5 Ways to Dance With Your Unconscious Storyteller

We all know that writing with only the front of our brain is a bad idea.

Known and derivative, it comes out like propaganda. Unless it happens to be super catchy or groundbreaking, most readers won’t be interested.

I see some of that on Medium; the tropes of writing on here becoming more and more clear to me the more I read.

In fact, a lot of the writing advice on here is about how to be a more derivative writer. “How to Write a Catchy Headline!” “How to Make Money Writing Like I Did.”

I’m not knocking it. It works for a start. But, if you’re a writer, that’s probably not where you want to end up.

The adage is wrong: practice does not make perfect. If we are content to write unimaginatively, that is how we will continue to write. No matter how much daily writing we do, if we don’t push into the unknown and the uncomfortable, we will never grow.

Make Unconscious Fingers

The first step of getting more creative is, counterintuitively, mechanical. The actual process of typing (or writing) needs to become second nature.

I know a lot of people have different opinions about this, but I am firmly in the camp of writing every single day. No punishment for missing a day — just sit down and write. Let it come. Let your fingers get used to the process of writing.

A level up from the actual mechanical process of typing are the rules of grammar, all the structures to know, and the style in which we write. All of it needs to be fucking practiced like a golf swing. Take one aspect that you haven’t mastered yet (there will always be more) and focus consciously only on that for a month. For example, for a month, I never allowed myself to use an adverb or a simple verb. I had to make strong verb choices, and now that comes a little more naturally to me. I move on to the next thing. Happily, this never ends.

Which brings us to our next concept:

The Game Never Ends

When I was a kid, I would watch my dad cut grass through the window. “When will he be finished?” I asked.

“Probably soon,” my mom said.

“No, I mean, when will he be finished.”

“What do you mean?”

“When will dad not have to cut grass again?”

My mom thought about that. “Never, honey. The grass will always grow back.”

I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember this was my very first existential crisis. WHAT? Why do anything if it never ends?

Little did I know that this would be a question asked for most of my life. The book Finite and Infinite Games was the first time someone answered my question directly. Switch your mindset from one of winning and finishing. That is a recipe for misery. Instead, play toward the goal of continuing to play.

Not always easy, but absolutely worth thinking about. Do you hold the belief that once you get X number of followers, write X amount, or make X, you will have arrived? Let it go, now.

There is always something new to learn, or way to grow. Don’t be overwhelmed, be thrilled. There are so many ways to play.

Work Hard To Be Playful

Children don’t have to make any effort to be playful. As we grow up, we are given responsibilities. Slowly, if we don’t do something about it, we begin to take ourselves very seriously.

Watch children play and really consider what they are doing. They are participating as conscious actors, but their minds fill their worlds with spontaneous things that they can’t predict. That’s incredible. They are dancing with their unconscious minds. We can do it too.

With some effort, we can be masters of the adult world and the child’s world. That’s called genius.

As spiritual teacher Ram Dass said, “You need to remember your Buddha nature and your social security number.”

Do an Artist’s Date, take mushrooms, take a dance class, or whatever else connects you to the frivolous.

Just because it doesn’t just come naturally anymore, like when you were a kid, does not mean that it’s gone. Give it some love and it will seriously repay you.

Sharpen the Ax

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” Abraham Lincoln.

When we’re writing, we’re the ax. Or, probably our mood is the ax. How often are we swinging away at a story with a dull ax? A shitty mood; full of doubt and resentment.

Over time, I’ve learned that I need about 3 hours every day to get my mood right before I start doing any kind of creative work. Any time I think I should just skip over my self-care and get to work, I pay the price.

It is hard to overstate how important it is to be in the right frame of mind before beginning. Our minds are going to tell us over and over, “This is a waste of time. I should just be working.” Don’t listen. You deserve to be in a wonderful mood, and your work will be better for it.

Say, “Thank you, chaos!”

With all this discipline, it can be easy to become addicted to the sense of control it gives us.

It’s important to remember, as Ryan Holiday puts it, The Obstacle is The Way. We are not our plans, we are the actors who can overcome disruptions in the plan. And there will be disruptions. It is important to be able to say thank you to them.

We may not mean it at first. It might be a teeth-beared, sarcastic smile, “thanks...” But eventually, it will be a real thank you, because life is really about overcoming. The only people without problems are in the cemetery, as it were.

During writing, chaos interacts with our skills to make something new. That’s called creativity. If we’re always punishing chaos for entering our lives, we are making it really hard for it to help us be creative.

Dancing with our unconscious is an insane tight-rope walk between order and chaos. Sometimes it just happens, and we can tilt the odds in our favor, but we never really can capture that lightening. We just need to be there when it strikes.

Originally published at https://www.taylorforeman.com on July 11, 2020.