're giving your subconscious permission to tell you everything that makes it sing.
The result? Is some pretty cool, strange, and occasionally unexpected stuff.
These are the things that are going to make your writing fly, because these are the things that matter to you.
I've already done a Sweet Spot Map, made when I started the course about a year and a half ago. I debated skipping out this time around since I already had one, but then decided it might be better to start from scratch and compare the two. See how much changed, and how much stayed the same.
Spiders popped up on both maps twice, under (shock) I Fear and I Hate. At first I was about to write that off as a left-brained response (you usually get a few until it decides that it doesn't like this mapping nonsense), until I really thought about it. My fear of spiders is completely irrational and totally visceral. It's not my rational left brain that sends me screaming from the room when one appears. Metaphorically speaking. There's more terrified whimpering than screaming involved.
The ocean is all over both maps. On the first map, it popped up under I Get Shivers From and, strangely enough, both I Fear and I Love. On my new map it cropped up under I Love, I Am Drawn To, and I Get Shivers From. On the last one I wrote down deep fathoms, but I think it's close enough to count.
What does this tell me? That I have an undeniable fascination with the ocean that I never realized was there. My rational mind knows that it's a big body of water with lots of cool fish. My right brain? Sees the last unexplored frontier on our planet. It wonders what kind of creatures lurk in the cold, dark depths. It knows that there are things far more dangerous than sharks sleeping beneath the waves, the same way a kid knows there are monsters in the closet. My left brain says, "Giant swimming pool." My subconscious says, "Here, there be dragons."
It's a perfect example of what makes this exercise so cool.
Nature is a recurring theme on both maps. Storms and tornadoes appear on both maps under I Get Shivers From. Wild places appears under I Love on one map, and I Need on the other. Nature's fury crops up under I Am Drawn To and I Get Shivers From. In fact, the only place nature doesn't make an appearance in some form is under I Hate.
Starting to get the idea that maybe I have a bit of a thing for nature. Especially the wild, untamed variety.
Ghosts crop up more than once, as do tattoos, wings, magic, mirrors, control and the loss thereof, music, shapeshifters, the unknown, pirates and old gods. To name a few.
Writing and related things also turn up several times on both maps under I Love and I Need.
These are only a small portion of the things I have on my map. A lot of the others are more general concepts, emotions, and some are just plain wacky. Like to paint a thousand pictures under I Need.
Building your sweet spot map is both very revealing and very useful. It will help you keep writing about the things you love and the things that matter to you, regardless of genre.
Oh! Almost forgot! I know a couple of people mentioned an interest in Holly's classes, so I wanted to mention that the price will be going up by $150 on May 1st, due to all the new content she's added over the three years since the course was released. So if you were considering signing up on the near future, might as well get in before the price hike.