.....you dream a great solution to something that's been niggling you. You know you did, and the dream is crystal clear in every element EXCEPT the blooming thing you wanted the solution to?
I've been trying to do some automatic writing, to blow away a few of the cobwebs. My writing seems a little turgid, recently, and I thought a few blasts at an unself-cosncious writing style might help. Problem is, I can't seem to shut up the nit-picking voice that stalls me and tries to correct what I'm writing every ten seconds.
And then last night I cracked it ~ in a dream. I wrote reams and reams of dazzling stuff, and all because I'd found a way to slip straight into the 'zone'.
I woke up, thrilled ~ until I discovered that the most crucial bit of the dream ~ the 'how to' ~ was missing from my brain.
Anyone got any tips for successful automatic writing?
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3 comments:
I always bang on about this but I'm a great fan of what Dorothea Brande called the 'artistic coma'.
You're almost asleep but not quite and you let your mind roam free. If I've got a prompt from the writing group or if there's a particular subject I want to write about, I'll think about it before I lie down. Then, deep relaxation for about 10-20 minutes. If you feel like you're about about to drop off, get up! Once you're fully asleep you've lost it.
The beauty of this is that when you resurface, the thoughts are still fresh in your mind. Get 'em down quick in any order. It may sound hippy dippy but it's surprising what weird things can pop up:-)
Hmmm, my only tip is to give yourself full permission to write rubbish, and then when the critic pops up, you can tell him it's meant to be crap: that's the whole point. I tell myself this over and over and it does work.
Choose a prompt the night before and literally wake up, stumble to your pen/keyboard and write whatever comes into your head. Doesn't have to flow; just set the timer for ten mins and think of it as a warm-up. It's great as a brain-drain and I finf it best to just scribble in a notepad that no one will ever see.
It won't be genius (every day!) but it'll throw up some interesting nuggets that you can build on or even, in my case, shows what your subconscious is urging you to write about without you even knowing it.
Amazing how the same themes and concepts re-appear time after time.
Good luck! (and sorry about the rambling on)
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