Writing from the Inside Out (7 page)

The writing marathon is a way of writing for an extended period of time without stopping. Whether I begin with a project in mind or head into the thing with no conscious expectations, the writing marathon is a powerful experience.

The writing marathon is a practice in integrity, asking that I grow more curious about my writing. Rather than adopting a fixed idea of what my project can be, and editing it down to that, I remind myself that it's a gift, and not one bestowed exclusively to whom I think I am. My writing gets better, because I establish a close relationship with the imagination and because I want to employ myself in creation.

For getting unstuck, the most important thing to remember is that
I want to write
, and so I keep a positive outlook. As I write, I mediate my focus among things, characters, settings, dialogue, on myself, on asking questions — and on answering them. I experiment with wording and especially with phrasing. When I've been writing short sentences, I write a longer one. This exercise gives my brain other things to focus on besides the writing. The experience becomes more dimensional because I am directing my attention toward facets of the writing process other than those that come naturally for me. I rove, finding freshness in each moment's succession of images. More correctly, after-imagery is most present to me.

Images — whether perceived with the senses or with the mind — remain in the vision after they are seen. I'm sitting in the window seat on an airplane, and I've just woken up from a brief and unrestful nap. I'm curious what time of day it is, so I draw up the window shade to find that the sun is bright and very orange on the horizon, above a thick mattress of white clouds. It's too intense; it's painful. I shut the blinds and look away. My eyes re-adjust to the dark of the cabin, but there's still a disc in my field of vision from looking at the sun. That's the sun's negative after-image. The photoreceptors in my eyes have been overstimulated. Though I'm looking at something else entirely, I can't help but see that peculiar energetic shadow left by the sun. Eventually, it fades, but the basic mechanism for after-imagery continues.

The brain trains itself to simplify things, to make order of disorder, and to ignore what seems unimportant. I experience the world, I grow familiar with what it feels like to do certain things. I sit in a chair, and before long I'm not really conscious of the fact that I'm sitting on a chair. This works well for me, for the most part. Otherwise it would be difficult to get anything done. It helps, though, to constantly bring more craft nuances into my field of attention. I work to become more aware of the fact of language, the sound of it, and also to the feel of speech, of the tongue's movement, where the sounds resonate in the physical body, and whether subtle patterns exist in all of this.

When I detect patterns, I have something to toy with, to think about, something that can be manipulated and experimented with. I often begin a scene in a given way, by first providing the context, then a description of the general environment; this process seems traditional to me. I'd like to mix things up. I could keep the general descriptions to a minimum, and instead look to a specific object to impart the feeling of the place and establish character as well. Perhaps my characters are in an environment with strong verticals — a peculiar upscale hotel lobby. Instead of beginning with a description of the lobby, I could describe a minor character's penmanship — the strong verticals and dramatic crossed Ts of his script. Moving forward with this pattern, I feel more like exploring the space, and I notice that someone passing through the lobby wears her hat tilted in a mock-dramatic way, and it complements her walk — a too-upright strut.

If need be, I forget that I am writing — on the verge of the other world — and do my best to pass on through. As with the above example, I could describe the linear architecture of moods. The story will still get written if I stretch my attention elsewhere periodically, and it's a good exercise anyway, because I'm pouring thought and care into it.

I can't help but be inventive when I'm really paying attention. Wasn't it that way all the time as a child? I may get rusty with this ongoing creativity but I don't ever fully lose it. As the years of childhood passed, I set aside childish inventiveness, because I become more concerned with appearing normal and being successful with other people. After all, I need to belong, and I want my contributions to be well received. But I put too much faith in the rewards of appearing normal and being successful, and I miss out on how inherently joyful it is to be authentically creative.

The primary means of re-energizing the writing process is to explore innovative organization, progression, and structure. This study helps you overcome the main challenge of the writing process, which is staying meaningfully in the flow of imagination.

The best and most enduring core concept is to be mindful of images and to track things as the images reverberate with me and in the work. I modulate my focus to bring variety and play into my style, remaining continually attentive to the moments with the most energy, in which I — as the writer — feel peculiarly charged and flickering with strangeness. Particularly in those moments, I am aware of the imagery at work. When the moment passes, what remains? Can I re-elicit a gesture that harkens back in some way?

A great thing to do if I begin to lose track of things is to restate, in a kind of summary form, what happened in a previous passage that was working particularly well. It's a big help in longer writing marathons to help keep track of where I've been and to re-sound moments that felt striking.

If I feel blocked, I can reiterate the most recent phrase I have in mind, altering something about the phrase with each repetition. This reiteration is an exercise in overcoming the limiting belief that I need to stop in the middle of my writing. I've led many people through session after session of writing marathon, and it has been a positive experience for everyone, and each writer has been able to do it. My first writing marathon went for a full twenty-four hours. If I can do that, anything is possible.

The writing marathon is not exactly stream-of-consciousness writing, because the intent is not to capture a steady stream. I can organize my work in whatever way feels right for me. I enjoy the clarity that comes from working modularly, roving from section to section, if need be. If my thought skips to a new topic, I leave myself some white space to signal that. The writing marathon is not automatic writing, because automatic writing is unguided writing. The writing marathon is a delving style of free writing, where I write persistently for an especially long period, taking responsibility for shifts of nuance and focus — managing free play and direction, growing more conscious of the writing process, of myself, and of generating enlivened, unburdened creative material.

I do no revising. When in doubt, I review, retouch, or resound. Each time something happens, it is spontaneous. The moment of creation is garden-fresh.

Regulation I: (Duration)
— Write for the duration, by longhand or on whatever device you'd like.

Regulation II: (Rate)
— Write/type at the rate of one letter per second or faster
.
This rate is the required minimum, not a required mean that would be calculated over the entire time period. (Plod; don't write for a burst and then rest.)

Regulation III: (Breaks)
— Take a fifteen-minute break every three hours. Get up and move around. Then return 100% to your writing.

Regulation IV: (Continuity)
— Don't look back and reread what was written. Don't be concerned with quality. Do, however, focus on having fun.

It's OK if I eventually discard the vast majority of what I write. There's no rulebook that says good writers keep everything they've written. There is no permanent record of all my drafts. Doing Hatha yoga, I don't get to keep the postures I've performed. In writing, I continually try new things and experiment. If I am not writing at all, I won't have anything to show, so I have fun writing. It's an extension of who I am.

I need ground beneath my feet. I like the feeling of being right, of having ideas click together, of making meaning, forming patterns, and feeling practical. Paradoxically, more than that, I need to rise above that ground. I need variety and the chaotic potential that goes with it. Just as I need to know things for sure, I also want to venture forth into the darkness. I want surprise.

Change itself only takes an instant. Habits take time. On average, most people take about four weeks to adapt to a new habit so that it feels natural. Until that fourth week, the new action may seem unnatural and uncomfortable. After a while, though, any attempt to change from that new habit would feel even more uncomfortable.

I look at the regular practice of writing marathons as a method for opening into a new expression of who I deeply am.

 

 

Send a message to your friends to let them know when you are planning a writing marathon. Tell them how long it will be.

Post another message to notify them when you have finished your marathon.

Accountability is a big motivator. Plus, if your friends are writers, your writing marathon encourages them to start their own. If at all possible, doing writing marathons as a group in the same room helps. Everyone can be working on his or her own project, silently sharing in the energy of being productive.

The writing marathon gets you to make a lot of written material without censoring or artificially shaping the natural voice. It is a method that invites in the irrational mind to play without incurring criticism. There may be no surer method for writing with access to prelingual resourcefulness. However, if you would like to pause — to create chapters, to change sections, to read where you have been to see that you are on the right track, to sketch out where you would like to go so that you will be able to return to an outline of good ideas if you become less inspired later — you are free to take the liberties that best suit your creativity.

 

 

Writing is foremost a mental experience, but it's inevitably a physical one as well.

From an outward appearance, the writer's kind of physical activity usually involves hunching over a notebook while seated in a chair. Sustaining this position can afford substantial benefit, because language has a powerful effect on the way I think and feel. It also leaves me with tight hamstrings and a stiff neck.

My experience as a writer and yoga practitioner has taught me that the physical practice of Hatha yoga and the thought-based practice of writing are closely related. Conscious communication stretches me, expands my perspective, and sheds new light.

The term
yoga,
as it is commonly used, signifies a category of physical stretches and postures. Thus, on a retreat in Bali I might say that I am on my way to “do yoga,” meaning that I will be performing various postures on a mat. The Sanskrit word
yoga
refers to a practice that readies the mind for wisdom and actually means “yoke” or “union.” So, if I want to practice yoga in that sense, I practice union. Metaphorically, I can practice that kind of yoga through writing.

Hatha yoga is a physical and spiritual practice. The word
Hatha
refers to a balance between the body's polar extremes: the cool, rational head (the moon) and the fiery passions of the pelvis (the sun).

Central to yoga is the belief that mind and body are one. It is immensely helpful to have language to guide my thinking. Without the affirming guidance of language, my thoughts are left to their own devices. Words can support me, and words help translate what I'm feeling into substance for meditation.

Self-talk, that on-the-spot writing on the mental chalkboard, has a powerful effect on my physical body. When I'm holding my eyes closed while standing in tree posture, my brain is flooded with stimuli from my nerves. It's a storm. Wind seems to be blowing my branches in all directions. The longer I hold the pose, the more overwhelmed my mind feels. What do I say to myself to keep balanced, to fully witness the sensation and allow it all to flow, evenly observed, neither praised nor rejected? How to hold difficult postures — not out of force of will but out of devotion?