Storyboarding, Seeing our story unfold!

Creating… building… planning… outlining… mapping…

Taking our story from inception to completion!

The story board!!! What a wonderful exercise…

In my WFW Workshop I brought all kinds of goodies for the writers, colored poster boards, colored index cards and post-it notes. Each writer was given the task of creating their story on a blank canvas. This can makes us a bit nervous. I gave the writers ten minutes to organize their post-it notes on the poster board and quickly and with few words take us through their stories one story at a time until all the post-its were filled.

The writers loved this process. They were able to see their stories in a completely different way. Now we have a road map. Now we can tackle our stories one scene at a time. Now we have a process that feels a little more manageable. NO WE CAN DIG IN!

I am so excited to see my novel unfold before my eyes.

Yesterday I posted on my tumblr:

“I feel like I ran a 30 mile marathon today. In my Writing from the Womb workshop these writers wrote their asses off. They went everywhere they were called to go and some places they weren’t even feeling going. But we went there together.”

Sometimes we gotta flip the script…

“I hadn’t planned on writing poetry today we were supposed to talk speculative fiction… but we wrote a poems.

The theme ANGER!

The prompt: WHAT MAKES ME SO MAD….

And we wrote it in ten minutes y’all. Dope!

Then we moved on to creating a story board for our stories and now we have a wonderful visual aid for our journey.

And we closed by workshopping several manuscripts in process.

Pretty fucking amazing!

All in a days work.”

Today I wake up really wanting to celebrate the amazing work the writers I create with are doing. They are brave. They trust me. They trust themselves. They trust their voice. They are surrendering to the process. They are really going IN!

What makes me so mad… (poem in progress)
by Alicia Anabel Santos

What makes me so mad…
are people telling me I can’t do something…

What makes me so mad…
are children being abused…
the fear in their eyes
their lost innocence
their stolen futures

What makes me so mad… is
destruction
self-destruction
reconstruction
abduction
being robbed
they all played a part
they all took something from me
they are all to blame
I
was minding my own business
playing
laughing
when my laughter was stolen from me…

I was five…
that picture of me in Bushwick in the 70’s
a thousand words…
scared
alone
sad
mad
misunderstood
what
did
i
do
to
deserve
that?
beat
bruised
heart
broken
hurt
five
six
seven
eight
fuck it
I’ve lost count…
can’t remember any of it
my life
a blur
children
so pure
so good
so filled
with
LOVE
HOPE
DREAMS

the little girl on 125th
she was running
running
running
running
running
so happy
so pretty
big smiles
I…
I wanted some of that
her
in
me…
I reached out…
arms extended
bent down
she jumped
right
into
my
arms
and I
hugged her
tight
kissed her
softly
she
wasn’t even scared of me…
no resistance
I posed no threat
the other woman with the child said to the aunt, “I thought she knew her!”
I said, “No, we don’t know each other.”
I put the girl down
blessed her one her journey…
telling the aunt, “she is a beautiful child!”

My prayer is that her innocence never be stolen from her
may she never go to the wrong hands
that she be protected always

SEE

This is what we do with ANGer…
we look for reminders that LOVE always wins…
and you can’t take that away from me!

END STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

After I shared the poem with my fellow WFW writers, Clare said about the little girl who jumped up into my arms, “she knows love!”

And so it is!

© 2014 Alicia Anabel Santos. All Rights Reserved.