screenwriters

PUBLIC SPEAKING: 10 Hacks to Improve Your Skills

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Who’s not afraid of talking in front of random people ?

And if I hear  ‘Hey I’m not !’ It’s because you’ve done it before.

So here is the deal, you have an important pitch, an interview in front of a panel of people or even bigger…. a public speaking gig and you don’t know how the hell you’re going to survive this.

BREATHE. You’ve got this.

Here are 10 ways to get you started.

1. Be prepared

Oh gosh. There’s nothing worse than getting in front of people when you don’t know:

a) what to expect.

b) when you don’t know your subject.

So first, do some research. Find out what you have to talk about.

Secondly, ask for how long you’ll be interviewed for. 

My best interviews are the ones when the host told me as many details as possible beforehand.  Then I know what I will be talking about. I can get my bullet points ready. When I say BULLET POINTS I mean it. I don’t prepare a speech ever. I prepare KEYWORDS.

For an interview, I try to prepare all the questions they could ask me.

For a pitch or a gig, I prepare all the major points to highlight.

Prepare your subject inside out. Know it. Own it. Breathe it.

2. Feel the room

Before going to a new classroom, I FEEL the space.

I send greetings to it and to the people to come.

I become one with the walls, the desk, the stage, the mousepad and the computer. I prepare a magic bubble.

When my energy settles in, that’s it baby, I’m in.

But what if you don’t have access to the room beforehand?

Can you google the room or place? Can you arrive a bit earlier?

If you can’t, simply close your eyes and visualize the space, the people, and see yourself completely at ease in it.

Image by EnergieDeVie from Pixabay

If you have a pitch, pitch it to everyone you know.

Let them ask you questions and answer them.

If can’t answer their questions, do your homework and get ready.

4. Choose comfortable clothes

Make an effort for your audience as if you were going on a date. Because it’s kind of a date anyway.

However you don’t want to wear something that is not you. If you never wear high heels, it’s not the time to try them out. Just be the best version of yourself. Enough to breathe confidence.

Don’t think too much of how you look though. Focus on what you are for, on the message you need to deliver. Focus on your audience not on how you look.

5. Pump up the volume

Before you get dressed, blast some Led Zep and dance, get some steam off.

Enough to feel so damn good. You need to have a high level of energy.

Have you ever come across a teacher or a speaker that has no enthusiasm whatsoever? It sends you right to sleep or make you think of your to do list. The last thing you want is to bore your audience.

Enthusiasm is contagious. Remember this.

6. Tell yourself a white lie

Don’t say ‘I’m nervous’. Your brain is listening and as a result, it will make you sweat and stutter.

Instead tell yourself: ‘I’m so excited’. Your brain will also be listening and will help to go through it with ease.

7. Send love to your audience

They’re not your enemies. They want to learn from you.

They want to be inspired, to be motivated, to be enlightened. They want to spend a good time with you and you with them.

So send them love, you’re on the same page.

If you can, make eye contact with them, smile, send them good vibes. I promise you they’re going to feel it.

I teach a lot. And as it happens, I really love my 100+ students each year and the former ones too. I love their beautiful bright minds and as a result, I get brilliant results from my students, no one drops my class and they send me so much LOOOOve.

Image by Photo Mix by Pixabay

8. Be entertaining

Boredom is your worst enemy.

The brain is sensitive to contrast. Therefore, in your speech, try to be lively.

Speak slow and then fast, crack a joke, be thoutful. Change your tone.

Mix your presentation. Have slides, film extracts, games, jokes and  try to improvise if you can.

Don’t bore them with details or long anecdotes about your life. They don’t care. It’s all about them baby.

9. Be respectful

Be respectful in your speech of course but also with their time. They’re hear to learn something. They want a takeaway. 

Figure out what they need and give it to them. They need to come out of your speech totally transformed.

One of the best seminar I have assisted in my life was ‘Breaking into Script Reading’ with Lucy V. Hay. I was a different person when I came out of this. Life changing.

10. Have a blast and do it again

My first live gig, I’m not going to lie to you. I was awful. 

My first class, I was nervous as hell, my body was shaking, I was stuttering and sweaty. A nightmare.

Fortunately, I had no choice, I had to show up every week, so after a while, the shaking stopped. It took me years to feel at ease. Now I can say that I am a truly blessed teacher who has a blast with her students.

After my awful first gig, I had another one and another one and another one. I started to chill. Even better, I started to enjoy it. A few years back, no way I was going to say that!

Practice makes it perfect they say. I say practice makes it better.

And also, don’t forget that those events are wonderful opportunities to meet wonderful people. They can create new openings, new job opportunities, new luck in your life, so go for it!

By the way, here is my last gig and gosh I loved doing it. I hope they’re going to call me again next year!

How to Kick-Start Your First Draft

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Writing a first draft
Photo by Jan Vasek @ Pixabay

‘I have an idea for a film, a book, a play’…

‘Great! When do you start writing your first draft?’

Silence… 

Usually followed by:

‘Ah, it’s a complex story, I need to do more research’

or

‘Yes when I quit (fill the blank) smoking, drinking, my job, my wife….

or

‘You don’t get it! This project is bigger than me!’

Oh yes, I get it.

It has a name: Procrastination which is a good friend of Fear.

Days, weeks, months, even years could go by, without writing a line on your big idea. It’s not nice.

In addition, you feel guilty about it. It’s not nice either.

So what shall we do about it?

1. Brainstorm Ideas

Firstly we brainstorm ideas. This is my favorite phase of creation.

I bubble some ideas, some characters, plots, locations. I also do some research, I read books on the topic. I watch films on the subject, I write notes in my journal. Even more efficient, I tear pictures from magazines to make a collage of my next project. It’s a messy job but it’s soooo good.

This the time when you’re allowed to be CRAZY, to have FUN, to HAVE A BLAST with your brain and your creativity.

‘To live a creative life, we must lose our fear to be wrong.’ Joseph Chilton Pearce

Don’t take months to do this phase though. One month is enough.

I can hear you from here saying: ‘But what if you haven’t finished my research?’

No worries. Move on to the next stage AND continue researching.

Don’t give all your time to research because then it becomes procrastination.

2. Organize Your Ideas and Notes

Secondly, you organize your ideas.

That’s when you discover how bonkers you are and how creative more importantly.

What you need to do is to go through all your notes and decide what to keep and what to trash. Please trust the process,  it’s all good. 

It’s also a good idea to organize the ideas that you want to keep so it’s easier to find them while you’re writing.

Give yourself a week or two to do so.

3. Structure Your Notes

Thirdly, you find the spine of your ideas. From there, as an architect, you’re going to build a solid foundation. It’s the structure. In other words, you articulate clearly what you want to say and how you want to say it. It’s storytelling.

You need to tell the story in a way that keeps everyone engaged that’s what the structure is for. It’s heavy work.

I  invite you to divide your work into small pieces. First, build up your main structure, then your scene by scene. For each one, evaluate how long it will take you to write it.

I give myself a week or two to do so.

4. Write

As I’m a lazy writer, I have small achievable targets. If they are too big, I get overwhelmed.

Some people like setting targets in terms of word count (500 words to 2000 words a day). Personally, I set my targets in terms of time I have available to write. I don’t bother with how many words I put on the page, as long as I write something.

How do I kick-start each writing session? I tell myself: ‘Let’s write for five minutes’.

Five minutes is not scary, right? So I go for it.

Consequently, I never write for five minutes. It’s always between 30 minutes and two hours. However, if I had said to myself ‘let’s write for half an hour’, I would have scared myself too much and find excuses not to write.

So put some music on, create a space for your creativity and just write.

Studies have shown that writing reduces stress faster than walking. So take it as a relaxing time for yourself.

A deadline of 2-4 months to write your first draft seems reasonable.

Please don’t expect to be brilliant on your first draft. It won’t be.

Hemingway said: ‘The first draft of anything is shit.’

That’s a good reason not to worry about it. You can relax your shoulders and enjoy the process. Have a blast! 

‘The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.’ Julia Cameron

I find it reassuring actually. It allows you to be bad writer and to make mistakes. It’s easier to write a bad prose than good one. Aim for excellence at the re-writes. And that’s another story…

Good luck!

It’s Time To Shine Your Light

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Photo by Colin Behrens @ Pixabay

I have never liked January and its New Year resolutions time.  I don’t see the point. Each year is what you DAILY make it… for 365 days.

Many times, I saw people making plans and giving them up after a few weeks…

‘Man makes plans… and God laughs’ wrote the Author and Screenwriter Michael Chabon.

Why do we expect so much from ourselves?

Is it to justify our presence on Earth?

Answers are often found in Nature

I often find answers in Nature.

I love observing Nature around me, trees especially. In shamanism, they are called ‘The Plant people and the Standing People’.

Trees grow tall and strong knowing their purpose. They don’t ask themselves ‘What should I do with my life?’

They just are. They exist and make the world better (by providing oxygen for instance).

Us, the human kind, we have a brain and a heart. With these gifts, we should know what to do. Yet, we probably are the only species on Earth wondering what our purpose is.

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

Life is Chaos

Life is chaos.

I know what I’m talking about. Within two years, I lost my home, my beloved country, some close friends, my dignity, and my husband.  None of these events were planned or thought. None of these things were part of my ‘plan’. They just happened to me.

Yes, life is chaos and any form of co-creation (coming from the heart) is a way to express or explain this chaos.  

When you lose it all, you see everything clearly.

First you see who are ‘your allies’, to quote my dear friend and mentor Lucy V. Hay (Bang2Write).  The allies are the ones who pick you up when you fall but also help you to fight back. ‘You can’t do without them’, she says. She is right. As always.

My other Friend and mentor, Kary Oberbrunner, wrote it in his life-changing book Unhackable that there are three types of people:

The Consumer, the critic, the creator.

The consumer consumes, probably to feed their emptiness with stuff.

The critic critics. Spotting the mistakes in others reassures them.

And Creators create. To me, this type is never reassured. They try, they test, and stumble often but they know their purpose. When creators let go of expectations, they become unrestricted and inspiring.

Simplicity

When you hit rock bottom, your needs become simple: food, shelter and love.

If you have those three things in your life, it’s a blessing. Millions of people on Earth do not have that.

When you fall, you realised that friends and family are what count in life.

On your death bed, the number of zeros on your bank account or your job title will do nothing for you. People make the difference.

People you love are the ones who are going to make your life meaningful.

Pilot Light Writing

That’s why I have changed the name of my website. It used to be called Inside the Writers Bubble but I felt quite lonely inside my bubble.

My friend and Shaman Catherine Maguire (https://www.inlightenment.it/) said to me,’ your gift is to light other people’s light, you’re a pilot light’. From there, another dear friend – the author Sally Bibb and my brother-in-law – Daniel helped me to put the pieces together.

And that’s how Pilot Light Writing is born.

We can’t do it on our own.

I am not interested in consuming or criticising.

I’m interested in bringing love into everything I do, so I can help other people who love what they do, to shine too.

We can’t get rid of the darkness or the shadow in this world. We can only bring light inside it.

So be shiny my friend. x

This post is dedicated in loving memory of my late husband, who will be missed forever.

Candle Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

It’s Not You Who Choose the Book, it’s the Book that chooses you

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Photo montage by Daniel Gardiner

Dot 1: Books are Magical Things

It’s not you who choose a book, it’s the book that chooses you.

Have you ever come across a book that matches exactly how you felt? Or answered a question that you had in mind? Or simply felt a sudden urge to read a book?

When I was a kid, I was a lone child with no friends. My parents thought that boredom would be good for me, that it would stimulate my imagination. My options being limited, I decided to live there. In my imagination.

At school, my parents were often called by the headteacher: ‘Your daughter seems to be living with the fairies’. That fact seemed to upset everyone around me. I didn’t see where the problem was. The fairies were far nicer than my peers who often welcomed me by a ‘hey midget, did you have a fight with a mosquito last night?’ (referring to my spotty face).

At home, there was no books. My parents were too busy working, no time for reading so therefore no books.

Once, I hid in the attic of my grandma’s countryside house, among the spiders. There, I discovered a treasure: Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming (my uncle’s books).  These books were old, smelled of naphthalene and humidity and I loved it. That’s how I became a bookworm.

Dot 2: When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

At 11, I had a new french Teacher, Madame B.  (I send her many blessings wherever she is). She asked the headmaster to make a library out of the built-in wardrobe in her class-which was granted.

One day, she called me and asked me to choose one book out of her ‘Narnia’ wardrobe.  

I didn’t know what to choose, it was all a bit overwhelming.  She gave me ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. I read it within hours. Every week, I came for more: Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus….

The following year, Madame B. gave feeding instructions to my next French teacher, Madame D.: ‘This girl eats books’.

Madame D. (bless you wherever you are too) took her feeding instructions very seriously and gave me ‘Le Rouge et le Noir’ (‘The Red and The Black’) by Stendhal.  It was a shock. From the first page, I couldn’t  leave the book alone.  When I finished it, I told her: ‘I’ll never be able to read another book again. This was the best one ever’.

Madame D., who was a beautiful human being, laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be silly, of course you will!’. She gave me other books to read: Flaubert,  Boris Vian, Pascal, Balzac… I did enjoy them all but not as much as ‘The Red and the Black’.  It wasn’t as… intense.

With her, however, I discovered a taste for philosophy. One day, she gave me to read Candide by Voltaire (the French equivalent of Shakespeare). Saying that I loved this book would be an understatement.

At 17, I do my Baccalauréat. My French exam is an oral where an examiner has to choose a text out of 15 books. I enter the room very nervous and wait for her to tell me the name of the book. She scrolls down her list and stops her long fingernail on a name: Candide, Voltaire.

I couldn’t believe my luck.

For 20 minutes, I couldn’t shut up. When my time was up, she said she had never met someone who knew so much about this book. She gave me the highest mark she has ever given.

I walked out of her office, feeling as tall as the Eiffel tower.

That day, I had a revelation. It wasn’t a coincidence.

All the reading moments in my life led me to that one. That book chose me, Voltaire, chose me.

Something is guiding us. The French philosopher Pascal was right.

That day, I had the confirmation about something I had suspected all my life: there is something more to life that what we are all brainwashed to believe. It’s not all about the economy.

Dot 3. People Give You Books For a Reason

2012. I’m married with two babies. They are my life, my reason to live. Yet, my bubbly self is gone. Whatever I do, I seem to go on downward spiral. A friend, who knows me well, is desperate to see me happy again. She puts a book in my hand: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

I  read it and I didn’t feel anything.

It was a bit too much for me, this ‘positive thinking/outcome’ thing. My life was dark, I couldn’t see any way out.  I gave it back to her. She tried to convince me to look deeper into it but I wasn’t having it.

Years later, I worked in a little shop in the UK. Once a customer gave me a gift: The Secret. This book again! I thanked her and told her I had already read it. But she insisted that I should read it again. I accepted it but soon after, I passed it to another friend.

2016.  Another friend gives me the same book. It couldn’t be just a coincidence. Why did it keep showing up in my life? I sat down and looked at it: ‘All right then. Show me what you’ve got’.

While I was ready to give a shot to the message of this book, something happened.  Three upsetting things came up all in the same week : The council wanted to close my husband’s business, a huge debt showed up from a gas bill, and a problem with my son at school. 

I started to panic but quickly I understood what was going on. I had decided to change my ways and I was being tested.

I had the choice. I could either react like I always did or I could try something new (and totally unfamiliar) and follow the guidance of a little book. I opted for the latter.

I won’t give you the details because it would bore you to death but within two weeks my three problems were gone and dusted.

The school admitted they had made a mistake, the debt was illegal so it got erased and my husband’s business kept going.

Needless to say, I didn’t sort everything out by myself, a lot of people helped us to make it right again but I looked for these people, I expected solutions to appear. And they appeared. All thanks to a book.

Dot 4. Life is about connecting the Dots

The book itself is irrelevant.

The last book I read was ‘Happy Money’ by Ken Honda. Before reading this book, I never thought you could put these two words together: Happy and Money.

Turned out, apparently, you can.

This book changed my perspective on money and moreover, on spending.

‘Happy Money’ was suggested to me by a friend, I followed her piece of advice and I’m glad I did.

In other words, each book carries a personal message for us. They change our perception of life and enlarge our vision. Books are Dots.

However when the book presents itself to us, we have no idea it’s a dot. It’s only looking back that you realized it was one.

As Steve jobs said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

2018. While on a train to London, I was reading a book from my mentor Lucy V. Hay. The woman in front of me was intrigued by it so we talked about it. I didn’t know it then, but this person was going to be one of my closest friend and also a strong business ally. A book, a dot, connected our paths and has changed my life.

In conclusion, I would invite you to observe the dots sent to you. Take it as a game if you wish. Try it for a week or two, just observe the dots, the messages, the people who are sent to you. And each time ask yourself: what is there for me to learn?

Let me know.

I would like to finish with a quote from Catherine Ann Jones: ‘What we read influences us as thought is a powerful thing — both positively and negatively. What food are you putting inside your mind?‘

Thank you for reading x

This post is dedicated to my dear friends and book whisperers Saskia and Sally Bibb.