| How to Use Your Intuition to Be A Better Writer |
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Albert Einstein said, "The only real valuable thing
is intuition."
For centuries inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, parents, children and yes, artists, have all experienced intuitive flashes. These inklings sometimes lead to something big which reaches into positive growth situation beyond our usual way of thinking or being. An inkling may lead to a new invention or an improvement upon an already existing product. Ralph Waldo Emerson described it this way: "Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world." Remember a breakthrough moment in your life. An "A-ha" or an "Epiphany" moment. Arthur Koestler, Hungarian born writer, wrote "The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition". Akin to a "sixth sense", intuition brings pieces together. It gives the gift of heightened awareness. It also helps to listen to your body. In Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough book, "Blink", a study of the ability to make rapid decisions based on the adaptive unconscious , wrote about listening to your body when you have an intuitive inkling. When something doesn't "feel right" and you get a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach or the palms of your hands get sweaty - follow that inkling. So what does this have to do with writing? Your intuition is one of your most important partners in the process of taking your writing to your next level. Listening to its voice will make a substantial, heart shifting, world changing difference to both you and those people who are blessed enough to come in contact with your words. On the other hand, if you ignore the inklings you hear - nothing will happen. I knows this first hand. I put my writing on the back burner for years. My idea for my website was present in my mind for a long time before I took action - and little did I know my writing would be central to every aspect of both my website and her business. The path wasn't clear at all. It was murky and filled with "Not knowing" and "doubt" and "denial" and "I'll do what I THINK I want to do" which was caused by her unwillingness to listen. The messages to focus on writing were being divinely sent as early as college when my classmate in "Politics of Africa" said, "I enjoyed your paper so much, I read it through completely - twice." She read a ten page single spaced term paper on the Ivory Coast twice? Once "just for fun?" This particular message was memorable just because it was so outrageous. That was a densely written term paper. It was also written with heart, with soul and with a strong love for the words and the message. More than ten years after that, I was working (and very unhappy about it) for the County of Kern. My free-spirited, artistic soul was busy being a Bureaucrat because it "seemed" the right thing to do. I thought I was following a divine course - yet I seemed to stop getting messages the more miserable I became. A co-worker said to me, "You pack more good information in a really short memo than anyone else I know.. And they are so artfully expressed, too." I started writing on her lunch hour. It was at a crowded meeting held at the library that the messages began to really make themselves heard. Your intuition will assist you to guide your characters, to nudge you in a certain direction with your creative non-fiction. Your intuition will hand you exactly the right word at exactly the right time. Your intuition has been your partner in all the free flow writing we have created in this program. It is the energy which passes along those first words, those next words. It opens up and fuels the flow. Let's join our intuition intentionally today: Consider this: Where is the place I am meant to go with my words and my writing? Use free flow writing to respond.... The place I am meant to go with my words and my writing is............ Allow your words to float across the page. The place I am meant to go with my words and my writing is: When the flow slows down and comes to an end, remember to remain open to the messages from your intuition today and for the next several days. Listen to your body, listen to people who say things to you that seem especially surprising. They have been sent to you, messengers of your destiny. Listen - and write - and listen some more. Julie Jordan Scott faciliates the growth of Creative Souls through Writing, Coaching, and Working in the Theatre Arts. Dare to lead a remarkable, passionate life now through one of her teleclasses or ecourses. Read more at: http://www.ArticlePros.com/writing_and_speaking/writing_tips/article-62.html. |
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