Energising Creative Thought

 

Here are a few practical suggestions to a question posed this week which is a significant and very real concern:

‘How to centre yourself and clear your thoughts before writing?’

• The time of day when your energy levels are high and you are rested is a good time to sit down to gather your thoughts.

• Have a plan for what you hope to achieve for that particular writing session- is it a paragraph, a chapter or some research on a new idea? I have a skeleton plan of what I would like to create in my chapters- this is done through dot points which help to structure my thoughts that I build upon as I write.

• Keep a journal on random thoughts that emerge each day.

 

• If gathering your thoughts hits a roadblock, try this exercise:

1. Look around the room you are in – what object catches your eye, write a brief description of that object using as many sensory images as you can come up with – visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile.
2. Consider why you might have been drawn to that object – Colour? Shape? Associated memory? Who was the person who might have given you the object or where and when it became yours?
3. Write a paragraph on the size, shape, colour, ownership and memory associated with the object.
4. Record your thoughts, in your phone or other recording device, by speaking about the object first,  then write them down as you hear it on your recording adding on  the ideas as you go.

• If this does not spark your creative energy, pick up a book, turn to any page and read the first line – stop – absorb – now write down what you think might happen next.

• A quiet space, undisturbed, gives voice to your thoughts to pick up the pen or tap on your keyboard, a quiet space will lead to thoughts being centred where the noise of a crowded space might distract  creative thought. This also depends on whether you can work with complete stillness, as I do, you might find a bustling coffee shop, as the protagonist, Meryl,  in my novel, Across Time and Space, does suitable to creative thought  if undisturbed by intrusive newcomers like the infamous, ‘roving professor’.

• Once you find the space that is conducive to creative thought, tune into your inner clock, establish a rhythm to clear and centre your thoughts. If this does not happen in one sitting, go back later, or the next day – persistence and consistency is the key.

The most potent muse of all is our inner child –Stephen Nachmanovitch 

Happy Writing!