A week ago, six intrepid writers braved a nor’easter to come and write with me. As each one bent over a keyboard or notebook, it took little time for their bodies to relax and the writing mind to be transported into their writing. Not for the first time, I marveled at the capacity to enter the realm of creativity. So often I am asked by writers, “How does one begin? How do I find what I want to write?” In answer, I give the advice I was given many times: Take What Comes.
When I offer this wisdom, I frequently get a puzzled look in return, and that’s no surprise. Most of us are accustomed to being directed in our creative endeavors. We are given assignments, or very detailed directions on subject, genre, or craft. These entry points into writing access the intellect, which is the puzzle-solving part of the mind. It is also the part of us that wants to get a good grade and/or please the one delivering the writing task. This process fosters the inner critic, the one that says, “Don’t write that!” Or “That’s not the way to do it!”
What most of us creative types need, however, is not direction, but spark. And that spark exists infinitely inside of us. Recognizing and accepting the spark opens access to all the stories, poems, memoirs, and essays we already have within. The first step is to let the mind go where it wants to, not resist what shows up, no matter how unexpected, strange, or familiar. What comes is what wants to be written. And if it isn’t attended to, it will continue to haunt or impede, leaving a writer with a form of writer’s block. Giving voice to what arrives is allowing the conscious and the unconscious to converse. The first thing that arrives may or may not be where the writing continues to go, but it is the catalyst that begins the flow of images and ideas. This is where the original voice lives and where metaphor, character, and lyricism are born. This is where trust is built between the writer’s will and the writer’s freedom.
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