Why Aren't You Writing?

Why aren’t you writing? You don’t know what to write? It doesn’t matter.

Write anyway. Place one word, any word, on the page. A single word. That’s all it takes.

That single word, whatever it is, will launch you on a journey into your creativity and beyond your imagination.

One word. That's all it takes.

Open any book to a random page, close your eyes and point.

Write that word.

What about the next word, and the word after that? And the word after that? What about sentences and paragraphs? What about a subject?

You are the subject.

I don’t mean you will be writing about yourself -- though you might be. You are the subject and your pen is sovereign. And that pen will carry you on an extraordinary journey of discovery, if you let it...writing flowingly and freely on the Muse Stream, letting the sentences unfold without your conscious mind getting in the way.

What you will experience is freedom from your mind, freedom for your story. When you write on the Muse Stream, you throw off the shackles of logic and leap into the inkwell of the unknown -- a well within which reside all the stories you could ever want to write, all the catharsis you could ever want to experience, all the emotion you could ever want to express.

It’s so simple.

Take the first word you write and, without thinking, write another. It needn’t flow logically from the first. Perhaps it’s an association -- "chair" makes you think of “table.” What does “table” remind you of?

Don’t think about it. Let the first word that comes to you, whatever it is, be the next word you write.

It doesn’t make sense? It doesn’t have to make sense. It may be better if it doesn’t.

Just let one word trigger another and then another, until something shifts - and it will -- and the flow is undammed. From there, that flow can carry you on a current of words, images and emotions. If you let it..

Why not let it? Why not write now? Why not pick a word at random from this blog post? Why write that one word and then another, and then another. Why not keep writing for 10 minutes or 20 or 30? Why not let the words take charge, propelling you forward on a journey of discovery, wonder and awe.

~ adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (LightLines Media) (c) 2008 Mark David Gerson

Photo by Mark David Gerson: the Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states