Write from Source

07/07/2025

Wow Sarah - 9 years ago - and look at you now

29/06/2025

My mother used to say "empty vessels make the most noise" ... Now that I'm older I wonder if it was just one expression in a long line of the many ways to keep children quiet - seen and not heard. In our house mum didn't suffer fools gladly either 😅.... so you might be getting the picture there was little tolerance for those who liked the sound of their own voice - or talked with great confidence about matters they knew nothing about ... lol

I am not sure why this memory has surfaced other than the acknowledgement I have been quiet on this page. Perhaps this page has taken my mother's mantras to extremes. The thing is there is a lot happening on the professional & personal writing front and always has been - it's who I am. Yet it's the business page I always feel less inclined to update.I wonder why, when writing is my love, my passion, my sustenance. Is it an abandonment of self on some level?

More than likely it's because I just try to do too much and I really must remedy that. But also, I wonder if it's because when I am working on a ghostwriting project I like to keep things under wraps until the book has been published - ensuring my client gets to do the big reveal ... but then time goes by and I move to the next project ....and the writing in solitude and secrecy continues.

Anyway, I'm still here - I'm still writing. I'm now working on the second book of someone I've worked with before .... I'm still creating courses and workshops, still running a spiritual practice and still keeping the embers warm on my own writing project.

Sometimes I wonder whether I should have another page in my name for my own writings, but it all gets very difficult to maintain social media when you are in the writing zone.

I'm sure I'll work it all out - one day ..

Until then, do you remember any saying your mum or dad used to say while growing up? Did they have a catch phrase that, as you got older, you thought "hang on a minute?" I was born in Glasgow and heard many colourful things that would never be uttered nowadays - things that were part and parcel of where you came from - you just have to watch Billy Connolly to get where I'm coming from 😁 If you are a writer - or you have dreams of bing a writer - are there any such expressions you heard growing up that are holding you back today? When you start thinking about it - you might be surprised.

22/03/2025

I've joined Substack just to check things out. I'd love to see you over there.

Weaving healing words, sharing sacred Akashic wisdom & dancing under Tasmania's Aurora Australis. The last place I expected to find myself - and yet ...

12/03/2025

Hello beautiful creative souls. I hope all your writing dreams and plans for 2025 are taking shape. As many of you know I have a couple of writing projects on the go. One of them in particular has been a challenge for all sorts of reasons and chances are you'll have had challenging writing projects yourself. On such days, the planning you did early on, such as having your structure already mapped out, is a blessing from the Goddess.

You may recall in December, as a gift to you wonderful writers, I shared some important 'non-negotiables' when it comes to writing your book. I can't emphasise enough how important it is to know all this before you start to write.

Early on at school you would have been taught, a story must have a beginning, middle and end. At the very least your book or play must have a beginning, middle and end - though in our writing world we are talking - Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3 ... (There are many different types of structures but this is the easiest for beginners to relate to).

Within Act 1 (the set-up), you will have:
The Exposition
The Inciting Incident
Plot Point 1

Within Act 2 (Confrontation), you will have:
Rising Action
Midpoint
Plot Point 2

Within Act 3 (resolution), you will have:
Pre-climax
Climax
Denouement

Within slightly different structures you will find additional plot points or different names - but this is a good easy level to start with.

You then map out which chapters of your book sit in each Act. You will be able to see if you are missing, the exposition, or missing a plot point very easily this way.

If you are using this structure, your manuscript must start with the "Exposition" (in this example). If you are wondering what the Exposition is ... wonder no more ...

The Exposition (SET-UP) sets the scene of the story.

It introduces the Protagonist in their Ordinary World (if you are familiar with the Hero's Journey you will recognise the Ordinary World). So basically we see the main "character" doing his/her normal every day thing. We get a sense of what is important to them, and we get hints on things in their ordinary world that challenges them.

The Exposition should also offer the reader a glimpse at the Protagonist's internal conflict (very important) setting it up right from the very beginning, to collide with their external goals later in the story.

MOST IMPORTANT - just as in Memoir - the Protagonist is in a different state of being here than they will be at the end.

Now these are just a few things to consider in the Exposition - but ultimately what you are aiming to do here is make the reader care about what is happening - or else they are not going to keep reading.

Breakdown:
If Act 1 makes up the first 25% of the story.
Exposition should take approximately 10% of the story - so it's important to get this part right.

By knowing your structure and chapter outline in advance - mapping it out - you can now see how useful it is when you become stuck. It's the map that will navigate you back on course.
Did you set up the conflict? Did you set up the ending through your exposition?

This is the stage that takes the time. This is the stage that makes the rest of your writing effortless (well relatively), so it is worth spending the time and effort to get this stage right.

I hope that helps. You can now begin to explore what the other stages of your structure should include (if you are following the three-act structure) :)

On that note, I better get back to it. Happy writing.

04/01/2025

Happy New Year all you creative souls out there. Wow, here we are at the start of a new year - a year where everything is possible. All we have to do is make it happen. If you think that sounds easier said than done, just think about the last 365 days. They flew by in the blink of an eye. You're probably thinking, 'how can it be 2025 already?' Imagine if you had written just one page every day of last year - you'd be sitting on 365 pages. Or perhaps, if you started a new hobby, you'd be feeling a bit more accomplished 365 days later. We often find ourselves paralysed by the enormity of a project, when really, we should just start and take things day by day.

This year, I've made a promise to myself to get back to my own writing. For me, it doesn't matter whether I'm working on my Memoir, a Haiku for a print or greeting card, or some journal exploration, as long as I am creating something. However, my major creative goal is to have my memoir mapped out and ready to write by mid year. I have a couple of clients on the books with significant writing projects, so this year is going to be fairly busy on the writing front professionally and personally. And that's just the way I like it.

I've also decided to to learn a new skill (as a hobby) - something totally random for me. I'm going to learn how to work with fabrics and felt to make little spirit dolls. My mum was always incredibly creative and for much of my life I never tried other forms of creativity because I felt "what's the point, I could never be as good as her." But something has shifted this year and I want to see if I do have any hidden crafty talents beyond writing.

Both of these 'projects' represent a commitment to myself and my own personal desires to live a fulfilling creative life in 2025.

So what about you? Is this the year you want to write your first or maybe your second book? Maybe you've always fancied being an artist but you've been too scared to try.

What creative projects are you considering this year? Where would you like to be one year from now?

Whatever you decide, I hope you will find some inspiration, learnings and motivations here at Write from Source. I'll be right there with you walking, musing and creating my way through 2025!

18/12/2024

Are you a perfectionist? If so, it could be the thing that's stopping you from moving forward with your writing. I understand this one believe me. It’s one of the reasons I have SO many notebooks. When I was younger, the moment I made a mistake on the page - I would either rip it out or start a new notebook. In a way, becoming a professional writer helped heal me of this because I learned, making mistakes and writing many drafts, was all part of the process.

You have to push through - just get your messy incomplete ideas down on the page. Adorn the page with side-notes to yourself, draw pictures, embellish the tear splodges that drop onto your draft (lol). Keep it all. This is all rich material to draw from and include in your work. It's only when you begin crafting that final manuscript - the one you want to sell as a finished, quality product - that's when you can allow the inner perfectionist to run riot.

If you allow your fear of making mistakes to rule your writing process, you will be forever stuck on the first page. A life-changing transformational story is about making mistakes and pushing through regardless, learning, growing, evolving and transforming!

18/12/2024

Hello beautiful souls. I hope you all survived "hump day" ... a wonderful term here in Australia for mid week. I have to confess I am exhausted. It's been a long, full day! Rewarding - but tiring none-the-less. So as I consider a quick healthy dinner I thought I would share an old post with you for today's Christmas Gift for writers. It's an important subject that never goes out of date though - the subject of "Copyright". As a writer you need to ensure you understand copyright law and how it affects you and anyone you engage to help you create /or write your book (I'm thinking designers, photographers and ghostwriters at the very least).

The subject of Copyright is a real hot button at the moment and over time I will update this article to take into account AI.

Many people don't realise that AI mines the internet for writing and photos that "artists" and "creatives" have spent years creating ... (amongst all the other random stuff on the internet) only to serve it up for everyone to use. This is stealing - pure and simple and yet there is no recourse at the moment. Those facebook apps that use your photos to create a superhero image of yourself are huge fun ...but have you considered behind these games and filters, AI is mining the photos of your face ... and who knows a few years down the line you could see your face being used in a campaign that you have no knowledge of, don't support and haven't been paid for ... Hopefully there will be some proper guidelines and laws around using AI very soon - but at the moment things are pretty loose.

As you can tell, it's a topic that gets me a bit fired up .... lol.
So on that note, I will leave you with this article on Copyright so you always know your Rights as creatives. Until tomorrow beautiful people 🥰

Hello, all you creative souls out there. Today’s topic is a bit of a soapbox item for me as I care passionately about artists, writers, and creators of original work being credited for their work.  You see, there is a commonly held ‘misunderstanding’ that if you have paid for creative service...

17/12/2024

With just over a week until Christmas things are getting a tad busy around here. I hope you are all keeping cool especially given Australia was the hottest place on earth yesterday ... even here in Tassie it was toasty.

As promised, the latest Christmas Gift for writers is all about The Hero's Journey. I'm actually developing a Heroine's Journey too - but that - as they say - is another story ;)

The Hero's Journey is one of my favourites when it comes to arcs and and story structures. In fact, I love it so much, I used it when I wrote Peter William's memoir, Searching Spirit. You wouldn't necessarily use The Hero's Journey for a memoir but because I work with "transformational" stories, with a bit of work it was a good fit. If you have a copy of this book you will be able to see all the different stages by looking at the names of the Chapters at the start of the book.

The Hero's Journey lends itself to adventure, plot twists, highs and lows, learnings along the way and so much more ... You can think of it as the template that all the epic movies from Star Wars to Disney, or even Harry Potter use.

We start off with the Ordinary World - what is life like for the hero before adventure calls? Over the next few pages we see the Call to Adventure and that could be anything - but it's generally an event or something that's deemed a challenge or causes conflict ... and off you go. I run workshops on The Hero's Journey so I won't give it all away here - but it's certainly worth researching if you want to make your story epic!

A good exercise for you would be to look at Searching Spirit or one of the Harry Potter books and see if you can identify these various stages of the journey.

If your Memoir or book doesn't lend itself to The Hero's Journey, don't worry. Sure, it's a fabulous structure to use - but as long as you have some sort of Structure and a Narrative Arc, you'll be fine.

16/12/2024

Hello again beautiful people. OK so today's final post, and Christmas Gift is still in the realms of structure ... but this is more about the story itself - rather than the over-arching framework.

Once you have identified the Structure that will work best for your story - let's say it's a Memoir - you will now need to think about your "narrative arc" - sometimes known as story arc.

This is the secret that many writers don't realise - narrative arc is the key ingredient that keeps your readers turning to the next page.

Think about stories that start with ..... this happened, then that happened, and then this other thing happened, and then that happened. This happened, and then that was the end.

Boring right?

The Narrative Arc takes you from the start of your story ...onto the the inciting incident ... and now there is rising action ...uh-oh... now what? No way! Then we hit the climax point of the story and then .... phew things are resolving ...

In simple terms we could be talking about:
The beginning/middle end of a story - or
Act I, Act II and then Act III

At the very least think of your story in these terms. And then you can begin to layer in the plot points - conflict/turning points/resolution.

If you have ever read a book and just felt it was slow or you couldn't get into it, you can be sure 9/10 the narrative arc (or structure) of the book has not been considered.

The diagram below is a basic example of what we are talking about ... so the trick of a well crafted story is having your plot points in exactly the right place so the read always wants more.

For an adventure of EPIC or Transformational proportions, you may want to use The Hero's Journey, but I'll share more on that in tomorrow's post.

16/12/2024

Following on from my note on structure on Friday, I thought this diagram may help - especially if you are a more visual person. There are MANY more structures out there and you have to consider : Format (Media used) Aim/Objective/Purpose (i.e is it to educate/persuade/tell a story), Audience, Context/market/ Industry.

These days I focus on different types of Memoir structure (a few shown below), but I can offer advice on whichever style of writing you are considering. I have included the Inverted Pyramid to show how this works on websites/newspaper or in marketing copy.

I guess ultimately we are talking about a "framework" for your book - the spine that holds the pages together. I hope this helps😙

Circular structure example
Wizard of OZ - Dorothy is whisked away by a tornado and has a number of adventures before returning back home to the same spot (i.e. she wakes up)

Linear structure example
Pride and Prejudice – a love story that follows Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy from their first meeting to when they fall in love

Frame structure example ( a story within a story)
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte introduces Mr Lockwood as the first narrator who shares the story of his visit to Wuthering Heights, but then the narration switches to the perspective of Mr Dean. The readers are introduced to each of the different threads. Multiple perspectives provide the reader with so much more information.

In your research you might want to think about the style of book you wish to write, and then explore similar books in your genre to see what structure they have used. Could it be a useful structure for your book to follow?

26/11/2024

Hello beautiful souls - it's been a while. During these last 4 months I'd made the move to one social media page over on Gaia’s Light – all in the name of efficiency. I wanted to consolidate my businesses offerings and reasoned all facets of my business had a common denominator. That common denominator is all about helping people – being in service to others – showing people they are more than the one story they tell themselves whether that’s through their soul’s story in the Akashic Records or in the writing of their life’s story in this lifetime.

While this is still the case, Write from Source also works with those who want to know more about writing in all its forms - not just as a tool for healing. I still work as a professional writer, editor and ghostwriter and I have come to realise I still need a space for those conversations. I still need this space to coach and mentor others on a writing or creative journey even if it is also a healing journey in many cases. Sometimes you need to be able to talk about structure, point of view and narrative arcs – and those conversations don’t necessarily sit well on the spiritual & healing page. 😉

SO - I am back here on this FB page. My big plan for 2025 is to actually have a schedule for social media days combined with the marketing/admin days so I will endeavour to be more present, though it is a bit like spinning plates sometimes …When you are deep in the outlining phase, or deep in the manuscript it can be hard to come up for air at prescribed times - but I will do my best.

While I’m here, I may as well remind those of you who have been on here a while where things are in terms of structure. I registered Write from Source with ASIC in 2021. McRae Communications Consultancy (servicing Corporate/Blue Chip/Private/R&D/Publishing/Design Agencies/Government Departments/ Advertising Agencies/Thought Leadership/Digital Campaigns/Professional Writing & Publishing contracts) then came in under Write from Source. I also brought The Butterfly Bureau (professional writing services including ghostwriting, editing, mentorship & coaching) in under Write from Source. So these services are all still available, but nowadays I tend to only take on two or three “message-driven” one-to-one (or private) projects a year. If I am ghostwriting or editing a book, all my focus is on that project, hence the reason I only take a couple of these projects on. I still need to allow space for Gaia's Light and the transformational aspect of Write from Source to grow.

The other side of Write from Source dovetails with Gaia's Light Spiritual Consultancy, providing a platform for workshops, modules and courses - mainly online but also in face-to-face, one-to-one or group sessions. Here we use writing to heal, explore, connect, grow and transform. This is a place where you are encouraged to disengage that part of your brain that’s worried about rules and grammar. Your job here is to focus on the connection to your heart, your higher self, your Guides or Source. This is the place from which Write from Source was birthed. I wanted to create a unique offering taking my passion, my qualifications / learnings and experience, and mould them into a healing pathway, to use them in a way that could effectively help others see their story - their "journey" in a very different way.

Over the years, I realised, while mentoring people who wanted to be writers, those that had an impactful story to tell were blocked or scared or unable to move forward to put “honest” words down on the page. In short they had not healed enough from their own story to be able to share it from a place of compassion or teaching. Write from Source is all about that healing phase, and then the professional support dovetails in at just the right point to take aspiring writers to the next phase.

With all that said - time for me to crack on. Even though I haven't been present on this page - the work has continued and I am working on an exciting writing project at the moment. ...so ...busy busy :)

Thank you for reading beautiful souls. It's good to be back here :) As I say the work never stopped but at least this is a page to talk about the magic of our story.

You don't need to be a writer to use writing as a 'tool' for healing, growth and transformation. It's simply a key to help unlock the door to your true nature. Write from Source offers courses, workshops, free creative projects, writing prompts, meditations and articles. Spiritually-aligned/Trauma-i...