Finally, we know what we're doing!
What a relief it is not to have to know what you're going to write
But first: please join us later today, or any Thursday at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET for the Prompt of the Week on Zoom. There’s no need to register, just click here. You can always find the Zoom link in the footer at imaginativestorm.com.
There we were, an intimate group of recent strangers, snug inside two-foot-thick adobe walls, hand-peeled vigas striping the ceiling, writing what we didn't know. We were in Mabel Dodge Luhan's original Taos sitting room. She lived in this house, on the edge of Taos Pueblo, with a four-square view of the sacred mountain, while she was building the famous big house, where D. H. Lawrence, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, and Georgia O'Keeffe came to stay.
The Four-Day Writing Transformation lived up to its name. Our participants left energized and inspired. One said it was "perfect." Another said it was "one of the most significant and dramatic episodes of my life."
The Imaginative Storm began decades ago, but it brewed and built during the pandemic. Next-door neighbors, in the same tiny Covid pod, James Navé and I decided to explore and articulate the method in what had been not exactly our madness, but certainly our eccentricity. We'd been leading writing workshops in which "good writing" wasn't the goal. We knew what we were doing was valuable, but we didn't know how to explain why.
We'd always been guided by these lines from Charles Wright's poem "Lonesome Pine Special," which Navé quotes regularly, and I've quoted before in this newsletter:
What is it inside the imagination that surprises us
At odd moments
When something is given back
we didn't know we had had
In solitude, spontaneously, and with great joy
We had always aimed to generate the surprises of the imagination in our workshops. When we began to formulate our method, we realized that all our prompts hinge on the concept "write what you don't know."
You've probably heard the famous piece of writing advice, attributed to Hemingway: "Write what you know." (It's not wrong; if you're a plumber or a rocket scientist, write about plumbing or rocket science.) The problem with "write what you know' is that you may think you're supposed to know what you're writing.
Which comes first: the knowing or the writing? We say, the writing.
When you try to "think stuff up," there's effort involved. You're straining to pull something out of nothing, or straining to remember a scene in technicolor detail. You put yourself in the position of deciding whether the stuff you’re thinking up is worthy of being written down. Is this the right stuff or the wrong stuff? Is it good stuff or bad stuff? How can you tell?
You're judging the words as they hit the page. Which is like judging a person's walking skills at one year old.
Fortunately for our species, when we first get up on two feet, we're driven by instinct rather than by our rational minds. We don't decide we're not good walkers because we're not coordinated and steady. We don't worry about "finding our gait." We don't get walker's block if we stumble or fall.
Why do we want to write? Why do you want to write? Is it a rational-mind decision, or something irrational, maybe subconscious, closer to instinct? Something pushes or pulls you toward the page. That something—the Muse, the duende, the need to create or to express yourself—is your battery. Anxiety and self-criticism are like cold air; they drain your battery. Curiosity and discovery recharge it.
Be willing to not know whether what you write is "good" or "bad," usable or not usable. Be willing to not know where the heart of a scene or a story lies. Be willing to let a scene or a character or a poem or a train of thought turn out different from what you expected. You, like the people in our workshop, like everyone, are capable of writing something that surprises you with its originality and emotional impact—if you are willing to let yourself be surprised.
We were so excited by this “Four-Day Writing Transformation” at Hacienda del Sol that we instantly scheduled next year’s event: April 20–24, 2025. Visit imaginativestorm.com/writing-workshops for more info. The workshop is limited to 10 people and it will sell out!
In agree and these familiar posts are a regular part of my life. It's a series of writing about what I know and then editing like crazy because I realize that some writing has "juice" and so much doesn't. Try this imaginative storm approach and see if you like it. It did wonders for me. Only you can tell if it has reached you where it counts most...