Thank you to all the actors, directors, producers, and designers who raised me in showbiz, on- and offstage, and provided me with most of the raw material and methods that have allowed me to earn my crust spinning yarns for almost thirty years.
Thank you to all my students and colleagues who’ve attended my workshops and helped me discover and distill the techniques presented in these pages.
Thank you to Emily Jordan, who gets my weirdest jokes and calls me on every scintilla of my BS, making me a better writer, a better person thereby.
Thank you to Ruth Casie, for the savvy suggestions, impeccable insight, and constant encouragement.
Thank you to Lyla Bellatas, for sprinkling magic and mayhem over the manuscript, as she does.
Thank you to Mary Calmes, for her open heart, ruthless eye, and uncanny sense of the precise solution to most any problem.
Thank you to Lynn West, who helped at all hours of the day and night to make this book clearer than seemed possible and better than I’d imagined.
Thank you, thank you to Geoff Symon, my amazing husband who keeps me sane, safe, and sated no matter how weird the weather gets. I’ll just keep trying to deserve you.
And thank you to you, dear reader, for spending time with me studying ways to verbalize your stories. I believe that books are the single greatest thing on the planet; they beat back darkness and doubt and pull us toward possibility. Anyone who loves books and makes books better helps us all stand in the light.
Any mistakes, delusions, or offenses are mine. My gratitude is oceanic.