Intuitive Writing Comes with Practice
Flashes of insight can help our writing, but only if we are primed to do the work.
“It was like a download,” said an author I met at a conference years ago. She circled her head with her pointer finger. “The whole book was just there.”
Yeeaaah.
That has never happened to me. And if it has happened to you, if you have channeled a great work of art from the ether to the page, don’t tell me about it. The envy would eat me up.
Unpolished Ideas On the Brain
Sure, I’ve gotten ideas while I’m er, in the shower, or asleep. Pick the most inconvenient times —a funeral, while eating ham with the in-laws, while talking to a loan officer—and I’ve pulled out my notebook to jot something down. Often, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and scribble away next to the sink.
But a full-fledged, polished story. Nope. The rough writing and the best writing come when I’m at my notebook or desk, with the intention to write.
Preparing to Write
And when I’m there, sometimes I do get that feeling. The sense that it’s coming together. That the shards of idea and structure and information are clicking into place, into something tangible, readable. Even good.
That feeling moves into my body. It’s not blaring or bold, like a neon sign, it’s quiet and comfortable like old sweats and it settles in like knowing.
It’s hard to put words to these moments because I can’t totally explain them, nor do I want to overthink them. It’s the sense that comes when a piece slots in and fits just the right way, when I understand something that just a split-second before I didn’t know. Inspiration. The Muse. Flow. Practice.
Yep. Probably all of them. But it feels magical and right. And yet it can only be accessed through the writing practice. Through the work.
When you have trained your body and brain to observe, process, and write, then intuition arrives.
Prime Your Writing Brain
Intuition isn’t some other-worldly knowing. It’s the combination of perception and experience and knowledge and attention coming together in an instant to help us understand or make decisions. It feels magical because it’s like a beating heart, it happens without conscious thought.
It’s a flash of knowing without conscious awareness.
Writing with Intuition
Writing has a bunch of rules and when we get good with them, rely on them, and practice them, then we also develop our writing intuition.
Those intuitive hunches guide us toward some ideas and away from others, tell us when something is good, or not yet done, steer us toward some teachers or agents, or into other possibilities.
But only if we keep writing.
Experience Counts
Our instincts aren’t as clear, as powerful, or accessible if we aren’t doing the work. Waiting for the muse to arrive, only propels her to someone who is ready for her.
Sitting down with our ideas and research, our imaginations and commitment, sitting down with our thoughts and experiences and feelings, showing up every day to do the writing, sitting down and showing up not because you are working to sell something but because you are working to write something draws her in.
Learn the craft. Understand your process. Appreciate it. And write. Write for yourself and to show others. Write to understand the world and to explain it. Read for fun. Read to learn. Write some more. Then more. Breathe it all in.
Intuition Arrives
When you do that, not only will you become a better writer you’ll also become a more intuitive one.
Now, sit down and Simply Write.
-p
