Free Your Characters. Free Your Story.

“God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. ...”

Your act of creation is like God’s in Genesis, an act of allowance, of letting...of surrender. Surrender to the story that calls to be written, surrender to how it calls to be written, surrender to the lives your characters choose to live. For, if you’re writing fiction, those lives are your story.

Just as the Creator in most religious and spiritual traditions allows you the free will to live your imperative and forge your story through the living of it, your call is to allow the beings who leap from your heart, mind and vision the same freedom. Gently guide when necessary, but allow them -- and yourself -- to experience their story as it writes itself onto the page.

Your job as creator is to let your characters and their story emerge from the formless void and to breathe life into them so that they -- and you -- can experience all they have come onto your page to live.

Let there be light...and there will be.

Where are you allowing your characters free will and where are you forcing your will on them? Where are you allowing your story to take shape and where are you insisting on taking control?

What works in your creative life also works in your daily life. Where are you trusting that your life story knows best? Where are you insisting that you're smarter than your story?

• Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (LightLines Media, 2008). Click here for additional excerpts and purchase information.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Bald Eagle State Park, Centre County, Pennsylvania