What seems like common sense to you may come as a
revelation to the reader.
The only true test of your ideas is whether they interest you
And arouse your own expectations –
The capacity for surprise that you discover as you
work.
Our purpose in writing – its essential purpose –
is to offer your testimony
About the character of existence at the moment.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

Story – the self-narrative that we use to make sense of the world around us – is [an] interpretation. Story puts facts in context so we can understand their significance and what they mean to us.**
Lisa Cron

I have met many people who have thought that
everyone must be able to do what they can do – but
they are wrong;
Not only had they learnt the skills and played these into talents,
They were well on the way to developing these into strengths – superpowers:
And sowe must always lean into what interests us, that which produces
expectations and longing in us –
Then “sing it out.”

This is the positive story to make of
the same facts as the more negative story we began with;
Every one of us is capable of doing this – often with
more or less help from others:
There are no ordinary people.^

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Lisa Cron’s Story or Die;
^C. S. Lewis, from Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now.

We are strong, difficult creatures who long for both freedom and belonging at the same time, and often run a mile when the real thing appears. That is the frontier on which we dwell.*
David Whyte

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions; a conservative tendency … and an expansive tendency … We need both of these programmes.^^
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Here they are again,
The two inclinations necessary for life:
Freedom and belonging,
Exploration and self-preservation,
Playfulness and seriousness,
Dynamic and static,
Imagination and reality,
Infinite and finite,
Future and past,
Special and ordinary –
Such a life – if we could make it work –
Would be worth everything.

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
**Mihaly Csikszenntmihalyi’s Creativity.

We are kept from our goals not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.*
Robert Brault

The Enemy is a force creating inner conflict and stopping you from showing up as your Heroic Self.**
Todd Sherman

The Enemy, the Dictator, the Resistance –
It’s you;
We’ll have to get used to this, as
Robert McKee says:
Story is a metaphor for life,
and to be alive is to be in perpetual conflict.^

In my university work with
students and staff members, I often found
the Dictator would use anxiety and trauma, and
sometimes imposter syndrome to derail a person,
Todd Sherman adds tribal narratives – such as,
People like me don’t get to do things like this.

Here’s a simple skill to try out
for the next time one of these thoughts comes along,
Being your curious self:
Write down an unhelpful thought and allow yourself to feel the discomfort for a moment;
Write it out again, but insert before the words:
“I am having the thought …
Notice if anything has changed;
Write this longer sentence out again, but insert the words:
“I am noticing that I am having the thought …
And again notice if anything has changed, however small.

It is likely that you will feel that you have some distance from the thought.

You may also want to think about who is the noticing self –
A Self that has highly developed talents and abilities,
Motivating values and deep passions.

*Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent;
**Todd Sherman’s The Alter Ego Effect;
^Robert McKee‘s newsletter: The World According to Writers.

Flow tends to occur when the activity one engages in contains a clear set of goals. These goals seem to add direction and purpose to behaviour.*
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

A myth cannot be correctly understood without a transformative ritual, which brings it into the lives and hearts of generations of worshippers.**
Karen Armstrong

We need some way of getting from here to there,
Goals can sometimes be enough, but sometimes we need
a little more help to boost this …
Enters myth and ritual;
These belong to a special world,
The place we go beyond the ordinary to
explore and expand
the understanding we have of who we are, what we have, and
what we can do –
It’s not make-believe, but a place where
we can see things more clearly and focus on what matters and begin to
imagine and practise possibilities:
Where is your special world – walking alone, journaling, a certain person … , and
what your your special world practices?

*Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now;
**Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.

But genres are merely outlines by another name.
Better to be discovering what’s worth discovering.
Noticing what you notice …*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

It’s an attempt to open our minds to possibilities other than the ones we remember, and the ones we already know we like. Something has to be done to get us free of our memories and choices.**
John Cage

There is more to discover –
About yourself, others, the world, and how these can meld into
something new for you, but
firstly, you may have to forget what you know, prefer, enjoy,
Else you may hold back and never know
what might be.

As those memories and choices come to you,
Try writing them into a book or journal, and then
close it firmly (try this whenever a memory causes you to
avoid something new or different) –
Consider these things forgotten
for now, so that you may stumble upon more –
A book, a person, an idea, a journey, an experience …

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting.

You’ll never run out of noticings …
You need a place where you can practice noticing and
making sentences …
What you get in return for this gathering and releasing
Is habit, ease, trust, and a sense of abundance that sustains
your writing.
And your mind never relinquishes what really matters.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

You never know what you might end up getting good at. Because getting good begets getting good.**
Gabe Anderson

You are of the prime species on this planet
for noticing, and you have no idea in this moment
where you will end up if you
notice your noticings, not in some
tight-fisted way, holding on firmly to whatever you come upon,
But keeping moving in an aimlessly noticing way –
It’s not that you have to do this all the time, only that
some time will provide unexpected rewards.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Getting Good.

Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there
will be room for implication.
The longer the sentence, the less its able to imply,
And writing by implication should be one of your
goals.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

At sixty-six years of age, one might reasonably say, “Oh, enough growth already,” but there has to be growth and change, because life is growth and change.**
Anne Lamott

You and me,
Whatever our age,
We need to live by implication,
Stripping away the unnecessary and diverting
until we find our true focus and direction;
I often invite those I work with to step out of
their ordinary world with all that overcomplicates,
Into a special world of who they are at their core,
Imagining how to be this person in the ordinary world of work and relationships
and activities – if we are unable to imagine a more
energised, talented, and re-orientated self then we are in trouble,
Mind you, I haven’t found anyone like that yet.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Anne Lamott’s Dusk Night Dawn.

One by one, each sentence takes the stage.
It says the very thing it comes into existence to say.
Then it leaves the stage.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

Life transcends itself not in ‘length’ – in the sense of reproduction of itself – but in ‘height’ – by fulfilling values – or in ‘breadth’ in the community.**
Viktor Frankl

If your life were a sentence to deliver on
the stage of life, what would it say before you leave?

In this analogy, we deliver our line for the sake of others
and gain meaning for ourselves as an effect.

We also know that is not how long the sentence is but
what it eloquently says that matters.

It is a line that we ought to allow our heroic self to deliver,
Ensuring no two lines are ever the same.
You have stages you’re already performing on
and stages you might like to perform on,
and my question is: Would you like to show up there
as the heroic version of yourself?^

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^Todd Sherman’s The Alter Ego Effect.

This is what creativity serves. It endeavours to brings some of our hidden life to expression in order that we might come to see who we are.*
John O’Donohue

The ability not to rush to conclusions, to keep multiple hypotheses in mind, and to remain open to new information and possibilities is key to not getting sucked into misbelief. We tend to admire and seek out conviction and confidence. But we would be better served if we learned to admire and enjoy a state of ambiguity.**
Dan Ariely

What are you doing when you are being
your most creative? –
It’s possibly not the thing lying on the surface, so
look beneath the obvious action to see what is driving this –
that will lead us to try and to discover more;
What we are doing,
To use Dan Ariely’s words, is avoiding
misbelief in ourselves, being open in an ongoing way to
there being more to find and bring of ourselves –
Then we will need to invent new ways for delivering this.

Take five minutes, and dive beneath the surface of what you do:
Write out the talents or superpowers involved,
What are the values you are seeking to give expression to?
Where are the spikes of high energy?

Don’t judge, remain open:
Spend another five minutes – today or tomorrow – and
rewrite what you have as new possibilities to explore –
It’s still you, but more of you.

*John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
**Dan Ariely’s Misbelief.

Some people wake us up.*

Of the many callings in the world, the invitation to an adventure of an awakened and full life is the most exhilarating.  This is the dream of every heart.  Yet most of us are lost or caught in forms of life that exile us from the life we dream of.  Most people long to step into the path of creative change that would awaken their lives to beauty and passion, deepen their contentment and allow their lives to make a difference.**
John O’Donohue

I am grateful to those who keep me awake,
Especially those who disrupt and disturb and unsettle –
In the best kinds of ways – what is
going on in my mind, heart, and soul.

They keep me on the alert for confirmation bias,
A stunting of the soul, which, according to Clarissa Pinkola Estés
requires feeding with asking questions, creating stories and
making things:
The craft of questions,
The craft of stories,
the craft of the hands –
all these are the making of something,
and that something is soul.
Any time you feed soul,
it guarantees increase.^

Joshua Rothman suggests that we notice
our quirks and enthusiasms towards becoming more
who we are – a feeding of our souls:
Even seemingly unimportant or trivial elements
can contribute to who we are …
We tend to downplay these sorts of quirks and enthusiasms,
but they’re important to who we are.^^

Why not take a moment to write yours down –
Always better than running them through the mind –
Or ask others to identify some for you,
And then lean into these and see what happens,
Whether you feel more awake.

*gapingvoid’s blog: Make Your Impossible Dream a Future Reality;
**John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
^^Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing blog: Life In the Details.