Mark David Gerson

Read to Write, Read to Live

2012-01-26T23:11:00.002-07:00

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
~ Confucious

There are (at least) three reasons why it's important for a writer to read.

1) The reason set out by Confucious.

Reading expands us as human beings, as conscious beings and as writers.

Writing is most often a solitary act, one that can pull us out of the maelstrom of daily living and into a monastic place of creative retreat. Whether or not we're in the midst of a writing project, it's important to be part of the shared world of creation and imagination inhabited by fellow artists.

Read, listen to music, view art. You'll learn more about the human enterprise and about yourself from those sources than from all the newspapers and magazines on the planet.

It doesn't matter what you read (or view or listen to). Whether you read in your genre or another, you'll connect with the heart of creation and the Creator of heart and art.

2) Craft.

Once again, genre doesn't matter. Depth of topic doesn't matter. What does matter is that you read good writing by accomplished writers.

Osmosis is one of the most powerful learning tools available to the human heart and mind. When we read good writing, we absorb the author's craft and technique. We sense at a deep level what works and what doesn't. Without having to know or understand how or why, without needing to analyze or parse, the power of the words we're reading finds its way into our writing.

You won't be copying. You'll be absorbing, filtering and adapting. You'll be learning -- in the easiest and most fun way imaginable: by doing nothing other than enjoying another's words.

3) Blatant self-interest.

Do you want to be read? Do you want your words to find an audience? If you as a writer aren't reading, what sort of example are you setting for your readers?

The creative/literary community isn't a one-way delivery system. It's a bustling marketplace of ideas and concepts where readers not only learn and grow from writers, but where writers learn and grow from readers and from each other. If we write, in part, to be heard, then we must also be prepared to listen.

Again, genre and subject are less important than engagement, than opening a book -- any book -- and surrendering to the words and imaginings of a fellow artist.

Right now I'm reading Mentor: A Memoir, Tom Grimes's eloquent recounting of his friendship and professional relationship with Frank Conroy-- reading for pleasure, learning with pleasure and engaging in the world of words.

What are you reading now? Why is reading important to you? What books have you read this month? What books are you looking forward to reading? Share them here if you choose or on an online readers' communities (Shelfari, Goodreads, etc.). Or find like-minded readers in a book club.

If you're not reading, visit your local bookstore or public library and discover the words and worlds that are waiting for you on its shelves. Or start with some of the authors whose links you'll find on this blog.

And if the world of storytellers and storytelling is important to you -- as both writer a reader -- discover what life would be like if it vanished, in my novel, The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy.

Whatever you do, step beyond the walls of your creative enterprise and engage!

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The Magic of the Open Road: In Creativity & Life

2012-01-10T10:10:00.002-07:00

In the following exchange with another writer in a screenwriting group on Facebook, I spell out why I believe that control is anathema to the creative process -- in both writing and life.

It's ironic that my Facebook colleague uses the "unmapped drive" example to criticize what he terms the wastefulness of unplanned writing. Going for a random, unplanned drive is the same example I have long used in my workshops and coaching sessions to celebrate the magic of discovery. It's also the basis for what I call "writing on the Muse Stream," which I explore in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Other Writer: The problem I think a lot of screenwriters have is not being able to nail down exactly what your ending is before starting. That would be like getting in the car for a weekend getaway and not having any idea where it is you're going... just driving... aimlessly, wasting a whole hell of a lot of gas. This is where the idea of mapping comes in... if you know where you're going, you'll get there, and usually in the most direct line.

MDG: I'm glad you used the analogy of going for a drive without a fixed destination in mind, because that's precisely how I like to go for drives. It's much more fun to get in the car, start it up and see where it will take me. Nearly always, it takes me to a place I never could have imagined going, along a route I never would have thought of taking.

As it turns out, it's also how I write and live my life. It can be scary sometimes. It can certainly feel out of control. But those are the places where magic resides and miracles thrive. And what's life and creativity if not a magical, miraculous journey of wonder and surprise?

To go back to your "out for a drive" analogy: When I write, I sit in the passenger seat of the experience; the story is in the driver's seat. The story is in the driver's seat because it's its own entity, if you will, one that knows its direction and imperative far better than I ever could. And if I let it take charge, it will introduce me to characters and situations my controlling mind would never have thought up.

As for my life, if I had set a fixed destination and mapped out the journey, I would never have written two award-winning books and three optioned screenplays (in fact, it's unlikely I ever would have been a writer), I probably would not be living in the U.S. (I'm Canadian), and I doubt that I would be a parent...just to name three pretty amazing life-altering experiences.

Just like the greatest bulk of an iceberg, my deepest desires and greatest stories often lie largely hidden in the ocean of my unconscious mind. The only way I know to access them is through those leaps of faith that keep my controlling mind out of the process.

In the end, my directions in writing and life are neither aimless nor energy-wasting. They're simply guided by a wiser part of myself that knows the destination and the way to reach it better than the limits of my conscious mind, as powerful and wonderful as it is, ever could. That's my GPS.

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Photo credits: Car, Hub Garage; iceberg, Results Driven Business Coaching

The Best to You in 2012

2012-01-01T10:33:00.002-07:00

May your New Year be blessed with the eyes to see, the heart to feel and the mind to open to the miracles, wonder and love always present for you in every moment.

Let 2012 be the year you access, acknowledge and express the passion that ignites your soul. Happy New Year!

An Author's Life

2012-01-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is an updated version of an interview that originally appeared on Jean Vallesteros's Book Nerd blog. Read the original and related material here.

Book Nerd: What inspired you to pen your first novel? Where did you get your ideas for The MoonQuest?

Mark David Gerson: I have written a blog post, “The Birth of a Book,” that covers that story. In short, though, I had no plans to write a MoonQuest, nor did I have a conscious desire to write a fantasy novel, let alone a trilogy. The MoonQuest birthed itself during a Toronto writing workshop I was facilitating when, in an unprecedented in-the-moment inspiration, I did the same exercise I had presented to participants. What I wrote that evening became the opening scene of the first draft of a novel I knew nothing about. From there, I just kept writing, discovering the story as I went along, until I was done. The StarQuest and SunQuest stories emerged similarly.

BN: What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?

MDG: An open heart and mind and a willingness to surrender to your story and travel wherever it takes you (and to break all the rules getting there).

BN: How long have you been writing?

MDG: Perhaps the better question would be, "How long did I resist writing?" I often joke that my Muse tricked me into writing, given that for most of my early life, I resisted anything remotely creative. My first jobs out of university were in public relations, where I had to write, even if what I wrote at first was largely formulaic. However, that experience gave me the confidence to try my hand at freelance work and, before I knew it, I was a full-time (self-taught) freelance writer and editor, doing mostly magazine, newspaper, corporate and government work. However, it wasn’t until my early 30s, when the double-whammy of a creative and spiritual awakening knocked me over the head that I began to explore more creative avenues. And it wasn’t until I was 39 that The MoonQuest, my first foray into serious creative writing, began to have its way with me. I’ve been hooked ever since.

BN: What is The MoonQuest about?

MDG: Imagine a land where storytelling is banned, where storytellers have been put to death, where dreams and visions are outlawed, where imagination has been stripped from the land and its people. This is the Q’ntana of The MoonQuest, a land where, as Toshar, the main character, puts it, "'once upon a time' is a forbidden phrase and fact is the only legal tender." In this land, legend has it, the moon has been so saddened by the silence and tyranny that she has cried tears that have extinguished her light. As a result, the moon has not been seen for many generations. The MoonQuest, then, is the journey undertaken by a reluctant Toshar and his three companions to restore story and vision to the land and to rekindle the light of the moon. Check out the book trailer on YouTube.

BN: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Did you learn anything from writing The MoonQuest and what was it?

MDG: When I begin a project, I rarely know the story in advance. When I began The MoonQuest, for example, I knew nothing about it, except what emerged in each day’s writing. I didn’t have a title until about halfway through and I had no idea of the ending until about two-thirds of the way through. It was an experience in surrender: in surrendering unconditional control to my Muse and to the story. And it was tough! It was tough to keep writing with no plot, no outline and not even the remotest clue where the story was taking me. But it taught me how to get out of the way and let the story have its way with me. That’s still how I write — regardless of the form, genre or project. I now do it with much less resistance than I did it on The MoonQuest. But it’s still, sometimes, the most challenging aspect of the work...even as it’s also the most exhilarating and is, for me, the key to the magic!

BN: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

MDG: I’d probably have to say Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time. I didn’t discover A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels until I was an adult, when I also discovered, through her nonfiction writings, L’Engle’s deep spirituality, one that informed her creativity and her life. While L’Engle’s spirituality found its expression through the Episcopal Church and mine is largely unstructured, she was a profound influence on my writing and my life. In a sense, she already was a mentor without me knowing it. Now, if she were still alive, I’d like to thank her for that.

BN: What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

MDG: For the most part, I don’t believe in fixed routines. Rather, I operate intuitively — in my writing and in my life. I’m not one of those people who writes at the same time every day or who believes that you should sit down to write regardless of how you feel. While other coaches and instructors recommend applying a regular routine to creative production, that method never works for me for very long. Rather, I remain as in-the-moment as I can and follow wherever the inspiration leads me — in my life as well as in my writing. That way of living and writing is both exhilarating and, at times, terrifying. But it does keep things in an organic balance!

BN: What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating The MoonQuest?

MDG: Three things, I suppose. The first was that I was actually creative. The second, that the methods I had been teaching (what I call "writing on the Muse Stream": writing nonstop, without thinking, without worrying about where the story was going) actually worked on something as long as a novel. And the third, related to the second, that the story was, truly, way smarter than I was!

BN: How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

MDG: I have two books out: The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy and my book about writing, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write. And I have three books-in-progress: a memoir and The StarQuest and The SunQuest, the two sequels to The MoonQuest, which, together, form The Q’ntana Trilogy. (As well, there are the three Q’ntana screenplays, also in various stages of completion). But asking which is my favorite would be like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. Each is meaningful to me in particular ways and each is a favorite for particular reasons!

BN: What were your feelings when you first saw the cover of of your first published book?

MDG: When I opened the FedEx envelope and pulled out my advance copy of The MoonQuest, I burst into tears. I didn’t expect to have that same reaction with my second book, The Voice of the Muse....but I did!

BN: If you gave some of your characters an opportunity to speak for themselves, what would they say?

MDG: What took you so long to get our story out??!? Seriously, I spoke to my characters while writing all three books in the fantasy trilogy. It was some of those conversations that led to some of the most surprising (to me) and powerful scenes in the books.

BN: Are there any tips you would give a book club to better navigate their discussion of The MoonQuest?

MDG: I would invite readers not only to look at the book from the outside, as readers, but to look at the journey the main characters undertake in the book through the lens of their own life experience. In other words, where does The MoonQuest speak to you, personally, in your life?

BN: Who is your favorite character in The MoonQuest, and why?

MDG: I’ll answer this question as long as you don’t reveal my answer to the book’s main characters! My two favorite characters, I think, are the two quirkiest...the ones that always make me smile and sometimes make me laugh out loud: the Ferryman (he’s so minor that he has no name) and Pryma, a giant, one-eyed turtle-like creature, who makes a return appearance in The SunQuest.

BN: What was your favorite chapter to write and why?

MDG: Given that the first draft of The MoonQuest was one 400-page chapter, that one’s impossible to answer! As I mentioned earlier, I had no idea what the story was or where it was taking me, so I just kept writing, with no chapter breaks, until the first draft was done. I only added chapter and section breaks in later drafts. I did include chapter breaks in the first draft of The StarQuest and The SunQuest. Although they felt arbitrary at the time, my intuitive sensings must have been fairly accurate as most of those chapter breaks have changed.

BN: Can you see yourself in any of your characters?

MDG: Authors who claim that they don’t see aspects of themselves in all their characters are either lying, blind or woefully un-self-aware. I am in all my characters, even (I hate to admit) the nastiest! In The MoonQuest, though, the character I most identify with is Toshar, the main character whose first-person account the story is. This young man who discovers his stories and his storytelling ability through his MoonQuest journey was very much a metaphor for the creative deepening that writing the book represented for me at that time in my life.

BN: Has a review or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?

MDG: I haven’t had that experience with a review. But I have had it with reader comments. Two experiences in particular were surprising, and gratifying. In the first, a reader told me why the most difficult scenes in the book supported the story’s theme. Those were scenes that had been challenging for me to write, were often challenging for readers to read and, although I intuitively knew they belonged in the book, I couldn’t explain why. In the second instance, a reader brought up a theme that I hadn’t known was there but that made perfect sense to me once he mentioned it. Truly, my books are smarter than I am!

BN: Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

MDG: Although winning awards and getting great reviews for both books have been tremendously gratifying and validating, and although having a film producer primed to turn my books into movies is fabulously exciting, what’s most rewarding is when individual readers tell me how one or both of my books has affected them and, in some cases, changed their lives. This moving video, for example, was sent to me by one of my readers.

BN: What are your current projects?

MDG: I recently completed the first draft of Acts of Surrender, a memoir. I'm now in the midst of a fourth draft of The StarQuest book. New drafts of The StarQuest screenplay and The SunQuest book and screenplay will follow once that's done later this month. I’m also an associate producer on The MoonQuest movie project and I am beyond excited to see that move forward.

BN: If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be?

MDG: My secret ambition would be to be a singer! More realistically, I’m also an artist and photographer and would be quite happy devoting more time to those creative pursuits. You can see my art on my website and a lot of my photography on my Facebook page.

BN: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

MDG: This is for all writers, not just aspiring ones! Trust the story, even if you don’t yet know what it is. Trust your innate creativity. Take it word by word and allow your pen or the keyboard to spell out the story for you. Allow yourself to be the passenger on your creative journey, not the driver. And, of course, get a copy of The MoonQuest and The Voice of the Muse book and CD! Seriously, if you can begin to believe that your story always knows best, you’ll never go wrong.

BN: Where is your favorite place to read/write?

MDG: I’m a bit of a café freak. I love reading and writing at Starbucks (as my Facebook friends/followers have discovered)!

BN: One of your favorite quotes?

MDG: From The MoonQuest: “You either trust or you do not. There is no halfway in between.”

BN: Where can your readers stalk you?

MDG: I'm easily stalkable in all the usual places! lol

The best place to contact me is either via my website or Facebook, or by leaving comments on my blog. I’m also on Google+ . FYI: I do my best to respond to all comments and queries...but sometimes it’s just not possible. But I read and appreciate them all.

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Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

2011-12-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

This piece originally appeared in December 2008 on my now-dormant New Earth Chronicles blog.

Wednesday, December 19, 2008

I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one -- her mother? -- responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

Thirty years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books and movies broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I call The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

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Use Me

2011-12-13T23:11:00.010-07:00

I came across this piece earlier this evening as I was pulling together some material for Acts of Surrender, my memoir-in-progress. Originally posted to my now-dormant New Earth Chronicles blog in July 2007, this piece remains as relevant today as it did back then -- for me and, I trust, for you.

Sunday, July 8, 2007 ~ Sedona, Arizona

As I watch the new movie Evan Almightywith my daughter this afternoon, tears mingle with laughter at the story of the ambitious newscaster-turned-Congressman whose life is turned upside-down when God tells him to prepare for an impending flood by building an ark.

My tears come in Evan's surrender to the higher power that always knows best, the higher power that I, like Evan, have been known to resist, curse and fight.

I have never been asked to build an ark, but I have been guided along roads that seem equally bizarre and incomprehensible, in directions that others have judged or mocked.

Ultimately, though, as with Evan and his flood, the higher guidance has always proven itself wiser and more knowing than a limited human mind that is always trying to figure things out and cling to control.

As the film credits roll, I'm reminded of the song Use Me, Rickie Byars Beckwith's ardent anthem to ultimate surrender:

Use me
Oh, God
I stand for you
And here I'll abide
As you show me
All that I must do

I'm reminded, too, of author Madeleine L'Engle's description of the Old Testament as filled with bearded prophets shouting up to the heavens, "You want me to do what!?"

Evan is just such a prophet, as am I. As is each of you. For in every moment, the God Power we carry within is calling on us to do and be the impossible, to build our own version of Evan's ark, even though it makes no conventional sense, even though we don't know where to begin or who we'll be when we're done.

I wrote about the song Use Me in a November 2006 newsletter (The Choice for God), after having cried while singing it during a Sunday service at L.A.'s Agape International Spiritual Center.

Ironically, I had just recommitted to my then-unpublished novel, The MoonQuest, not realizing that this act of recommitment would result in its speedy publication -- by me! (You want me to do what!?)

My tears then as now are the tears of truth. I know that whether I stand in the vibration of that powerful lyric, in the resonance of today's movie or at one of life's many crossroads, my only choice is the highest choice, the choice that prophets through the ages -- all the way up to Evan -- have made: the choice for God.

My God is neither actor Morgan Freeman nor some force outside myself. My God is the divine within me, the highest imperative, infinite wisdom and creative intelligence that asks of me only that I surrender and allow it to use me -- to be me -- as it guides me forward.

As I prepare to leave Sedona tomorrow for parts (yet again) unknown, I recommit to that path of surrender and know that, in so doing, I walk in the path of God. And I am never alone.

And as I continue, in December 2011, to work on the Acts of Surrender memoir I have resisted so mightily, I recognize it as the latest in a long series of arks I have been asked to construct, all of which have proven their ultimate value, despite my initial doubt.

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The Life-Affirming Experience of Reading

2011-11-29T11:11:00.016-07:00

With U.S. Thanksgiving over, the holiday gift-buying season is officially underway, at least in this country. And while the ebook revolution is now irrevocably entrenched (more e-readers were likely sold in the past few days than ever before), people are stilling buying the old-fashioned paper-and-ink versions, especially as holiday gifts.

Three years ago, in the midst of the season's shopping frenzy, Sarah Bagby of Wichita's Watermark Books posted this revelation about the gift of books and the power of reading in the store newsletter.

"This week I have been reminded time and again of the experience that literature brings to life.

"You would think that in this 11th hour of holiday hubbub, shoppers would be frantic to buy whatever books remain on the shelf. But no, the readers who are giving books as gifts are very particular about the gift of language. They are calm and methodical in their quests for the perfect book, patiently listening to my staff about this storyline or that plot twist...

"So in our busiest season, I've realized just how much literature has a calming effect. We read so that we can have the life-affirming experience that reading a book brings. And that's why we give the gift of books."

• Are you still giving books as gifts? To yourself?

• What are you buying? What are you reading?

• Are you still buying hard-copy books? Or have you made the switch to ebooks? As gifts, too?

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The Myth of Writer's Block, or How to Get Writing & Keep Writing

2011-11-16T11:11:00.001-07:00

Perhaps it's the pressure-to-produce of this month's NaNoWriMo. Or maybe it's the looming holiday season (which, in this country, kicks off next week with Thanksgiving). Whatever it is, I'm hearing more and more in recent days about people experiencing writer's block.

So it seems a good time to reprint this piece, which offers practical tips and guidance for sailing through and past whatever is getting in your way and back into creative flow. (If you'd prefer a video version of this piece, click here.)

Do you have other experiences of writer's block or tips to get the other side of it? Please share them in the comments, below.

You don't have to experience writer's block. Ever.

You don't have to sweat over the blank page. You don't have to chew your pencil (or fingernails) to the nub. You don't have to wonder where the next word is coming from.

Writer's block is a myth -- not because you won't ever feel stuck but because there's no reason for you ever to stay stuck.

Do you wonder where your next breath is coming from? Unless you suffer from some sort of lung disease, you rarely think about your breath. You assume it will come and it does. One breath and then another...and then another.

It comes because you let it, because you don't get in its way, because you're not thinking about it or worrying about it.

Words can be like that, too.

If you trust in your story, in its inherent wisdom, the words always come. The words always come because they're already there. They're there because, in some sense, your story already exists.

It exists in the same invisible realm in which your dreams, visions and ideas exist. And if you believe in that existence, if you trust in that existence, if you know deep in your heart that your story is already present and smarter than you are, you will never lack the words your story needs for its expression.

By the way, I use the word "story" in its broadest sense, to encompass all that you would write -- fiction or nonfiction, novel or screenplay, short story or poem. Everything you write, everything you experience, everything you share: It's all story.

So how do you get to that place where the story's words flow as effortlessly as your breath?

By writing. By writing without stopping...without stopping for any reason that could give your critical, judgmental, doubtful, cynical or analytical selves any opportunity for input during these initial, creative stages.

I call this nonstop approach "writing on the Muse Stream" because I believe that when we surrender to our Muse, creativity pours through us as effortlessly as water in a free-flowing stream.

It's natural to want to edit as we go, to want to stop to correct spelling, punctuation or grammar or to grope for the right word.

Don't do it. If you can't think of a word, leave a blank space or write xxx. If you don't like a word you’ve written, mark it in some way and move on. Don’t stop.

"Fine words," I hear you say. "But I'm still stuck."

You may be stuck, but you're not blocked. And you certainly haven't lost your creative ability.

You can't lose something that's an innate part of you, that's an innate part of everyone. Creativity is as natural as breathing and as long as you're breathing, you can write.

Here are seven reasons why you might be feeling stuck and some ways to get unstuck.

1. Fear

Are you discovering things about yourself or your beliefs through your writing that are making you uncomfortable? Is your story carrying you into new, potentially dangerous territory?

Fear will always block us from moving forward in our writing, if we let it. The only solution is to keep writing -- through the fear. Past the fear.

Your fears -- and all your emotions -- can be the most powerful components of your writing. Don't run from them. Write them.

2. Control

When we assume that we're in charge of the story, that it has to look or sound a specific way, conform to a particular genre or format, or match a certain outcome or expectation, we're bound to get stuck.

Your story has its own imperative and its own wisdom. You override those at your peril.

Abandon control. Let your story express itself. Let your Muse have its way with you. Let the words spill out of you -- the words your story needs, not the words you think you need.

Write on the Muse Stream, and just keep going. If you find yourself getting stuck, simply repeat your last word or sentence (or any word or sentence). Repeat them over and over and over and over again until you find yourself back in the flow. And you will.

3. Rhythms & Routines

Human beings like routine. We like breakfast at a certain time and a certain kind of pastry with our certain Starbucks coffee drink.

As writers, we often prefer to have set writing times and patterns: writing in a certain room, using a certain pen and sitting down at a certain time.

Rituals and routines, however, can turn into ruts. What worked yesterday may not work today...or ever again.

If you're feeling stuck, you may well be stuck -- in a pattern that's not working anymore.

Try new rhythms and routines. Break existing patterns.

Go for a walk, do yoga stretches, take a shower or do something else unrelated to writing or to your current project. Drive to a scenic spot and write in the car. Write in the morning instead of the afternoon, longhand instead of on the computer, in a café instead of at home.

Find the rhythm and routine that works for you today, and be open to changing it tomorrow.

4. Perfectionism

Whether in writing or in life, many of us are addicted to getting it right. Being perfect means we won't be criticized, judged or rejected. A perfect first draft means fewer revisions.

Being perfect is, well, just a good thing to be. Isn't it?

I’ve got bad news: Your writing will never be perfect. It may be excellent, accomplished, creative, innovative and insightful. But perfect? Not possible.

It's not possible because there's no perfect way to translate the intangible (ideas, thoughts, visions) into words on a page.

There's no perfect way to describe a brilliant sunset or profound emotion in a way that guarantees each reader an experience identical to yours.

Do your best. But if you're intent on making it perfect, you may find yourself stuck on the same story -- or sentence -- for the rest of your writing life, never growing into something new.

As Salvador Dali said, "Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it."

5. Timing

Recognize that what appears as a block may be a matter of timing. If you've written as deeply into a story as you can and find yourself unable to continue, it may be that you need more life experience (or research) before you're ready to go on.

Instead of calling yourself "blocked," welcome the break...to do research, to work on a different project or to get on with your life, trusting that you'll know when it's time to get back to it.

6. Passion

If you're feeling stuck, ask yourself whether the story is one that excites and impassions you, one that fires you up more than anything else you could be writing. Is it the right idea for you right now? Or is it just another good idea that anyone could write.

If you've lost the excitement (or never had it) and cannot rekindle your enthusiasm, consider that this may not be the best project for you at this time.

Lack of passion is a guaranteed recipe for stuckness. Passion, on the other hand, will always fuel your writing.

7. Self-Respect

Respect yourself and your writing. Respect every draft. Every word.

The more you beat yourself up over your writing, output or creative ability, the more you're inviting the kind of paralysis that feeds writer's block.

Discard judgment and punishing discipline. Cultivate discernment and discipleship. Recognize that every word, draft and emotion is an integral part of your creative journey. Honor all aspects of that journey -- including the painfully uncomfortable ones -- and writer's block will become a myth for you, too.

• For more videos about writing and the creative process, visit my YouTube page.

• You'll find additional tips and inspiration on my web site, where you can read my "Rules for Writing," sign up for my mailing list and read/hear free excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, from which this piece was adapted.

Buy The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers from my online bookstore, and be sure to ask for a signed copy of the book. The book is also available at BN.com, and both book and CD are on Amazon. Click here to find a compatible ebook version or an MP3 download of the CD.

• "Writer's Block" message pad available from TheDailyPlanner.com

• Writer's block cartoon by Rusty-Siccors

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Acts of Surrender 9 (Revisited): The Heart of Rebirth

2011-11-11T11:11:00.001-07:00

Today is Armistice Day in the UK, Remembrance Day in Canada and Veteran's Day here in the U.S. It's also a day (11/11/11) fraught with numerological and metaphysical meaning. And while it's all those things, it's also the 44th (gasp) anniversary of my bar mitzvah, which took place on November 11 of Canada's centennial year, oddly, five weeks after my actual birthday.

To mark that, I'm reprinting this excerpt from my Acts of Surrender: A Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. I originally posted it last year, a few days before my 56th birthday. It talks about birthdays, including my bar mitzvah, birth and rebirth, and the never ending journey into the unknown that is the human journey, when it's lived at its most authentic.

As a side note, I was living in California when I wrote this, without the remotest expectation that, two weeks later, I would decamp and return to New Mexico for another leg in this infinite journey of surprise...

September 27, 2010

Costa Mesa, CA

In six days I’ll be 56. Five days, really, if you figure that here in California the hour of my birth falls on October 2. (I was born just the other side of midnight, Montreal time, on October 3.)

So far, this is showing up as perhaps the strangest — and potentially most powerful — birthday ever.

I don’t remember anything about my childhood birthdays. I don’t remember parties, though there must have been some. I don’t remember presents, though I know I received them.

You’d think I’d remember my 18th or 21st — landmarks in any journey to adulthood. But those, too, are blanks.

My 20th stands out because that’s when I moved out of the parental home and into my first apartment. But I don’t recall whatever celebration must have surrounded that.

The only early birthday it would be impossible for just about any Jewish boy to forget was my 13th. Even then, October 3 is overshadowed by my November 11 bar mitzvah, itself a blur of wobbly knees and congratulatory hugs from people I barely knew, including the so-called friends who surrounded me at the reception. So-called, because I only had one close friend back then. The rest were filler.

My clearest memory of that day, apart from nervousness, was of looking down from the bimah, the stage-like platform from which I would sing my Torah portion, to see my father watching me intently from his wheelchair, a white-clad orderly at his side. By then, nine months to the day before his death, he was already a full-time resident of the Grace Dart Convalescent Hospital, increasingly incapacitated by the diabetes that had weakened his vision and heart, stolen his sexual potency and ended his architectural practice. He must have been proud that morning, but I never knew it...never really knew him.

That week’s Torah portion, the one I’d spent months learning in a bearded rabbi’s dark study, was Lech L’cha, the third Sabbath reading of the Jewish year (Genesis 12:1–17:27). In it, God commands Abram (not yet renamed Abraham) to “lech l’cha,” to “go forth” to a strange land.

The Lord said to Abram,
Go forth from your native land and from your father's house
to the land that I will show you.

At age 75, accompanied by his wife, Sara, and nephew Lot, Abram left all that he knew and followed that higher imperative into unknown territory.

I couldn’t know, at age 13, how fully that call would play out in my life...and on future birthdays.

Three months before my 29th birthday, I left my native Montreal to launch a new life in Toronto.

On September 30, 1994, I left Toronto, having sold most everything I owned. Three days later, on my 40th birthday, I drove off the Princess of Acadia ferry for my rebirth in Nova Scotia.

A year later, again on my birthday, I knew it was time to return to Toronto, which I did seven weeks afterward.

Another new beginning occurred on October 3 the following year, when I once again left Toronto, this time for Penetanguishene, two hours north of Toronto on Lake Huron.

A year after that, following another lech l’cha call and three months of full-time journeying, I arrived in Sedona, Arizona. This time, I truly had gone forth from my native land to one revealed to me by some higher inner power: I had left Canada and would not return.

In 2004, a month after my 50th birthday, my marriage ended, seemingly abruptly. Within weeks, another lech l’cha ensued. This full-time road odyssey lasted 30 months and dropped me in Albuquerque, New Mexico for yet another rebirth.

Today, less than a week from from this next birthday, that Torah portion carries its most potent significance yet.

When we’re born, we arrive on this earth naked, vulnerable and fully reliant on a higher source for our every need. There’s nothing to figure out, nothing to force. There’s nothing we need to make happen, nothing we need to think about it. We feel our way through this new experience and carry an innate and inchoate knowingness that all is well. No faith, trust and surrender are required. No anxiety about the next moment exists. We carry no baggage of any sort, certainly no disempowering original sin.

“Now” is the only is that is. And being is the only imperative.

It’s the ultimate lech l’cha. We’ve left our “father’s house” for an alien land. Yet it’s a land filled with promise.

I will make of you a great nation,
And I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
And curse him that curses you;
And all the families of the earth
Shall bless themselves by you.

In Abram’s life, there’s nothing he needs to do in order for that promise to be fulfilled. The only call is to follow the imperative of the moment, which is the revelation of his deepest heart’s desire. His job is to know, as does the newborn at some level, that all will be revealed in God’s time...to take himself beyond the place of trust to the place of knowingness...to strip himself of all he has been in order to become all that he is destined to be. To become the “great nation” that is his birthright.

It’s difficult in moments for me to feel that a great nation awaits me on this birthday, six weeks after my most recent lech l’cha brought me to Southern California and the aptly named Spirit Street.

As much as I stripped away to get here — by selling off, giving away or throwing out most of my Albuquerque life — the shedding has been even more intense since I got here on August’s Friday the 13th.

Somehow, I’ve found more material possessions to let go of. But more significant has been the emotional and psychological residue that has been peeled off me as harshly as if someone had yanked a dozen bandaids off my arm.

With a disturbing blend of joy, gratitude, pain and anxiety, I’ve seen all the ways in which my thoughts and actions have continued to support scarcity-thinking, codependence and disempowerment — even as I recognize how much of that patterning I’ve already let go of. I’ve seen, too, how plugged in I can still be to a world built on those dysfunctions and hypocrisies — even as I recognize how much unplugging I’ve already achieved.

Every day, I let go more and more of that. Every day, I leave behind more and more of the distractions that have kept me from me, that have kept me from the fullest recognition and expression of my deepest passions. Some of those distractions are behavioral and emotional. Others relate to my work and to the ways I’ve supported myself.

And every day, my bank account edges closer to zero.

Part of me is alarmed by what it perceives as a profound disconnect. “I’m doing the ‘work,’” it says. “I’m doing what Abram did. I’m moving from a life of surrender to a life beyond surrender. Where’s the payoff? Why am I teetering toward total financial collapse when I’ve been promised to be blessed as a great nation?”

In reading, just now, of Abram’s travels in Genesis, I see that his ride, too, wasn’t an easy one. He encountered war, famine, separation and expulsion. Yet his path ultimately led to the promised blessing.

That story reminds me, once again, to see the ongoing miracle that is my journey. Not only have I been supported magnificently (if sometimes uncomfortably) since committing to the move to Los Angeles, I’ve been supported just as wondrously (and unconventionally) at every step in the years leading up to it. Each act of surrender has brought gifts I could never have imagined, predicted or thought I desired.

Most recently, I never would have connected so profoundly with Adam had my iffy financial situation not brought us together. It’s been a roller coaster ride of increasing acceleration for both of us — a blend of comradely exhilaration and button-pushing exasperation that I couldn’t have consciously sought and wouldn’t trade away.

In this moment, if nothing changes, my bank account will reach zero by my birthday. And if the smaller me is scared by that, the larger me sees the divine perfection in returning to that newborn state on the anniversary of my birth...on what, no doubt, is a metaphor for yet another rebirth.

What will my next new life look like? Part of me would have preferred to have an answer by the time I reached this sentence. Yet, despite that very human wish, I know that this new birth can no more be predicted than could any of its predecessors. How can I predict what I can’t yet imagine?

All I know is that Abram’s legacy is also mine, that I’ve never been let down and that if the bungee cord of my journey has dropped me this close to bottom, the laws of physics demand that the upward bounce be equally dramatic. Put another way, I’ve returned to the empty void that launched Genesis. By getting out of the way and letting my new world form as God did his, I’m guaranteed a creation at least as astounding as that one.

This is going to be one hell of a birthday.

Fear not, Abram,
I am a shield to you;
Your reward shall be very great.

Adapted from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.

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Mark David's Musings on Creativity

2011-11-01T01:11:00.037-06:00

This interview on creativity, the Muse and the creative process originally appeared last month on author Bill Jones, Jr.'s blog, This Page Is Intentionally Blank.

An Interview with Mark David Gerson

Today’s Fiction Friday interview is with author, screenwriter and lecturer, mentor and coach Mark David Gerson. Welcome, Mark David!
~ Bill Jones, Jr., author of The Stream: Discovery

The Blank Blog: It’s hard to pigeon-hole you with just one label. You’re author, motivational speaker, screenwriter, mentor, photographer. … How do you see yourself? Is one of these titles more “you” than another?

Mark David Gerson: I’m so glad you’re finding it hard to pigeon-hole me. I hate being slotted into categories and file folders! Seriously, whatever else I have done in my life, it all and always seems to come back to writing. As for the form (author v. screenwriter), I’m not sure that matters so much as the storytelling aspect of the enterprise.

In fact, now that I think about it as I write this (I do some of my best thinking while writing!), perhaps “storyteller” is the common factor in each of those labels. The bottom line is, whether I’m writing, speaking, coaching, mentoring, drawing or photographing, what I’m really doing is telling stories. From that perspective, the death of storytelling that figures so prominently in my novel The MoonQuest takes on an even more significant and personal dimension.

TBB: For those who haven’t yet read The MoonQuest, can you tell us a little about the story?

MDG: Imagine a land where storytelling is banned, where storytellers have been put to death, where dreams and visions are outlawed, where imagination has been stripped from the land and its people. This is the Q’ntana of The MoonQuest, a land where, as Toshar, the main character, puts it, “‘once upon a time’ is a forbidden phrase and fact is the only legal tender.” In this land, legend has it, the moon has been so saddened by the silence and tyranny, that she has cried tears that have extinguished her light. As a result, the moon has not been seen for many generations. The MoonQuest, then, is the journey undertaken by a reluctant Toshar and his three companions to restore story and vision to the land and to rekindle the light of the moon.

TBB: The MoonQuest has won awards and accolades. Now, I see it is a trilogy, which can be both exciting and challenging. How do you balance ensuring you have new stories to tell, with keeping the tone and quality of the original book?

MDG: Yes, The MoonQuest has won five awards, including an Independent Publishers Award Gold Medal IPPY and a New Mexico Book Award. And while no one writes for the awards, they are still wonderfully gratifying and validating.

Fortunately, that balance you asked about is not part of my job description. My job is to listen for the stories that already exist in the airwaves through which my Muse broadcasts and then to put them into words to the best of my imperfect ability. Or put another way, my job is to write the book my story wants written — the way it wants it written.

While I knew from the outset that The MoonQuest would launch a trilogy, and even knew the titles of the sequels early on, I had no idea what The StarQuest and The SunQuest would be about or how they would work with The MoonQuest story. Now that I have written several drafts of The StarQuest book and have completed screenplay versions of both — in other words, now that I finally know the story! — I’m amazed and in awe. My mind could never have worked those puzzle pieces together on its own. Which is why, when it comes to writing, my credos are “the story is smarter than I am” and “the story knows best”!

TBB: Can you tell us about your venture into screenwriting and filmmaking? How was the transition from book to film?

MDG: I’m finding the whole process of working with the same story in two forms (novel and screenplay) fascinating and illuminating.

I wrote the first draft of The MoonQuest novel in the third person. But all subsequent drafts, as well as The StarQuest novel, are in the first person. Writing screenplay adaptations offers me the rare privilege of telling the same story twice, each from a different point of view: first person in the novel, third person in the screenplay.

As well, each version has fed the others. I wrote the first draft of The MoonQuest screenplay when I thought I already had a completed, publication-ready draft of the novel. But some of the changes I made in the story for the screenplay were so compelling that I went back and retrofitted them into the manuscript. I’ve had similar experiences going back and forth between the The StarQuest novel manuscript and screenplay.

I had never adapted a novel for film when I began The MoonQuest script, let alone tackled any kind of screenplay. And although I read some great books and received some terrific and inspiring instruction at The Screenwriters Conference in Santa Fe (where I was, a few years later, gratifyingly back as an instructor), I approached the adaptation the way I approach all my writing: by trusting that the story itself would guide me. Which it did…well enough that a production company is seeking to produce my screenplay.

TBB: You must be pretty busy with all your interests. How do you balance your time?

MDG: I take the same intuitive approach to my life as I do to my writing. While other coaches and instructors recommend applying a regular routine to creative production, that never works for me for very long. Rather, I remain as in-the-moment as I can and follow wherever the inspiration leads me — in my life as well as in my writing. That way of living and writing is both exhilarating and, at times, terrifying. But it does keep things in an organic balance!

TBB: In your book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, you have a chapter entitled, “Thirteen Rules for Birthing Your Book.” I won’t list them all here, because folks need to buy the book. My favorite is “Your book is older than you think.” Can you expound on that a little here?

MDG: My point with this so-called rule (“so-called” because my Rule #1 for everything is that, truly, there are none!) is a version of what I said here earlier, that our stories exist in the airwaves around us. More often than not, they’ve been hovering there for a long time, patiently waiting for us first to take notice, then to take action…“to allow the ideas of your heart,” as I put it in The Voice of the Muse “to find expression through your mind.” That allowing is important. As I suggested in answer to your previous question, creation (like life) is not about forcing things to happen. Creation is about listening for those timeless stories and then letting them sift through us onto the page. Like the God of Genesis, our job is to let creation happen.

TBB: I love to ask writers this one. What book(s) do you wish you’d written? Why?

MDG: I could say that I wish I had already written and completed The StarQuest and The SunQuest! Then, like Toshar in The MoonQuest, I would be free to “move on to other realms, set off on other journeys.” Seriously, though, that’s a question I’ve never considered. And while there are many, many authors I admire and many, many books I have loved over the years, I’m not sure that there any I wish I’d written, because that would mean I would have to have been someone other than myself with a voice other than my own to have accomplished it. With that disclaimer out of the way, the one book — or series of books — that leaps to mind are the Narnia books, probably for their engaging blend of adventure and subtle spirituality.

TBB: For those of us with very shy muses, how would you suggest we coax ours to cooperate more readily?

MDG: You may not like this answer… Muses are never shy. It’s writers who are deaf or, rather, choose not to listen. Muses are never uncooperative. It’s writers who refuse to cooperate. Muses never hold back. Writers hold back all the time!

In those moments when you believe your Muse is not working with you, it’s important to look within. What are we not willing to hear? Which story are we refusing to write? What are we reluctant to face within ourselves that would emerge in a story we are doing our best to ignore? Which belief or way of life is our Muse challenging? Where are we not surrendering unconditionally to our Muse, and to the story it has for us?

Answer those questions, move forward in your writing from those answers, and I’m fairly certain you’ll never encounter a shy, uncooperative Muse again!

TBB: Being a photographer as well as a writer, I take a lot of inspiration from photographs. In effect, the camera is my muse. How did you create the world in The Q’ntana Trilogy?

MDG: I’m not sure I can answer the question, for reasons that may have already become apparent from my previous answers. I didn’t consciously create the Q’ntana worlds. I allowed them to spill through me onto the page. I didn’t plan, plot or prepare. I simply wrote and the worlds created themselves through the words that found their way through me.

In fact, I had no plans to write a MoonQuest, nor did I have a conscious desire to write a fantasy novel, let alone a trilogy. The MoonQuest birthed itself during a writing workshop I was facilitating when, in an unprecedented in-the-moment inspiration, I did the same exercise I had presented to participants. What I wrote that evening became the opening scene of the first draft of a novel I knew nothing about. From there, I just kept writing, discovering the story as I went along, until I was done. The StarQuest and SunQuest stories emerged similarly. (I wrote about that magical MoonQuest experience on my blog.)

TBB: What do you like most about your work? What do you want people to take from it?

MDG: In The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, I encourage readers to abandon control, because trying to control the creative process is, at worst, a sure ticket to writer’s block. At best, it produces unimaginative, formulaic results. The same applies in our lives. The more control and rigidity we apply, the fewer miracles we experience.

I love that my work is about inspiring people to open to that kind of freedom, the freedom to live and create from the deepest heart of our being, the freedom to be in the moment — in our lives as much as in our creativity. For isn’t life the ultimate creative act?

If you take one thing from my work, I would hope it would be to see the possibility of that freedom and to discover some first steps toward achieving it.

TBB: You are granted one wish, and are allowed to choose any writer, living or dead, as your mentor? Whom do you choose?

MDG: I’d probably choose Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time. I didn’t discover A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels until I was an adult, when I also discovered, through her nonfiction writings, L’Engle’s deep spirituality, one that informed her creativity and her life. While L’Engle’s spirituality found its expression through the Episcopal Church and mine is largely unstructured, she was a profound influence on my writing and my life. In a sense, she already was a mentor without knowing it. Now, if she were still alive, I’d just like to thank her for that.

TBB: How can readers find your work?

MDG: Both The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy and The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write are available on my website's online bookstore, as is my CD recording, The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers. You’ll also find excerpts from all three on my site. By the way, a bonus of ordering from my website is that I can sign the books, which I’m happy to do, for those who are interested.

Hard copy versions of both books are also available online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Visit my online bookstore for links to the ebook versions of The MoonQuest and The Voice of the Muse (Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iBooks) and for a downloadable MP3 version of The Voice of the Muse Companion.

Finally, you can find/contact me through my website and blog and through Facebook and Google+.

The original interview on Bill Jones's blog

Bill Jones's author page on Facebook

Photo/Art Credits: Mark David Gerson by Peggy Spencer; San Padre Island National Seashore and "movie camera at dusk" by Mark David Gerson; Madeleine L'Engle by unknown; MoonQuest book cover by Angela Farley; Voice of the Muse cover and Q'ntana Trilogy artwork by Richard Crookes.

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The Word, According to Humpty Dumpty

2011-10-26T11:55:00.000-06:00

In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with Humpty Dumpty...

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that’s all."

Alice was too puzzled to say anything; so after a minute, Humpty Dumpty began again.

"They’ve a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!"

"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, "what that means?"

"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we’ve had enough of that subject and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That’s a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that, said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

What's your relationship with words? Do you take charge of them, as Humpty Dumpty claims to have done? Or do you trust in their innate wisdom?

It wasn't so much over the words themselves that Humpty Dumpty claimed mastery. It was over rigid definitions. Are you a slave to those definitions? Or are you willing to free yourself to be as creatively playful as was Lewis Carroll?

Whichever, you'll find 50 words and phrases to jump-start your writing on page 40 of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

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Writing Do's and Don't's

2011-10-18T22:10:00.001-06:00

Do's...

1. Remember: There are no rules. None.

There is no right way (including this one). There is no wrong way. There is only your way...the way that works for you, today.

2. Get out of your own way.

Ask any part of you that is logical, analytical, critical, cynical, doubt-filled or judgmental to step aside for the duration of your projected writing time.

3. Leap into the void...and trust.

Don’t worry about being polite, appropriate or correct. Don’t worry about making sense. Don't worry about the next word, paragraph, chapter or scene. Don't worry about the ending. Don't worry about the beginning. Don’t worry about anything. Just blurt it out...moment by moment, breath by breath, word by word.

3a. Listen...and always go with your first thoughts.

Second thoughts and second-guessing come from that part of your mind that is judgmental or censoring. Trust that what’s coming to you is what calls out to be expressed in this moment. Allow it to be expressed. Trust it and surrender to it. Fully and unconditionally.

4. Write.

What else is there to say?

Don't's

1. Don't force your words into a straitjacket.

Instead, let your words and their innate wisdom determine the form of your work. In other words, if your novel wants to be a screenplay, let it. If your short story wants to be a poem, let. If your poem wants to be a song lyric, let it. It doesn't matter whether you've ever written a novel, screenplay, short story, poem or song. Your story, whatever it is, knows best. Always.

2. Don't reread your work if you're feeling critical or judgmental.

Instead, wait an hour, a day, a week or a month...however long it takes for you to be able to see your work from a place of heartful discernment, not harsh judgment.

3. Don't worry about the next word, the next sentence or the next chapter.

Instead, remember that the next word will come as easily as your next breath...if you let it.

3a. Don't forget to breathe.

Instead, consider that if you're feeling stuck in your writing, you're probably also stuck in your breathing (and vice versa). Take a moment to center yourself and refocus on your breath.

4. Don't let fear, distraction, low self-esteem, doubt, anxiety, judgment, perceived lack of time, so-called writer's block or other people's criticisms or expectations stop you.

You're a writer. Just write.

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Steve Jobs's True Legacy

2011-10-08T11:11:00.004-06:00

"...the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do..."
~ John 14:12

"Follow your bliss."
~ Joseph Campbell

"Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above / Don't fence me in."
~ Cole Porter

I was packing up to leave Starbucks from an afternoon's writing on Wednesday when I heard about Steve Jobs's death. The news came to me in a terse email notice from the MyAppleSpace social network. The subject line read "Steve Jobs is dead."

Incredulous, I thought it was a hacker's prank. Only when I had double-checked the news against a reliable source could I bring myself to believe it.

Like many, I received and verified the news about Jobs on products he had pioneered. For me it was a MacBook Pro laptop and an iPhone.

And like so many around the world, I was grief struck.

Here was a man who had spent most of his life bucking the system, never letting fear or conventional wisdom get in the way of what he knew to be right and true. Nor did he ever permit the legions of critics and pundits who declared him foolhardy and misguided to stop him from following the path he knew in his heart to be the correct one.

Was he a saint? Hardly. Few geniuses are. Could he be cruel and cutting? Apparently so, for he is reputed to have had little patience for those who doubted or stood in the way of his passionate vision.

Few in the Western world remain untouched by that vision. Even those who swear they will never touch an Apple product have been affected by the revolutions in computing and music distribution that he incited.

Did he change the world? Absolutely. Did he do it uncompromisingly and on his own terms? Undoubtedly.

Is his greatest legacy the products and software systems he engineered? Not hardly.

Through the day or so following Steve Jobs's death, I was deeply moved, sometimes to tears, but the outpouring of love, respect and grief for this man. But by Friday night, as I scrolled through the unending stream of Jobs tributes and Jobs quotes in my Facebook news feed, something about it all began to trouble me.

Don't get me wrong. The sentiments expressed were true and powerful, and I clicked the "like" button on many of them.

But I began to wonder, as I read them all, how often we latch onto the words and lives of others as a way to avoid expressing our own words and living our own lives.

Back in 2006 while visiting Toronto, I was privileged to attend a Barbra Streisand concert. It was a performance that more than filled the city's vast Air Canada Centre. I wrote about that experience here two years ago, in a post titled Larger Than Life.

"Whatever you think of Barbra Streisand's talent or personality," I wrote, "when you are in her energy field, you touch that [limitlessness of your soul's natural state] and your soul cries out, 'Me too! That's who I am, too!!'

"Here in the Western world, where we have been taught to play small, we transfer all of our natural desire for the fenceless world of a life lived large to our movie stars and sports heroes.

"If we can't play out our own passion and power, we play it out through a celebrity cult that's no healthier than any other cult, one we also find in countries with charismatic leaders/dictators, in religions with unapproachable gods and in all situations where we abdicate the expression of our infinite nature to someone or something outside of ourselves."

How much of the grief for Jobs, I began to wonder, is not about the death of a brilliant man whose visions touched so many but about the death of a figure who publicly lived so much of the courage, vision, sense of purpose and uncompromising adherence to inner truth that so many of us shrink from in our own lives.

Steve Jobs was not unusual. We all have the same access to the same infinite pool of wisdom, courage, purpose and inner truth that he did...not to mimic his journey and follow his bliss, but to uncover and follow our own...wherever it might carry us.

In my novel, The MoonQuest, very much a metaphor for all our journeys, the main character, Toshar, is destined for a greatness he continues to resist. Yet destiny, as he is constantly reminded, is not cast in stone. There is always a choice.

"Every choice you have ever made," Toshar is told, "has led to this moment...of choice."

"The power to choose is always ours," I wrote in Larger Than Life. "In every moment and through every situation, we're offered the opportunity to choose our greatness, our passion, our light."

The best tribute to Steve Jobs is to not quote his words but to live them, to not restate his wisdom but to find and write your own, to not honor the choices of his heart but to listen to and honor the choices of yours, to not look backward but to live in the present moment as you step forward into the next.

It's time to awaken your vision. It's time to rekindle your passion. It's time to live your greatness.

If that becomes Steve Jobs's legacy, the revolution in each of our lives -- and in the world -- will only have just begun.

Please "like" these Facebook pages:
• The MoonQuest book
• The MoonQuest movie
• The Voice of the Muse book
• Mark David Gerson fan page

Write, Write, Write...Now!

2011-10-07T10:44:00.002-06:00

www.waltermosley.com

The only thing that matters is that you write, write. write. It doesn't have to be good writing. As a matter of fact, almost all first drafts are pretty bad.
~ Walter Mosley

Just write. Just get words onto the page.

It doesn't matter what you write or how you begin. All that matters is that you do begin. All that matters is that you write one word and then another. And then another.

However you begin, your first words will take you where you need to go, as long as you answer the call of your Muse, as long as you listen to your story, as long as you free your words onto the page and go wherever they carry you.

There's a time to revise, rework and reword. That time is later. Now is the time to write, to begin.

Have you begun? Are you writing your story, your poem, your screenplay, your theatre script, your book?

If not, close your browser and open your writing program. Or get pen and paper. Or quill and parchment, if that's your preference.

However you prefer to write, write. Just one word. Any word. Then another. And another.

It's time to begin. Now. All it takes is one word: the one word that gets you started.

• Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (c) 2008 Mark David Gerson

Please "like" these Facebook pages:

• The Voice of the Muse book

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book

• Mark David Gerson

The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies: Teaser + Website

2011-09-26T21:11:00.013-06:00

Some of you may recall all the pieces I posted here earlier in the year about the film trailer we were shooting in March to help attract investors to a MoonQuest movie.

After many months of post-production, we have edited the footage down to a one-minute teaser, set it to music composed by the fabulously talented Mattias Holmgren and posted it to a brand-new website. The site also includes synopses of all three of my Q'ntana Trilogy stories (The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The SunQuest), a "making-of" featurette and additional info on the project.

Although teaser and site are primarily designed to entice investors, distributors and sales agents to become financially involved with the Trilogy project, they're still public. So please have a look!

If you were involved with the trailer project or supported us through our Indie GoGo campaign, be sure to look for your name on the site's credits page. (If you notice any errors or omissions, please let me know so I can make the necessary corrections.) And if you have any comments about teaser, site or project, please feel free to post them here.

Also, if you haven't yet seen the book trailer for The MoonQuest book, check it out here.

Finally, if you haven't already, please "like" The Q'ntana Trilogy Movie's Facebook page and The MoonQuest book's Facebook page.

Whose Story Is It?

2011-09-21T21:18:00.001-06:00

"Without characters there's no story."
~ Karl Iglesias, Writing for Emotional Impact

"When I hit a real block, I find it’s usually because I've...said something false or made a character do what he doesn't want to do."
~ Anne Tyler

About two years ago, I was listening to a guest speaker -- let's call him Tom -- at a writer's group. He was talking about characters.

"In the first half of your story," he said, "let your characters do what they want. But when you get to the second half, you've got to reign them in."

Tom was pretty insistent, and it was all I could do to not jump up and shriek NO!...not to the first half of his statement, but to the second.

I was reminded of that story some months later when I began working with a new coaching client. She'd written a powerful memoir -- so powerful that it had been nominated for a literary award. Now, a fictional character had accosted her in a misty Irish glen and was insisting that she write his story.

"But I've never written a novel," she exclaimed. "I don't know how!"

"You don't have to know how," I replied. "All you have to do is write his memoir."

Thing is, whatever story we're telling -- whether it's a novel, short story, stage play or screenplay -- we're writing someone's story.

What we're writing is their story. And what we're often discovering in that first draft is not only what that story is but who that character is...who all the characters are who make up that world.

"I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized. In most, however, it’s something I never expected."
~ Stephen King

Tom's point was that we spend the first half of our story discovering who the character is. From there, we spend the rest of the story making sure the character hews to that portrait.

My point is that we may only truly discover who that character is and what she's about by writing through to the end. Why stifle the creative process just when we've finally surrendered to the story's unfoldment? Why limit ourselves and our characters by insisting that at a certain point in the draft, character and story are fixed for all time?

When I was working on the first draft of The StarQuest (the first of two projected sequels to The MoonQuest), I had a pretty good idea who the villain of the story was and to what unpleasant end she would come in the final scenes. At least, I thought I did...

Then, on my last day of work on that draft, as I was letting one of the final scenes write itself, something unanticipated happened: Instead of the ugly death I was expecting, the villain had a profoundly redemptive experience that, within a few paragraphs, had transformed her from ugly antagonist into a positive force for continuing good. I was stunned.

In that moment, I had two choices: I could follow Tom's advice and refuse the villain her redemption, or I could surrender to the character's higher imperative and permit the alchemy to occur. I chose the latter, not only because I believe my stories and their characters are smarter than I am, but because my villain's transformation supports one of the story's central themes in ways I would have been hard-pressed to consciously manufacture.

In The MoonQuest, much about the character O'ric shifted -- not only through the first draft, but through many of the drafts. He shifted not because I couldn't reign him in. He shifted because, through the writing, I began to understand more clearly who he truly was, both within himself and to the story.

In the "rules for character-building" that I use when I teach workshops on characterization, Rule #10 reads "How did John become Jane? And why is she suddenly the villain?"

Often, characters in our stories want to undergo radical changes through the course of that first draft. Too often, we follow Tom's advice and refuse them that freedom.

My view is that our job as Writer God is to give our characters absolute freedom through the entire first draft of our story...and, sometimes, beyond.

Unlike Tom, I say, Let your characters be as inconsistent and mercurial as they want to be. Let them veer off in completely different directions partway, if that’s what they choose. Let your villains become heroes and your heroes become villains. Let them change names, physical characteristics, motivations and story-significance. Let them change gender.

Only by allowing them that freedom in your first draft will you learn who they truly are and be true to their story. After all, it's their story you're telling.

I do my best work when I feel least like its source and most like its channel.
~Lawrence Block

Let your first draft, as I said earlier, be your journey of discovery: of your characters and of their story. Through that journey, you will grow into your story and its characters. You might, as I did in The StarQuest, only discover something of major significance about an important character on the final page of the draft. That’s okay. Use your next draft to bring consistency to the characters you now know more fully.

Remember whose story you're telling...and get out of the way!

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does."
~ William Faulkner

• How can you better trust your characters to reveal themselves to you?

• How can you stop trying to control your stories and, instead, let them emerge organically?

• How can you better surrender to the magic out of which all creativity is birthed?

• How can you trust that your stories and characters know themselves better than you do?

• How can you let yourself be surprised -- by your characters and by their stories?

You'll get help answering these and other questions about your writing process and projects in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Art credits: 1) Detail from the Zazzle "fictional character" t-shirt; 2) Image from the Talk Stephen King blog; 3) Detail from the cover of Karl Iglesias's book, Writing for Emotional Impact

Anatomy of a Writer: A Blog Interview

2011-09-18T11:55:00.004-06:00

This blog interview with me originally appeared in The Uncustomary Book Review on September 13.

Anatomy of the Writer

UBR: What are writers for?

MDG: Writers are for expressing the truths of the human heart into words on the page. Writers are for finding the universal in the human experience. Writers are for painting worlds of wonder beyond the conscious imagination.

UBR: Quill and parchment or touch typing?

MDG: The bards and elderbards in my Q’ntana Trilogy of fantasy books and movies definitely write with quills on parchment. And although I wrote its first installment, The MoonQuest, longhand, I’ve written all my other books and screenplays largely on the computer.

UBR: Required beverage while editing?

MDG: Coffee (americano or cappuccino)!

UBR: Describe your imagination.

MDG: It defies description, at least by me. It’s that realm of “true fantasy” that lies beyond any conscious knowingness and to which I must always surrender…because it’s smarter than I am.

Anatomy of the Reader

UBR: Where’s your favorite place to read?

MDG: The bathtub!

UBR: Have you ever read one of your books for pleasure?

MDG: No. It would be interesting to see if I could separate myself enough from my author self to try it.

UBR: What’s the one thing that the book you’re currently reading is missing?

MDG: A feeling of engagement. Which is why I put it down after about forty pages and am about to start something else.

Uncustomary Traditions

Favorite places: Places of peaceful beauty (oceans, mountains, desert) and places of high-octane urban buzz (L.A., Toronto, New York)

Weaknesses: Dark chocolate, Starbucks

Believes in: The innate creativity of every human

Refuses to: Compromise my essential self for anyone else

Uncustomary Review of Author’s Work

The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

• Reprinted from The Uncustomary Book Review: A Conversation with the Reader, 9/13/2011

It's Time To Live the Dream

2011-09-13T04:44:00.003-06:00

“You just have to keep your dream. If you lose it and get cynical, you die.”
~ Meryl Streep

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
~ Proverbs 29:18

What's your dream for your writing? For your life?

Know that whatever it is, however improbable it may seem in this moment, it's not impossible. Nearly every success story begins with an "impossible" dream. Nearly every "overnight success" was years in the making.

Have you begun the book or screenplay you've always dreamt of writing? Now is the time to put your dream into action. It doesn't matter whether you can give it five minutes a day or five hours. It doesn't even matter if you know what it's about.

Every journey begins with a single step. Every piece of writing begins with a single word. Any word.

Write it. Now.

What about your dreams for your life? Have you abandoned them? Stuffed them in the back of a drawer because they seem so unreachable?

Open that drawer. Reach your hand in. Gently. Touch it. Reconnect with it. Reconnect with yourself.

Open your heart again. Open your heart to the vision. Open your heart to your life.

Meryl Streep photo from Pictures of Famous Actors and Actresses. Meryl Streep quote from Inside Inside by James Lipton.

The MoonQuest: Introducing a New Video Trailer for the Book

2011-09-12T11:09:00.002-06:00

Imagine...

a land where stories are banned and dreams suppressed...

a land where dreamers are tortured and storytellers killed...
a land stripped of vision, hope and imagination.

This is the Q'ntana of The MoonQuest...
a land where "once upon at time" is a forbidden phrase
...where fear rules and storytelling spells death

Imagine it...if you dare

The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

Part 1 of The Q'ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels
Soon to be a major motion picture!

Get your copy today!

"An exceptional, timeless novel."

~ Mindquest Review of Books

Please "like" The MoonQuest's book and movie pages on Facebook!

• MoonQuest book trailer produced by John M. Burkhart

• Toshar portrayed by Eric Esparza

• Reader pic: Gabriel Sinatra

If the video link is not live, view it on YouTube

The Art of Healthy Feedback: Part II - How To Give It

2011-09-11T04:44:00.004-06:00

Part II of a two-part series on asking for and giving healthy feedback. While both pieces are focused on writing and other creative pursuits, they can easily be adapted to the many situations in our lives when we are giving or seeking help or advice.

1. Be Nurturing.
Remember, the only reason to offer feedback is to support the writer and his or her work. This is not a test of your ability to pick out flaws. Don’t be smart. Be gentle. Don’t show off. Be fair.

2. Be Balanced.
Always begin with the positive -- with what you like about the piece, with its strengths, with what works for you. With that foundation of support, you can then offer constructive comments. Remember, you can say anything you feel called to say about the work, as long as you frame it with respect and compassion.

3. Be Specific.
You’re at your most helpful when you can offer examples from the text of what works and what doesn’t. Be clear.

4. Be Respectful.
Give only the type and level of feedback the writer has sought. If there are other elements you would like to comment on, ask permission. Respect the answer you get.

5. Be Compassionate.
Remember the Golden Rule of Feedback: “Speak unto others in the manner you would have them speak unto you.” Put yourself in the writer’s shoes and offer feedback as you would prefer to receive it.

How not to give feedback....

"Why don't you write books people can read?" 
~ Nora Joyce, to her husband James

• How can you listen more clearly to the nature of the feedback being requested of you?

• How can you be clearer in the feedback you offer?

• How can you be more respectful of the work and its author, offering feedback that doesn't show how smart you are but, instead serves the needs and growth of the writer and his/her work?

The Art of Healthy Feedback: A Two-Part Series

I - How To Get It

II - How To Give It

Please "like" these Facebook pages:

• The Voice of the Muse book

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book

• Mark David Gerson

Photo: James & Nora Joyce, 1915 -- Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

The Art of Healthy Feedback: Part I - How To Get It

2011-09-09T11:51:00.003-06:00

Part I of a two-part series on asking for and giving healthy feedback. While both pieces are focused on writing and other creative pursuits, they can be easily adapted to the many situations in our lives when we are giving or seeking help or advice.

Stay in charge of your creative process by reading these guiding principles before sharing your work with anyone -- including your life partner or best friend.

1. Be Protective.

You have no more right to knowingly expose your work to influences that could harm it or set it back than you do your child. Seek out only those people and situations that will support you and your writing. Never assume that the people closest to you will be the most supportive. Always use your discernment.

2. Be Open.

Your work, like your child, requires fresh air and outside influences. Don’t be overprotective and suffocating. Be open to others’ perceptions, comments and responses.

3. Be Aware.

To everything there is a season. At different stages in your work and your process, you will be ready to hear different things. Respect where you are and seek only the type of feedback you are prepared to receive and integrate. Recognize when you are at your most raw and respect that.

4. Be Clear.

Be clear about the type of feedback you require and desire.

5. Be Explicit.
Once you know what kind of feedback is appropriate at this time, ask for it -- clearly, directly and without equivocation. Your reader cannot know how best to support you unless you make your needs clear. If you are vague and unclear, you open yourself to comments you are not ready to hear, comments that could feel damaging, even if they’re not intended to be so.

6. Be Strong.
Know what you want and don’t be afraid to speak up when you’re not getting it, or when you’re getting something you didn’t ask for. Remember, this is your work and your creative process. You have every right to seek out what will help and support you.

7. Be Discerning.

The words on your page are an expression of you but they are not you. Negative comments, whether intentionally cruel or not, have no power to harm you, unless you abdicate your power and allow yourself to be hurt. In fact, take neither praise not criticism too seriously. Deep inside, you know your work’s strengths and weaknesses. Tap into that inner knowingness and rely on it to discern which comments support you and serve your work at this stage in its development and yours.

• How can you be clearer in the feedback you seek?

• How can you be more discerning in who you ask for feedback?

• How can you be more respectful of your work's needs and your own when seeking feedback?

The Art of Healthy Feedback: A Two-Part Series

I - How To Get It

II - How To Give It

Please "like" these Facebook pages:

• The Voice of the Muse book

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book

• Mark David Gerson

Snap a Pic for Me and Promote Yourself / Part 6

2011-09-06T15:53:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the latest installment of my online Readers' Gallery, featuring photos (and, now, videos, too!) of people from all over the U.S. and beyond reading my books -- in hard copy or ebook form. (You'll find previous posts and pics here, here, here, here and here.)

To get your photo (along with links to your books, website and/or other projects) included in a future installment, scroll to the bottom of the post.

Here's what writer Amy Robbins-Wilson (video above, and first pic below) says about The MoonQuest, which she read twice this past summer. She recorded the video at the summit of Maine's highest peak: Mount Katahdin. (If the video doesn't show for you, click here.)

As a singer/songwriter/storyteller, this book spoke to my heart over and over. It tells of the dance between teller and tale and between singer and song. It takes you forward on an adventure that brings you back over and over again to a better self. If you love fantasy and story as I do, you will love this book.

Here are words and pictures from five other readers -- four human and one feline...

It's sadly rare that TV- and radio-show hosts have the time to read the books of the authors they interview. One such rarity is Charmaine Lee (above), who interviewed me last month for her Insights for the Soul show on Blogtalk Radio. This was my third time on her 90-minute show, an appearance dedicated almost entirely to The MoonQuest.

K. Andrew Turner (below) is an L.A. writer, writing coach and workshop facilitator who tells me he frequently revisits The Voice of the Muse for inspiration, both for his own writing and for his work with other writers.

Another writer-reader is Denver's Abdul Jaafari (below), who's working on an epic fantasy series of his own, to be launched in the next months with The Empress of Mortar.

Not all my readers are writers! Christine Robertson (below) is an Albuquerque Zumba fitness instructor who just likes to curl up with a good book!

As for New York's Beatrice Lopatin (below), I suspect she may have misread the title, thinking it was The Voice of Mews. Still, I hear that her human, author Jared Lopatin, may have seized on Beatrice's error to read the book for himself.

To read more about any of these readers and their projects, and to see them in my Facebook gallery, click on their names, below:

Beatrice "Mews" Lopatin

Why not join the online fun

and get your book, business, event, blog, website

or other success promoted here, on Facebook and on Google+!

Interested? Read on...

If you have a copy of either of my books, I'll ost a pic of you reading either The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, The MoonQuest or both to my Readers' Gallery Photo Album on Facebook and Google+. I'll include you if you're listening to The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers. Just make sure the CD cover is visible.

And to help you promote your book, event, business, success, blog and/or website, I'll include in the photo caption not only your name but your promotional info/link. I'll also post the next batch of reader pics here in a future blog item.

Simply email me your pic and caption information, or contact me via Facebook, Twitter or my website.

Feel free to send one pic or several and to include one book, both books, the CD or any combination. Just send separate photos for each item (unless you really are reading both books at the same time!).

And if you like my books, please "like" my Facebook pages:

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book
• Voice of the Muse book
• Mark David Gerson

The Heartful Art of Re-Vision III: The Music of Revision

2011-09-01T19:31:00.002-06:00

What follows is Part III of my three-part series on my radical approach to polishing your work and your words. It's an excerpt from a Paris Review interview with Irish author J.P. Donleavy

Scroll to the bottom of the post for links to Parts I and II.

Paris Review: What do you look for when you revise?

J.P. Donleavy: What I look for is a kind of inevitability, the words and sentences falling into an inevitable place that relates to what's gone before and that will presage what follows. ... This is the inevitability -- the words on the page, which lie there naturally, which don't you jar you, and find their own naturalness when they're said or read.

I suppose I think of myself as a sort of scientist, working with words, relating what is going on in my consciousness to what I put on the paper. It's like music . . . an orchestration. As in bell-ringing, when you ring, peal the bells, one echoing sound from one word will echo and sound in another. ... I work a long time on the sound-sense of words.

Occasionally I find myself trapped trying to get the rhythms down properly and sometimes something just won't work. There's one spot in The Ginger Man that I've never been able to solve to this day. It isn't perfect. ... In some ways, I was relieved to know, coming back to that passage ten years later and deliberating over it again, that it couldn't be solved even now till this day with what one assumes is one's accumulated masterliness.

Click here for the complete Paris Review interview

The Heartful Art of Revision: A Three-Part Series

I - Finding the "Vision" in Revision

II - A Radical Approach to Editing

III - J.P. Donleavy on the Music of Revision

COMING UP NEXT WEEK

A two-part series on how to give and receive healthy feedback

Please "like" these Facebook pages:

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book

• The Voice of the Muse book

• Mark David Gerson

The Heartful Art of Re-Vision II: A Radical Approach to Editing

2011-08-31T11:11:00.005-06:00

What follows is Part II of my three-part series on my radically heartful approach to polishing your work and your words.

This stark departure from traditional editing techniques is more effective than the old way because it respects both the inherent wisdom of your manuscript and your innate knowingness of what works and what doesn’t. It’s neither a left-brain method nor is it a right-brain one. It’s whole-brain and whole-body approach that will revolutionize your view of editing and revision.

As I noted in The Heartful Art of Revision I, we're accustomed to seeing the editing process as a harsh, left-brain, punishing activity. What I propose instead is a new paradigm, one that respects your work in all its drafts and that also respects you as its creator.

One way to start on that path, apart from crafting a vision statement for your work is to let these seven principles guide you as you shape, hone and polish your words.

1. Be detached but loving.
Let your work sit quietly for a time before you launch into revision. That time could be a day, a week, a month or six months. And it could be longer or shorter from one piece of work to the next. The key is to give both you and your work the space and distance that allow you to approach it heartfully, objectively and discerningly. Respect your initial draft. Respect all your drafts. Don’t be a slave to them. Allow your work to grow, change and mature.

2. Read aloud.
Whenever practical, read aloud. We are always more attuned to language, rhythm and flow when we read aloud. We often read more thoroughly when we read aloud. You will want to read your work silently as well, of course. But particularly at the beginning and each time you make major changes, your voice will tell you where you have strayed off course.

3. Be respectful, gentle and firm.
Treat each draft as you would your child — with love and without judgment. Revision is not about taking a broadax to your creation. It’s about treating each draft as a necessary stage in its growth toward maturity. Just as you gently, sometimes firmly, guide your children toward the fulfillment of their unique destinies, guide your work with that same spirit of respect — for yourself as creator as well as for your creation, which has its own vision and imperative.

4. Accept that language is not perfect.
Do your best to bring your heart and vision to the page. Do your best to write the words and paint the images that most accurately reflect your dream and intention. As you revise, never hesitate to seek out more forceful and evocative ways to translate your vision onto the page. But remember that translation is an art and that language can rarely more than approximate emotion and experience. Think of the most wondrous scene you have ever witnessed and imagine trying to recreate that in words. You can come close. Yet whatever your mastery of the language, you will not recreate every nuance of your vision, emotion and experience. And that’s okay.

5. Respect your intuition.
As you become more adept as a writer, more in tune with your work and its vision, and more in touch with your Muse, you will gain an intuitive knowingness of what works and what doesn’t, without always being able to articulate why. That inner compass will direct you to the appropriate improvement or solution — again, often without explanation. Trust your intuition. It’s the voice of your Muse, the voice of your vision. And it won’t lead you astray.

6. Do your best.
Do your best to commit your vision to paper. Do your best to polish, enrich and enliven your work so that it aligns with that vision. Do your best on each piece of writing and, when it’s time, let it go so that you can create a new work and do your best on that one as well.

7. Be the writer you are. Each piece of writing will teach you, and from each piece of writing you will mature in your art and your craft. Strive for excellence not perfection. Be the writer you are.

• Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

The Voice of the Muse book and CD are available at markdavidgerson.com and Amazon (book, CD). E-versions of the book are available through Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Kobo. A downloadable version of the CD is available on CD Baby.

Art credits: Quill/parchment by Angela Farley, from The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy. Perfection image from "My World, My Home, My Life."

The Heartful Art of Revision: A Three-Part Series

I - Finding the "Vision" in Revision

II - A Radical Approach to Editing

III - J.P. Donleavy on the Music of Revision

COMING UP NEXT WEEK

A two-part series on how to give and receive healthy feedback

Please "like" these Facebook pages:

• The MoonQuest movie

• The MoonQuest book

• The Voice of the Muse book

• Mark David Gerson

The Heartful Art of Re-Vision I: Finding the "Vision" in Revision

2011-08-29T20:51:00.006-06:00

We're accustomed to seeing the editing process as a harsh, left-brain activity too often filled with violent and abusive language: It's about forcing the work to our will, gagging, restraining or reigning in our characters, hacking away at our work or banging our manuscript into shape. Yet when we treat our drafts with such disrespect, we're also disrespecting ourselves as its creator.

What follows is Part I of a three-part series on a more heartful approach to polishing your work and your words.

See the editing process as one of re-vision, of revisiting your original vision for your work and putting all your heart, art and skill into aligning what's on paper with that vision.

As you move through your piece -- whatever it is, whatever its length -- see yourself as a jeweler, delicately etching your rough stone into the gem that reflects the vision your heart has conceived and received, then lovingly polishing it until you achieve the look and texture you desire.

Your vision is the light force of your work, the life force of your work. It's the spirit that is its essence, the breath that keeps it alive. Your vision is your dream for your work, the expression of your intention. It's what guides it, drives it and propels it -- from conception to completion.

The more deeply you stay connected to that vision -- however broadly or specifically you have drawn it -- the more completely the finished piece will remain true to that life force, that dream, that intention. And the truer you will be to the work that has called upon you to commit it to paper and breathe life into it.

Creating a vision statement is one way to maintain and strengthen that connection. In the vision-statement examples that follow, the first is the one I created for The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write before it was finished. The others were written by coaching clients and workshop/coaching-group participants, the first and third were for works-in-progress and the second was for the overarching spirit of the writer's work.

• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write is about freedom: freedom to grow, freedom to create, freedom to write. Through a dynamic blend of motivational essays, inspiring meditations and practical exercises, it nourishes, nurtures and reassures its readers, inspiring them to open their hearts, expand their minds and experience, with ease, a full, creative life.
~ Mark David Gerson

• Through the eyes of Lily Addams, A House of Gold will explore the arrival and lives of the Chinese immigrants here in Sacramento and the Foothills during the Gold Rush, as well as the possibilities for women during this transitional time in the Golden State. At a deeper level, at the very “heart” of the book, will be a story about the heart and becoming and staying whole-hearted through triumphs and trials, as well as through the daily joys and hurts that make up our lives. It is a book about heart, for heart, and by heart.
~ Sue Cross

• Writing is choosing to dance with the The Goddess of Creativity, choosing to be in service to the Universe, choosing to surrender with Joy and Love to the Voice and Story that allows itself to be expressed through my Being and my experience.
~ Vicki Daigneau

• Remembering Your Divinity, A Co-Creator’s Guide to Manifesting by Heart is about creating -– by heart. Through a blending of science and mysticism, Remembering Your Divinity reminds you of who you are, why you are here, what it means to be a conscious co-creator, what creative energy is, how it flows, and how to use it, why the heart is the key to manifesting, and provides tools to stay in the flow of your creation so that you live as the God/Goddess that you are!
~ Joan Cerio

What's your vision for your work-in-progress or for your work as a writer? Don't think about it. Feel it. And when you start feeling it, start writing it down. It doesn't have to make sense. Just let it be what it is.

• For more information on how to articulate a vision statement for your work, see "Awakening Your Vision" in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write. You'll also find a two-part meditation ("Vision Quest") in The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers, designed to guide you through the process.

The Heartful Art of Revision: A Three-Part Series

I - Finding the "Vision" in Revision

II - A Radical Approach to Editing

III - J.P. Donleavy on the Music of Revision

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Acts of Surrender 23: Stuck in My Throat

2011-08-21T13:11:00.008-06:00

An excerpt from Acts of Surrender: A Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to other recent excerpts.

"Na'an came to me in a dream this night. It was early. I had not been in bed long and the night was newly dark. 'It is time,' she said, 'time to fix The MoonQuest on parchment.'"

~ The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

I've had a raw throat and stuffy head for nearly a week now. Through much of that time, I've done little other than sleep, guzzle gallons of water and honey-infused tea, and clear my throat.

"Oh," you might murmur with sympathy, "a summer cold."

I don't look at it that way. Whenever something physical goes out of whack for me (mercifully, not often), I spend at least as much time tuning in to what in my emotional life precipitated it as I do to self-care. My philosophy is that if I look after the underlying cause, the symptoms will largely take care of themselves.

When the throat-clearing kicked in, I knew that it was about my voice. Not my speaking voice (even as I grew hoarse and teetered on the edge of laryngitis). My writer's voice.

And when my throat got worse on Thursday, after Anvil Springs producer Kathleen Messmer and I spent the afternoon compiling ideas for directors and a principal cast for The MoonQuest movie, I knew it had something to do with the film project.

I was even clearer that evening, after we added a particularly illustrious director to the top of our list.

This isn't the first time we've assembled an A-list slate of actors and directors for the The MoonQuest movie. But something about this director pushed all my worthiness buttons. I spent the evening feeling intimidated by the prospect of not only working with someone of that caliber, but of having someone that, well, literate, read my screenplay.

This director has acted in and/or directed nearly three dozen films, and has won close to half of the four dozen awards he's been nominated for. As well, two of his Oscar nominations were for a film that, indirectly, helped propel The MoonQuest book to completion. He's also had an award-studded history on the stage.

I spent the next day letting myself feel my fear and discomfort, grudgingly grateful for the opportunity to work through yet another personal growth issue, one that had little to do with a potential director and everything to do with me.

During the many years when The MoonQuest book was nothing but a stack of manuscript pages languishing in a file box, I kept telling myself that regardless of whether it was ever published, the life lessons I'd learned while writing it had been valuable beyond measure.

It's true. Writing The MoonQuest the way I did -- moment-by-moment, word-by-word, with no idea where my Muse was taking me with the story -- prepared me for a life of ever-deepening surrender to my story, to the life story that has revealed itself to me in each moment through that infinite mind I wrote about here a while back.

It's also true that I had to tell myself that, or I would have been hard-pressed to feel good about all the time I'd invested in a project that, for too long, seemed to be going nowhere.

Similarly, I kept telling myself through the day Friday that, in the long run, my current journey was not about whether a particular director would sign on, or whether there would even ultimately be a MoonQuest movie. It was about what I'm learning and about all the ways I'm growing along the way.

This morning, still hoarse and laryngitic, my head still feeling as though it was jammed with mucus-soaked cotton balls, I wondered why I wasn't feeling any better. After all, I had identified the root cause of my physical discomfort and had committed myself to doing whatever it would take to move through and past my feelings of fear and unworthiness.

And then, while I was out walking, I had flash of Na'an's words to a reluctant Toshar in the prologue to The MoonQuest book: "It is your story to tell," she insists. "It is for you to fix it in ink, to set the truth down for all to read."

"So many seasons of storytelling and still I hesitate," Toshar replies. "Of all the stories to stick in my throat, how ironic that it should be The MoonQuest, a tale of the freeing of story itself."

When, in 1994, I began writing The MoonQuest, this "tale of the freeing of story," I was freeing my story. I was dissolving not only Toshar's reluctance, but mine. I was breaking through not only generations of repressed creativity in Toshar's heartland, but decades of creative block within myself.

As I've written here before, I don't like the expression "coming full circle" because it suggests that we're returning to a place we've already been, having learned nothing and grown not at all. My preferred image is that of a spiral, where we return to a place along the same axis, but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding.

As I wrote in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, "Each cycle’s completion returns you not to where you began but to a higher level of awareness, mastery, openness and trust." I wrote that about the creative process, but isn't life the ultimate creative process?

Now, I realized on my morning walk, The MoonQuest is once again "stuck in my throat." Not in the same place it was stuck 17 years ago, when the Toshar in me tried to avoid telling his story. It can't be. I've moved through many turns of the spiral since then, turns that got the story written, the book out and the screenplay completed and on the cusp of production.

What's sticking in my throat now -- what's causing my hoarseness and loss of voice -- is the prospect of taking The MoonQuest to a new level: letting it be read by Oscar-nominated professionals and exposing it (and me) to audiences far greater than the book could ever reach.

Like Toshar, I'm scared. Like the Mark David who was creatively shut down for so many years, I'm afraid of being judged...and found wanting. Like so many creative artists through the millennia, I'm terrified that I'll finally be revealed as a fraud.

And so my story sticks in my throat, as parts of me try to protect other parts from the perceived danger of moving forward.

Years ago, in the early days of my conscious spiritual and creative awakening, before I know there was a MoonQuest inside me, I had a dream.

In the dream, I’m walking out of a multistory parking structure when the uniformed attendant steps out of his booth and stops me. He won’t let me leave. I shout. He shouts. I shove. He shoves.

I woke from the dream drenched in perspiration, more angry than frightened. Later that day, as I had done in the past, I took the dream-confrontation into meditation.

"Why won’t you let me leave," I ask the guard, politely this time.

"I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll be out of a job," he answers simply.

"I still need you," I offer reassuringly. "But I need you to act more as a filter than as a gate. I need you to protect me more discerningly."

"I don’t know how," he counters.

"Are you open to learning how?"

He pauses for a moment, his face screwed up in concentration.

"Yes." He nods. "I am." He stands aside to let me pass from the dank dark of this structure -- this place of parking, of storage, of non-motion -- but not before we’ve shaken hands and hugged.

Today's fear, today's self-judgment, today's stuckness in my throat -- they all come from the present-day equivalent of that dreamworld parking attendant, trying to protect the only way he knows how.

Today, once again, I ask him to be more discerning, to widen the weave on the screen of his filter, to not only let me move forward but to come along for the ride in his once-again redefined job. And as I do so, I feel the rawness in my throat abate somewhat and sense some of the stuckness of the past week begin to unstick.

The MoonQuest is once again on the move...and so am I.

"I see it all now, in the leap of light against dark. The shadows will tell me the story and I will write what I see. I will write until my fingers and beard are black with ink. I will write until the story is told. Only then will I be free to continue my journey. ..."
~ The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

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• Read the full prologue and first chapter of The MoonQuest

• Read another excerpt from The MoonQuest book

• Read more about The MoonQuest book and film project

• Order your copy of The MoonQuest book in hard copy or ebook format

• "Like" The MoonQuest book and movie on Facebook

• Tune in to Insight for the Soul Radio, August 22 at 7pm PT, when Mark David talks to host Charmaine Lee about his MoonQuest journeys. Use the same link to download/listen to an archived version of the broadcast.

Photo: Nightmare parking structure by Mark David Gerson.

**********

Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.

Recent Acts of Surrender excerpts:
• November 15
• March 7
• May 22
• June 12
• July 9

• July 19

In The Moment...In Your Writing and Your Life

2011-08-14T08:14:00.000-06:00

Too often we sit in judgment of ourselves and our work.

"This is not good enough," we think. "This will never be good enough." Or, "This story has been told better before by someone else." Or, "This book has been written before."

Know this now and for all time: It is good enough. In this moment, this word is good enough...and so is this one.

This moment is always as good as it gets -- in this moment. So make the best of it.

In this moment, give yourself permission to write the worst junk in the world, the same permission I give myself in this moment when I fear what I write for you isn’t good enough. It is, in this moment. I must believe this, as must you, or we can never move into the next moment and then the next, when those moments, too, form the present moment.

It is good enough. If you do your best to write freely and easily from your heart, it is always better than good enough. It is perfect.

Whatever you write is perfect. Whatever you experience is perfect. Whatever you feel is perfect. In this moment. Which is the only moment that matters, for it is the only moment that exists.

• What can you do in this moment to bring you back to the present moment?

• What can you stop worrying about, wondering about or trying to figure out?

• What can you stop judging?

• Can you apply those questions as much to your life as you do to your writing...as much to your writing as you do to your life?

Close your eyes for a moment. Focus on your breath. Be present. With your words. With your writing. In your life.

• You'll find additional tips and inspiration on my website, where you can read my "Rules for Writing," sign up for my mailing list and read/hear more free excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Photo: "In Search of Lost Time" by Alexander Boden

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You Can Write (Yes, You Can!)

2011-08-05T13:12:00.004-06:00

Close your eyes and remember. Remember the stories you invented...

Remember wonder and imagination... Remember make-believe...

You can write.

If you can read these words, you can write.

You're saying "I'm not creative" or "I can't make up stories" or "I don't know how."

Well, you are, you can and you do. And you can do it without struggle.

Whoever you are, whatever your background, whatever your education, you can write -- in ways that bring meaning to your life, in ways that touch others.

The ability exists in all of us. We were born with it, with a unique voice, a unique way of seeing and describing the world, a unique palette of textures, images and hues with which to express what we feel, what we see, who we are.

As children we concocted imaginary places and playmates, soared with seagulls, raced with tigers. Close your eyes and remember. Remember the stories you invented. Remember wonder and imagination. Remember make-believe.

Watch your children, or your neighbor's children. Listen to the timeless stories they weave. We all crafted similar riches as children but, somehow, life got in the way. We grew more self-conscious. We were told not to make up stories. We feared being different. We were taught to write a certain way. We grew older, busier, more cautious. Slowly and without our being aware of it, the door to our creativity edged shut.

Now we wonder whether the key is lost for all time. It's not. That key remains within your grasp, always. It's your birthright. It's your story, your voice. And it has value.

There are many ways to unlock that door...

• Start by letting the child you were back into your life -- not to displace the adult you've become, but to enrich it.

• Start asking how and why again.

• Slow down.

• Run your hand over a tree trunk.

• Inhale the perfume of an autumn evening.

• Get up early and watch the sun rise.

• Study people. See how they walk. Hear how they talk. Make up stories about them.

• Pretend you're on vacation and start a journal, recording your impressions of people and places as though seeing them for the first time.

Try writing for 15 minutes without stopping, without thinking, without editing. You'll be amazed at how much you can write in such a short time. You'll be amazed at how good it is.

Don't censor yourself. Give yourself permission to write nonsense. Give yourself permission to begin without knowing where you're going. Writing is a voyage of discovery. Be open to the journey.

Look for books and groups that support your creativity, that let you tap into the writer you are. Find a quiet place and quiet time where you can write regularly. Find a quiet place within yourself.

Listen.

The stories are there.

Photo #1 + #2 by Mark David Gerson: Story, AK + Pyramid Lake, NV.

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The Voice of the Muse: "One of the Best Books on Writing I've Ever Read!"

2011-07-24T10:54:00.002-06:00

I don't usually post complete reviews of my work on my blog, but this review, for The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, so eloquently expresses my intent and philosophy in writing the book, that I can't help but share it here with you. The review was posted yesterday on Amazon as the book's 26th five-star review by author/coach Julie Isaac, founder of Twitter's #writechat.

A Guest Post by Julie Isaac

I've read dozens of books on writing, but none have moved me as deeply as The Voice of the Muse.

Mark David's words are not only eloquent, they have a meditative quality about them that takes me directly to the core of my own creative being. He picked the perfect subtitle, "answering the call to write," because his book is the embodiment of that call. Every page invites me to open, and then compels me to write.

His approach is decidedly spiritual, yet it's the spirituality of being totally present, open, courageous, alive, and consciously connected to your creative source. He often talks of surrendering -- to your writing, to your Muse, to your deepest and most sacred Self. He says that "when you sit down at the black page or screen, you have three simple tasks: Trust. Let go. Leap." There are several guided meditations in this book, but simply opening to any page, and reading, can give you something to meditate about, or inspire you to write.

To help me find a way to sum up what this wonderful book means to me, I opened up The Voice of the Muse to see where it would lead me. The page I landed upon was the title page for chapter 5. There, in large bold letters, it said, "listen to your heart." What a perfect message to receive, for the call to write both emanates from, and ends within, the heart. It is with our heart that we hear the voice of the muse calling us to write. And it is from the still and silent center within our heart that our "yes" joyously arises to answer the call.

Mark David Gerson's, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write sits atop my list of favorite writing books, and holds a very special place in my heart. I highly recommend it.

• For more information on The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers (CD), including text and audio excerpts, visit Mark David's website.

• Join Julie Isaac on Twitter every Sunday from noon to 2pm PT. Look for the hashtag #writechat.

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