by Jeffrey Hedquist
Where’s the richest repository of ideas, scenarios, stories, characters, and creativity? Inside you! Stored in your memory bank, in the silent center at the core of your being waiting for you to tap it. How do you do this? You can only get in if you’re quiet. With the pressures of daily activity, and a mind full of thoughts, the door stays closed. How can you quiet the mind so you can dive in to this ocean of creativity and break through writer’s block? For some people, listening to or playing music works, or exercise, prayer, or just taking a walk outside.
Every culture, spiritual practice and religion has techniques for releasing stress and quieting the mind. I’ve tried several, and the one that works best for me is Transcendental Meditation. I’ve been doing it for years with amazing results in many areas of my life. After my morning and evening TM practice, my mind is clearer, and I do my very best writing.
Find a method that works for you and do it consistently.
Creative results often come from alternating mental activity and rest. Try focusing intensely on your writing project. Gather your research, talk to the audience, study the USP, and get a feel for the end user. Spend 15 minutes or a half-hour writing and then, leave it. Forget about it for a while. Sleep on it.
What often happens is, when you least expect it, when you’re thinking about something else—showering, working out, watching TV, maybe in that moment lying in bed just before you drift off to sleep—in that pause between activities, inspiration will strike. A great idea will surface from the silence that will be the result of that subconscious percolating.
All the ideas you’ll ever need are right there inside you—in that quiet reservoir of silence. Find a way to access yours, then make the time to regularly gain entry. You’ll never have writer’s block again.
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© 2001 Hedquist Productions, Inc
