Stimulate Creativity

The creative process stimulates exploration, joy, confusion and revelation. Revision in all the arts moves in rollercoaster peaks and dips. Nothing about the 'courage to create,' as Rollo May calls it, moves in a linear fashion. Most scientific and creative breakthroughs occur during the rest period after intense work.

Ideas need time to percolate. Synapses require relief from constant firing. I love discovering a spark and attracting others until the fire blooms into focus. At some point the focus requires more writing and word choices. It helps to 'dwell in possibility' (thanks Emily Dickinson). 

Play time keeps us searching and making connections. Words badger like rust that never rests. Intensity requires a rest period while the process continues its diverse ways.

In yoga we have rest poses for a reason in between those that push the mind and body. 

Upon returning to tame the words into less rambunctious behavior, we feel refreshed; brain connections rewired.

With any project that requires revision, put the pages in a drawer or save your file and turn off the computer. Get as far away as you can. 

Give yourself a break and rest or divert from the words. Push and play far away.

When you return, you'll amaze yourself.

Writing with Puppetry

 

Many writers and poets use their experience as fodder for fiction. James Frey altered the truth and called it memoir when he could not sell the manuscript as a novel. Philip Roth writes in his novel, The Counterlife,  of how family members of a writer find themselves in material they don't believe is "right."

When Michael Greenberg approached his sister about writing a memoir concerning her manic breakdown, she said, "Mikey, if you tell the truth about me, I don't want to read it."  When her brother gave her the manuscript to review, she said, "I felt I was reading about someone else named Sally who had been to hell and was the only who didn't know it.  How many people get to look at themselves in such a way?"

Before Wallace Stegner published, Crossing to Safety, he contacted family and friends to advise them of their appearance in his novel. They read drafts and did not recognize themselves so he had no worries.  

No matter what we write someone might think the I or he and she involves them or the writer's life. As writers we have the opportunity to take a peek at life's possibilities from a different place. We wonder what happens beyond the window. No one sees the same face peeking out.

A way to express your life frustrations, emotions or experience involves mixing them into characters to talk and behave for you.  Plunk individuals into the middle of your angst or ennui. It helps to move from first to third person and change the sex of the protagonist.

Create the puppet that will translate your frustrations into publishable work.

Choose a situation with a challenge.

      Define this in two characters away from the original source.  

         Put them on a train or plane.  

             Have them work through their issues. 

Notice if you discover solutions to your own challenges in unique ways.

Understanding the Inner Life

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. 

~Kurt Lewin 

Alberto Villoldo, anthropologist,. has studied the healing practices of the Amazonian and Incan shamanism for 25 years. Villoldo says, "You can only change the world by changing your inner life.”  He believes we are moving into possibility

It takes discipline and dedication to make progress in changing inner lives. 

Price Pritchett feels, "Change always comes bearing gifts."  If you made three recommendations for change in your inner life what would they include? 

Search for three gifts today. Begin by writing the ideals. You might start with: self-respect, responsibility, reciprocity.  Write into each of your chosen words to show examples of how you might accomplish them.

The birds are molting.  If only man could molt also - his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions.  

~James Allen