Creativity and The Writer’s Habits
If you are wondering about being a writer, or you’re asking the question – hey, is this really for me? The answer is most likely – No! Stop reading if you agree, make a cup of tea, rethink your career. If you’re still reading, that’s a good thing. And speaking of reading, do you find yourself wondering – yeah but, will I have to read much? I like writing I’m just too busy to read. I can assure you that you’ll be doing a hell of a lot of reading and analysing other authors for their craft and command of their prose.
This may seem obvious, but I came across a forum once where this question was asked and I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes. I believe this partly comes from our instant-gratification-demands but, I’ll return to that shortly. First, the habits.
For me, writing is a compulsion, an urge akin to stretching in the morning. Its habitual, whether or not one makes a professional career doing it is down to the grit and persistence one puts into their profession – but the writing itself, if you’re a writer, is a breeze. A writer is never going to stop writing, regardless of the quality of their craft (sometimes that’s a mixed bag of bad, ok and great).
PART 1 –Tapping into The Unconscious Mind – 10 Good Tips
There’s an idea in writing that the unconscious mind is the source of inspiration. There doesn’t need to be a lot of arguments put forth to dispute that. In our daily routine, when we’re ironing or pinching a loaf, we might happen across a sudden inspirational moment as our mind drifts and riffles through its multitude of synaptic sparks. In that moment, keep the thought and make a note of it. I used to do this in school, mainly to stop my brain from dying (remember kids, schooling is 70% discipline, education is your responsibility! Be smart and own it! The future needs you.)
Dream diaries are a good idea. I would recommend this to anybody anyway, simply as a fun thing to do to keep your memory healthy. Sometimes it spawns great ideas that you’ll come back to and build upon regarding scenes and stories. Time and freedom are wonderful gifts. Learn to seek them out, especially if you’re a busy person. Analyse your schedule and find those gaps to read, write and let your mind wonder. Our imagination is limitless – but it’s also heavily influenced by media. How many tabs do you have open? If you’re anything like me your browser is complaining and buffering constantly. We are overloaded – never has humanity been so exposed to multi-media and mass amounts of information. The brain is cooked with it.
- ALSO – an important tip, learn to pull away from your computer. A lot of studies show that information overload and screen-time is detrimental for creativity and daydreaming. Make time for it and protect your mind.
Where and when have you room to now be imaginative? Where’s the space for inspiration to emerge spontaneously? Ever heard of Einstein’s Golden Year? In 1905, a twenty-six year old Einstein was working at a patenting office and was able to complete the main duties of his responsibilities and workload in a short amount of time. This opened up the rest of his workday to pretend to be busy while he was in fact busy daydreaming and asking questions about gravity and such.
Daydreaming is absolutely essential to creativity. Don’t let anybody knock it out of you! This is the absolute kernel at the centre of imagination – testing what we know and playing with it.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains how the mind forges new ideas by bending, breaking or blending existing ideas. Tapping into unconscious habits of doing this needs to be somewhat trained and a dream diary is one aspect of that. (How often have you woke with a profound thought that you believed at the time was some deep insight, only to then realise it has slipped away less than a minute later because you stubbornly told yourself you wouldn’t forget such profound thing and didn’t write it down? – Just me? Hopefully not). Nevertheless, writing it down taps into that unconscious aspect.
A good way of clearing the mind or training it for inspiration is to take long walks in the forest of local green lands. Hop on a bus or train and make sure your phone is off. Look out the window. Observe interactions with people – eavesdrop a conversation. Understand your surroundings and the people within it, it’s great for building characters and getting a sense of authentic interractions.
In Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer, believes a writer falls into a very light state of hypnosis when ‘fusing and welding’ their vision into an integrated work. Her recommendations are to hold something tangible, like a ball, focus on the object as a refined word in order to silence the chattering conscious mind.
That’s fine if it works for you. Personally, I meditate. Not a lot, 30 minutes to an hour two-to-three times a week. Honestly, you’ll only need 10-15 minutes and it is a great start! It helps and it resets the clutter. There’s a lot of guided meditation apps apparently, though I prefer an old-school approach of meditating to the sounds of Tibetan Water Bowls.
Alternatively you can try Stephen King’s substance stimulation approach. Writing a cocaine fueled alcohol induced desk-bound type-a-thon is one way to do it, but neither I, nor I believe Stephen King would fully recommend it. It doesn’t yield best results and although a touch of spirits and a line of blow can be inspirational in the short-term, it’s no way to set the foundations of your career if you want to build on it. (To be clear – again, this is somewhat personal to the writer and depends on who you are so, we’re not in church here folks, I’m not judging if it works for you and I’m guilty of these occasional habits as well.)
However, here’s what Stephen King himself had to say about it:
Tommyknockers is a forties-style science fiction tale in which the writer-heroine discovers and alien space-craft buried in the ground. The crew is still on-board(…) hibernating. These alien creatures got into your head(…) What you got was the energy and kind of superficial intelligence (the writer, Bobbi Anderson, creates a telepathic type-writer and an atomic hot-water heater, among other things). What you gave up in exchange was your soul. I think it was the best metaphor for drugs and alcohol my tired, over-stressed mind could come up with. (King, On Writing, A Memoir of The Craft.)
It’s a slippery slope that can get you into trouble fast, so if you’re going to try going all gonzo, take heed. Also, if you haven’t read King’s memoir I suggest you get a copy and get to it. It’s a wonderful read which is charming, delightfully amusing and insightful educational for would-be writers.
Creative Writing guru, Natalie Goldburg states: Wild Mind:
Let yourself live in something that is already rightfully yours – your own wild mind…this is all about loss of control. Can you do this? Lost control and let the wild mind take over? It is the best way to write. (Goldburg, Wild Mind.)
I can’t help but think of that scene from The Sixth Sense where Cole is asked to do an automatic writing exercise in order to examin the state of his unconscious mind. What comes out, of course, is the violent whispers of ghosts, negative, abusive and hostile words and other such things that make the scene undeniably creepy.
Well, fear not the words dear writer. Doesn’t matter what comes out – the process is all about warming up the synpases. Be free, daring and unmitigated. And if your feel shameful about your post-automatic-writing exercise you can always toss it in the bin or burn it. Nobody’s judging.
So, to recap tapping into the unconscious mind –
- Read some fiction and stick to it!
- Educate yourself – be curious about facts and questions
- Daydream – record your dreams, fold your screens!
- Ideas – bending, blending and breaking.
- Walks, buses, trains
- Don’t find time for something – Make time for it!
- Meditation – I am promoting healthy mind
- Stimulation – I’m not selling drugs!
- Free-flowing stream-of-consciousness or automatic-writing exercise.
- Grit – sticking to your goal and being stubborn about it!
This last one, number 10) brings us back round to our drives and desire. Patience and persistence is key to these initial habits. We are a culture of consumer access and it has engendered a behaviour of instant gratification. Actually, without getting too liberal-arts and sanctimonious, a number of studies regarding mental health are symptomatic of a consumer society that is so pervasive it affects even our dreams and suppresses our imagination. I can remember a personal account of this when I was working in a bean factory. I was on a twelve-hour shift and somebody handed me a spoon and stationed me above a vibrating conveyor belt of jumping, steaming, cooked beans. My job was to scoop out the odd, black, roasted bean, it was thirty-minutes on, thirty-minutes off. I used to read during my half-hour break and try to stay awake during my half-hour bean scooping. After my work, I would go to bed exhausted and dream of bouncing beans. I could see them just shutting my eyes.
So – we have to push through the mire and find that Golden Egg laying Goose. Most people give up if results don’t come in the first ten seconds. What makes or breaks a person depends on their grit and persistence. So give it some spunk and try out these habits.
In Part 2, I’ll discuss utilising the conscious mind. Not obvious, in fact what that really means. But don’t hurt your head dwelling on that circular tit-bit, instead, here’s a writer’s exercise for you:
Finish The Following Story: –
Behind the old door was a tree stump, an axe wedged handle up in the air.
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