From Mysteries to Creativity
Mysteries unveil as you find your footing as a writer. This starts with exploring your curiosities and obsessions, understanding your inner world so you can begin writing fueled by what affects you emotionally. Many people find it helpful to start with the task of what we call free writing. One does this by prearrangement, preferably at a set time. This helps us to get in touch with our inner self, build the habit of writing on demand and find our voice. Jack Grapes who teaches “Method Writing” in LA calls it writing like you talk. This, he believes, helps you to find and develop your deep voice. This voice is entirely personal but also evokes emotion and makes the story interesting.
Turning Mysteries into Process
Interestingly, the father of psychology, Sigmund Freud himself, was interested in writing as a process of discovery, and read Ludwig Borne’s guide How to Become an Original Writer in Three Days. In that essay Borne urges the writer to cultivate solitude, to listen to our inner voice and to teach others “what his heart has taught him”. Here are the instructions he gave:
Take a stack of paper and write. Write everything that goes through your mind for three consecutive days with neither hesitation nor hypocrisy. Write down what you think of yourself, what you think of your wife… of your superiors. At the end of the three days you will scarcely be able to believe what new, unheard-of thoughts have come to you. And that, my friends, is how to become an original writer in just three days!
Free Association
Nancy Andreasen, who studied neuroscience, connected free association writing to episodic memory. That is personal events that not only bring up flashes of personal experiences but also, mysteriously, our unexpressed personal imaginary material that is less consciously available to us. Relaxation, or just letting our minds wander, can stimulate what she called “free-floating creative thought,” engaging a complex network of the brain that is integral to the creative process. When we become absorbed in the creative act, giving it our intense focus and attention, we can also start to engage a highly creative state.
While the roots of inspiration are thought by many to be wrought with mysteries, it is not unusual for a story to as seem as if it has just spring forth from out of “nowhere”. What we find is that inspiration is usually followed by a period of intensive thinking, working out the idea. My experience and research show it is perspiration, or concentrating on the problem, that leads to inspiration.
Unraveling Mysteries into Story Elements
Sigmund Freud attributed the birth of a creative work to “the human desire to alter the existing and often unsatisfactory or unpleasant world of reality” through what he called “wish fulfillment.” This impulse can be traced back to childhood play, what Freud calls daydreams that morph into adult phantasies that can be viewed as products of the creative imagination. Freud astutely found that writers create of a hero-protagonist. One with whom they (and their readers!) empathize who is subjected to trials and tribulations before the story resolves. Eventually the protagonist prevails and is transformed due to what Freud called “the protection of a special Providence”.
This is, of course, classic story structure, linked to egocentric stories that he believed bear a resemblance to daydreaming. In that sense, the creative writer and the reader become daydreamers. The reward that this provides is what he called “the liberation of tension in our minds”. Part of what we are doing in this process is giving ourselves permission to engage in fantasy. This is another way of saying the free play of the creative imagination. But ultimately, we are also training ourselves to find and listen to our inner voice. We do this with the goal of expressing ourselves in creative writing.
Free Writing
It helps to start with free writing in order to build the foundation for cultivating this highly creative state in order to build your writing and creative resources. The unconscious is your creative partner that helps you to tap into memory, emotion, and incidents. These aspects lead to inspiring what if’s, characters and situations stored in your depths. Free writing is also a helpful habit to continue even once you begin writing your story. The journaling can also serve to vent any negative emotions that might impede your creative work and as a source of guidance.
Prolific mystery writer Sue Grafton says she regularly uses free writing strategies. In the book Why We Write, Meredith Maran interviewed Grafton, who described her journal as a place “to verbalize my challenges as I meet them and to weigh all my options”. Once you begin and really steep yourselves in your project, you will also see how inspiration can emerge like a flash from seemingly out of nowhere, beyond the pages of your journal, often when you are walking alone, perhaps in nature, after having spent much time working on the project. Free writing keeps you in the flow, so you can get these flashes and insights. You can also free write and journal on the journey of writing your story.
Inspiration
When we are seeking answers and creative inspiration, it is sometimes important to take breaks and move away from your desk. If you’ve immersed yourself in the process, the work continues on the back burner. Oftentimes, when we take a break from the work, what we find is that the creative unconscious has been working on the project and will give us the answers. You may get an answer in your dreams.
Haruki Murakami, the Japanese novelist had some interesting things to say about the creative process. He said his idea for Killing Commendatore, just came to him from out of the depth of my mind somewhere. All of a sudden, he said, “I wanted to write the first one or two paragraphs. I had no idea what was going to happen next”. Then he put it away and one day, he got the feeling he could write the book. He started to write and just kept writing.
His advice is to have confidence, and trust that you will get an idea. In the meantime, we journal and daydream.
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