Often, as I'm writing a character, they don't do what I want them to do. They don't keep going in the direction I want them to go. It's ridiculous. I want my character to succeed in life. They've told me that they WANT things, and that they're willing to do the work, but somehow, they just... get distracted.

•

Erin wants to leave. She has to. This sharehouse was fun four years ago, but she is feeling a rising sense of desperation now. Nothing is changing. She's surrounded by friends who are happy to just coast in life, but she's feeling older, and she's feeling like she's losing her power in the world. She's beginning to feel trapped.
She searches for apartments. She Googles "rooftop pool." She grabs her sketchbook and shimmies up the tree beside the house, clambering less than gracefully onto the garage roof. There are two beachchairs and an ashtray, and she gets comfortable, and starts to draw New York City rooftops, at dusk, with pools and gardens and those cool water tanks silhouetted against the clouds.
Hours later, she holds a pretty pencil sketch of Manhattan, and some random song lyrics written down the side of the page. Tobias has appeared on the other chair, and they've finished two beers apiece. He's idly strumming his guitar.
Erin lies back and closes her eyes, feeling the breeze on her skin, listening to the rustle of the leaves, the laughs of her friends inside the house. "It's not so bad here." she thinks. "I’m enjoying my life."
Tobias cracks open another beer.

•

I'm not even kidding, this is where my characters end up, even though I'm in charge of writing their story. It's not even their fault. Erin is waiting for me to write her a better story, but with what I've given her, she'll OF COURSE choose the path she chose. And she'll do it again the next day, even though she's feeling trapped.

We're already a whole month in to a new year, and some of us may be feeling a little like Erin. How do I get going? How can I stay focussed? How can this year be one of change, growth and transformation, and not another "nothing-year"??

Here's what a storyteller would do to keep their character focussed and moving forward:

1: Want something. My character needs to WANT something. The more specific the better. It's their North Star amidst all the distractions of life.

2: Make a plan. What's the very first step to take? And then the next step? Then the next? Characters won't move if they're in a fog. Get some clarity, write some steps down.

3: Expect conflict. Without conflict in a story, nothing changes. Characters don't grow, audiences don't care, the story doesn't move forward. Writers know this, and characters try to avoid it, but the truth is, if you want anything worth anything, there will be barriers you must overcome to get there. Antagonisms that force the growth you need to get where you're going. And the writer must deliberately write these barriers in, or the story won't work. As the lead character in our own story, we can predict the conflict, and be ready for it. Would a gladiator step in to the ring and be surprised that there were battles to be fought?

4: Gather tools, skills, allies. What will a character need, in order to overcome the forecasted conflict? And where will they find this support?

5: Build habits. My character is going to need to build the habits that will keep them going. What will they do when they receive their first knock-back? We can practice these responses. For example, when I feel tired, I'll take a walk. When I feel low confidence, I think of clients who I've helped. When I catch myself doom-scrolling, I swipe the screen closed and immediately type a new note that reads "I am a character who wants ________."

6: Kickstart the story. A character will naturally choose comfort over conflict, so their writer needs to force them into a better story. And they do that by designing an inciting incident. An opportunity for change. A door that, once entered, locks behind you.

An inciting incident can generate action in two directions: a discomfort to avoid (run away), or an aspiration to attain (run towards). Psychologically, discomfort is twice as motivating as aspiration, and writers know this. Here are a some examples:

Discomfort to avoid: Set a meeting or deadline, make a promise, book an event, announce a release date. You'll now work hard to avoid the embarrassment of not being ready.

Aspiration to attain: Set an intention, create a mood board, manifest the dream, write down your destination daily, place your "north star" goal absolutely everywhere in your daily life - sticky notes, phone reminders, etc.

So, back to Erin, on the rooftop in her quiet desperation.. How do we get her moving into a better story?

•

Relaxed and beer-buzzed, Erin barely registers Tobias sliding her sketchbook off her lap. He begins to hum, and soon has a rudimentary song going. She recognises her own lyrics, paired to the same punk riff that Tobi always falls back on when he's been drinking.

"the simple life is beautiful. all i need is beer here.
the other me, the one that's free, is far away i fear.
don't tell me i need something else, I'm fine, I'll die alone,
the fireworks of life can dance across my brittle bones."

Erin opens her eyes, jolted back to reality. A single tear makes its way down her temple and into her ear. She feels a dark panic rising in her gut, fermenting the beer with waves of nausea and hopelessness. Did I really write that? Am I so far from my own self now?
Tobias stumbles over her next lyric, and begins the song again, but Erin doesn't want to hear any more of her own prophecy. She rolls away and clambers down the tree, missing the last branch to land hard on the earth. Oof. The fall at least takes the nausea away, so she stays there in the dirt, and takes a deep breath. "It's going to be okay.." she mutters to herself.
What a dumb mantra.
Marah opens the door then, arms full of plates, phone jammed between shoulder and ear. "I'm sorry, hon, I really am. We just have no more rooms. I know, I know, it's the greatest place. But until one of us leaves - which, let's be honest, will never happen - I just can't help ya. Okay, yeah, of course I'll let ya know. Okay, bye love..." She shuffles past Erin, still in the dirt at the base of the tree, and clatters the plates onto the bench table. "You okay down there hon?" She peers down at her friend with mild concern.
Erin just stares back. Eyes wide, muddy tear streaks from eye to ear. Marah squats down in front of her, offering her full attention. "Hey, Erin. How you doing?"
Erin blinks, realises she's been holding her breath, and gasps in some air. "I.. Who was that? On the the phone just then?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Oh that? Just a friend. Looking for a place, and of course wanting to be here. Who wouldn't, right?"
Erin draws another breath, this time more slowly, deeply. She realises the panic has gone from her gut, and it's replaced by something new. Something like fear and hope, mashed together.
"Marah? Give your friend my room." As soon as she says it, she feels the fear and hope explode inside her. The fireworks of life, she thinks wryly. "Take my room, Marah. I need to go."

Return to top

My first experience with coffee was on a farm in Narrogin, three hours south of Perth. I say "experience" because I'd had coffee before, but it was without context. It was a cup of hot liquid that kept me awake. It didn't mean anything, and was immediately forgotten. In Narrogin, I remember everything.

I was 16 years old, and staying in a big farm shed owned by a friend of our youth group leader. In my church days, we would go on camps during the Spring break. We'd all bundle into a minibus with our sleeping bags, Bibles and notebooks, and drive for hours to somewhere remote, and we'd just exist together for a week. Someone would bring a guitar, someone else a football. I brought a camera.

At sixteen, everything is exploding in a person. Our juvenile souls are reaching, stretching out, tendrils of naivety and curiosity testing the waters of the universe. In church camps like these, we discover our spiritual shapes, the light parts, and the darknesses in us. We feel everything. There was a girl I liked, and it was that camp where I watched her fall in love with someone else.

Each night we'd all stay up late, and in the mornings we slept in. I discovered I could wake early by not wearing socks - the chill would find its way through my sleeping bag and between my toes, and I'd have to get up.

One morning, my toes woke me at quarter to six. I pulled on some boots, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and slowly negotiated my path out of the shared sleeping quarters, treading carefully through the sea of snoring faces and haphazard limbs. There was a kitchenette area with a stovetop kettle from the dark ages, and a Tupperware container full of tea bags, and a jar of instant coffee.

Full disclosure, instant coffee hurts. It really does. If I drink it nowadays, it shoots hot needles into my skull. But back then, I had the immortality of youth on my side, so I didn't notice the pain. I just heaped two teaspoons into a mug and poured in the water, sending steam swirling up to the window, fogging the pastel sunlight that cut across the glass.

With one hand gripping my blanket-cloak at my throat, and the other holding my mug, I edged open the door and made my way to the firepit. The coal was white, but still warm, with an occasional ember flaring orange in the breeze. I sat on an eggshell green 70's kitchen chair, stared into the coals, and sipped my coffee. With each sip, my vision would defocus from the steam, and my world would contract to the space between the mug and my lips. Hot coffee, crisp air, warm blanket, watercolour hues.

I felt like a piece of paper, creased in the middle, with its edges being slid together. I was the crease, elevated high above the campfire in a sharp fold of limitless perspective. I was outside of time, on a knife edge of aloneness and clarity, and in a single breath I knew the truth about myself. And then the page flattened back out, and the steam from my breath danced with the steam from my cup, and the sunlight became solid on the salmon gums across the valley.

Eventually others arrived. The girl I liked sat across from me, eyes lidded, lost in the coals. Her hair was a mess, and I liked that she didn't care that it was a mess. She blinked then, and looked up, catching me watching her. I smiled and tipped my head slightly, and she returned my smile with a boyish grin, scrunching her eyes shut and rubbing her palm across her face. I knew then that we would always be this, and never more than this, and it was enough. I swirled the remaining liquid around my mug, and it flickered back at me a sky of dazzling pale blue.

•

These days, when I reduce coffee to the level of a basic drug, a "caffeine hit", I actually feel guilty. I feel like I'm disrespecting the experience, like the coffee is a character and I'm treating it poorly. Like an effervescent friend kept around just to make me laugh, or a relationship that exists just to avoid feeling lonely.

In story, there are characters that step in to arrest the momentum of a protagonist. A villain steps in the way of victory. A mentor steps in to realign our compass. A jester steps in to remind us to enjoy the moment. An ally tells us we're not alone. These characters are written in to a story because without them the protagonist will hurtle too far in the wrong direction. It's our tendency to stop thinking, once we believe we're on the right track. We become lazy, or heroic, or zealous, but it's all a kind of tunnel-vision until someone helps us get perspective. We need these moments of perspective.

Coffee, taken mindfully, can be an excellent character addition to our lives. As protagonists in our own stories we can define its role every time we drink it. A line in the sand. A chapter shift. A turning point. A starting point. An escape. A reprieve. A confessional. An honest moment. A clarifying moment.

And the caffeine can become a secondary thing, a bonus. Coffee draws us into mindful awareness, then caffeine kicks us out to action, with the difference being the direction in which we launch ourselves.

If you’re thinking “this isn’t really about coffee at all, it’s about mindfulness," well, you’d be right. You don't have to be a coffee drinker. This isn't about a beverage. But all of us will have things in our lives that we unconsciously treat like a drug - I do this to feel this - and if we had any power to write our own stories, we'd want to give these characters better roles, or cut them out.

For me, I'm starting with coffee. It's in my routine already, and all I need to do is remember to crease that page, and slide the edges together, and allow my perspective to lift. My first coffee is with Rach, so it plays a kind of "ally" role - reminding us both that we do life together. My second is often taken in the middle of all the hustle of my working day, and so I let it play the "mentor" role, and I take a moment to check in on my direction.

Whatever "coffee" might mean to you, my encouragement is to respect the experience, and consider what character role it could play in your day. Even the simplest thing can make an impact on a story. Sometimes, it makes such an impact you remember it thirty years later. Even if it's instant coffee.

Return to top

We all want it to be true, don't we? That one "thing" that solves all our problems, that fixes everything. Most of the world's marketing tells us it exists: "it's so easy! Just buy this product, and your problems are over!" But when we buy the product, somehow we're still in the same place, with the same problems. The thing didn't live up to its promise...

A few years ago, Rach and I had lunch with our accountant, Hau (pronounced "how," just to save your brain for the remainder of this article.) Hau is an incredibly generous, powerful and humble soul, who has taken care of me ever since we studied business and accounting together. In those classes, he was the A-grade student who would have his head down, scribbling furiously and soaking in all the information, while I was the art-brained student, clearly on the wrong career path, staring out the window and falling asleep on the desk.

I don't even know how we became friends, but decades later here we are - meeting over lunch to talk about family, love, tax and cryptocurrency.

On our way in, Rach and I were not doing well. We were shattered, heart-sore and bank-account-sore. We were in the middle of a project that demanded all our time and all our savings, so each day was a battle to stay above the chaos. Our project was epic - the destination was so exciting - but some days, the journey really hurt.

So we drove in silence. We took some deep breaths and sometimes reached for each other's hand. I couldn't get my words right, and there was a lump in my throat.

The restaurant was in the Crown complex, so we headed to the free parking area and started walking. In a few minutes we were surrounded by shiny lights, glass towers, theatres and bars. The casino was pumping. As we passed the entry, each gripping the other's hand a little too tightly, I imagined just swinging in to the roulette table. "Five minutes," I'd tell Rach, and then I'd bet the car, or something, and win big, and walk out with a cool million in cash, and then finally be able to buy Hau lunch instead of the other way round.

Hau meets us with laughs and hugs, shaking his head at everything that's going on in his life. "Eat! Eat!" he tells us, "what are we just sitting here for?" And we head to the buffet. I'm still deciding which kind of rice should accompany my first scoop of curry and Hau swings past with a plate full of vegetables and greens and something that looks like salmon crossed with a dumpling crossed with a cucumber. "Come on Nathan! Fill your plate man!"

I'm still thinking about the casino. How great life would be if we just won a bazillion dollers. How much of the chaos could be removed.

•

In ancient Greek and Roman drama, there was a cheap practice that playwrights often employed to resolve the chaotic plot lines in their stories. When everything got too messy, instead of working the characters through conflict, growth and change, the writers would simply have one of their many gods turn up to solve everything.

Literally, two minutes before the end of the play, an actor playing a god would appear, suspended by a crane over the stage, and they would fix everything.

In Latin, this was called “deus ex machina.”

God, from a machine.

We use the same phrase today in storytelling, to describe random acts or events that save everything, that come out of nowhere and just fix all the chaos and resolve all the conflict. It’s the weakest way to resolve a plot, and the audience feels it instinctively: all this conflict was built up, ready for some powerful story-moments, and then, poof! Any sense of meaning turns to disappointment, eye-rolling, frustration and betrayal.

All that aside, I’d still be up for a super-improbable event to solve all my problems. Maybe a rich relative could leave me a mansion?

•

Hau is talking about crypto now. There was a big crash in the market recently, and many investors were left with nothing. Hau said that those who lost everything were the ones who put all their hopes in the one magical crypto stock that they hoped would take them to the moon. They stopped trying, growing, learning, he said, and instead they just waited.

I ask what stops him from becoming like them - content to just wait for the big rescue. He pauses to think, and then tells us that every morning when he wakes, he signs the cross, and gives thanks for his breath, his health, the sunlight on his face, the children in his household. He doesn’t demand or expect a magical rescuer. He just gets into the work, and remains thankful for any provision that comes his way.

I look over his shoulder to the flashing lights of the keno machines, and give a little sigh.

As we walked back across the parking lot, nothing had been solved. Hau didn’t fix us, we didn’t win a million dollars, and we were already late for our next thing. But, Hau did give us a "next step," which had us excitedly talking about the work. We were either very foolish or very courageous, but we weren't afraid to get back into the work, to keep going in the conflict.

•

"Deus ex machina" is so attractive - even the thought of a lucrative win is enough to flood our brains with dopamine - but the reality is that a meaningful story needs more than an easy win or a quick fix - it resolves through highs and lows, conflict and growth, allies and villains and memorable moments and character transformation.

We are all capable of bringing our own order into the chaos, and we're not going to wait for someone else somewhere else to solve everything for us.

And if a deus ex machina moment does happen to occur? Well, it's going to have to keep up, because we've got work to do.

Return to top