Splashing around in the Imaginative Storm

A guest post from Sandi Dittmer

But first: join us on Zoom for the Prompt of the Week today or any Thursday at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET. It’s free! No need to register! We start promptly and it lasts an hour (but you only write for 10 minutes). Just click here.

---

Sandi Dittmer is a writer based in Wetumpka, Alabama. She’s been writing with us on our Prompt of the Week Zooms, on and off, for a couple of years now. Bravely she decided to lead an Imaginative Storm workshop, and here is the result. Thank you, Sandi, for writing this!

I am fascinated by the Imaginative Storm Writer Training! As a participant for a couple of years now, my creative mind has more of a say in my writing and more agency in my art and my life. So much so that I’ve spoken of it often to my friends and community, and was recently invited to teach a workshop on using the Imaginative Storm method.

My goal was to simply share this process with some friends, but it ended up being an even more transformative experience than I had imagined. I used Navé and Allegra’s book Write What You Don’t Know as a guide, and for two hours, I had a front-row seat as writers of different ages and skill levels dropped big, round raindrops of words of all colors, shapes, and forms. It was inspiring to see their courage. Everyone’s rational and creative minds were playing, dancing, fighting, splashing, struggling and arm-wrestling to the page. At times someone’s rational mind would ambush them and they’d retract, but as they shared their work with one another, they began to relax into their writing. Before long, their confidence increased, and their creative mind and their rational mind started singing in the rain together. It was exhilarating and very surprising to witness this display of creativity.

I left the workshop with my rational mind stunned into quiet for the first time. It had seen what damage unbridled internal criticism could do. I felt as though my rational mind was apologizing to my creative mind, vowing to be kinder. Still, I was able to honor my rational mind, and thanked it for what it had done to protect me. I experienced an internal shift that was like fresh air after rain.

Now, I feel that I have more space for creativity. My rational mind continues to protect my creative mind by offering safe but flexible boundaries. But it has learned to laugh with my creative mind, diving to catch the drops of words that pour out of me. Leading Imaginative Storm exercises renewed my relationship with my rational mind. I am gentler with myself and others.

I encourage you to do your Writing Self two favors. First, drop in on an Imaginative Storm session. Whatever relationship with writing you’ve had before will become a blank slate. Those old anxieties and struggles dissolve away as you become immersed in this method. All are equal participants. Using this method is like learning to listen for when the rain comes to nourish and replenish. You train your ear and your mind to open up again.

The second favor is leading an Imaginative Storm session for others. It will not only help them to create in a new way, it will help your rational mind soften into a more loving guardian that observes and gives your creative mind more space to collect and share its brilliance.

Instead of heeding your rational mind, which is trained to keep you safe by commanding you to grab your raingear for protection from the rain, you run into the rain. Instead of letting your rational mind batten down the hatches, you open outwards to receive the long-awaited precipitation. There is no time for critique; you are too busy running trying to catch as much rain as possible. You turn your umbrella upside down to catch as many drops as you can, and your creative mind blossoms all the colors of the rainbow.