A Writer’s Halloween

As I turned, I saw no one. The sense that I could not cut the tension in an empty house. A writer with an imagination. A premonition, too.

That I would be dead before dawn, and that a character would seek revenge. My conjuring complete, effective writing, a plague.

I took refuge in my armchair. A pen, no armor. That I would perish before my bestseller, tragic. I needed to kill him. But, how?

Mastered cunning, heartless Golem. A villain bent on my destruction. But, I alone, the writer, had the power. I would take him. 

As darkness pressed, I smelled his dank sentiment, felt ember’d orbs baring down upon me. I pulled my pen, raised it, and..

..Struck the page. With ghastly wails, the spirit found me, its whirling vortex corseted me, then, I wrestled its essence to quiet. 

I resolved to write poetry. But, the cloud of Edgar Allen Poe unsettled. I resolved to cook, but the blood from meat, unnerved. 

Then, I found the solution. Like Beethoven to music, I would dim my senses. I would write in my dreams, my waking, safe.

I slept for days. My dreams, a first draft undertaking. When I woke, I was free and rested. Then, I spied a form in the chair. 

I approached the figure. She rocked back and forth, bolts of light, escaping. Bloody fingers reached for me. I could not resist.

Her spirit found me. To the mirror, my fears met confirmation. I had been consumed by the writer in me, and so it would be.

Getting Down To It

Sometimes, there is nothing left to do but jump in.  You’ve circled the rim, looking for stairs.  You’ve thrown in stones to see if you can see the bottom.  You’ve watched the surface, looking for signs about what lurks beneath.

If you can’t recall the last time you did this, your brain does.  It’s trained to scan and surmise data.  It’s programmed to factor and consider and rationalize to good conclusions.  But, we sometimes prolong the process that our nervous system would make in good course, because we are indecisive.  And then again, sometimes the indecision leads us to our decision if we will just listen.

Indecision is a wavering that puts us nowhere immediately, and somewhere instantly.  It puts us right where we started, albeit with a slightly different view of shadow, a slightly different tilt of the head.  But, make no mistake we are essentially in the same place – in that we remain uncommitted, and free to continue to consider.

The beauty of indecision lies in the process of remaining undecided.  The perceptions that percolate; the issues that float and wave.  The eventual theme emerging, that even we can’t ignore.

Indecision happens for me in writing a lot.  A plot comes to life, but I feel uncertain.  How will it be received?  And yet, the camel’s nose is under the tent, the cat is out of the bag, you get the drift.  My indecision in my writing life almost always ends with a decision to jump in. Write it.

But, indecision is sometimes a voice to be listened to.  This happened for me when I was offered a very prestigious opportunity on Capitol Hill.  I could not shake the feeling that indecision was as close as I wanted to get to the offer.  Hindsight tells me that it would have been a dead-end road for me, as speaking out of both sides of my mouth is not a pleasure or a talent.  The opportunity gleamed in the darkness of all of my “shoulds”; but the intuitive voice that would not be silent saved me.

Sometimes, indecision is the last place we go before we decide to jump into no, yes, maybe, or do nothing.  Listening to the bridled voice in you that will move no further is sometimes what saves you, and allows you to jump in the body of water in writing and in life, that will sustain you – floating, swimming, fishing, dreaming.

Writing Blind with a Third Eye

I’ve been at the business of intuiting for a living for about thirteen years.  I’ve become pretty adept at using my Intuition, and find that it’s incredibly handy for writing.

I’m writing my first novel about a serial killer – I’m as surprised about the subject matter as anyone who knows me.  It turns out, that writing this novel has taught me a lot about writing blind, and the surprise is, my third eye’s been open the whole time.

Writing with a third eye is like stepping into a Wonderland of the unexpected.  For me, imagine cinematography by Scorsese and Hitchcock’s lovechild, Salvador Dali narrating with images at-will, and the unexpected twists and turns of a great film.  My third eye brings all of this eloquently to my intellect for sorting – like to some postal service headquarters, and then challenges my intellect to do it justice.  What I’ve noticed is that when I don’t intend anything, the more what I’ve written bends naturally to my characters and storyline.  A read of what I’ve just written at any given time typically shows clear linear development, but in a way I would never been able to conceive if I tried to write with my intellect.

Writing with an intuitive mind disables the intellectual mind so much that the real story reveals itself.  To get there I let my mind go blank, close my eyes and intend to clear my mind, and then write without any preconceived notion – even if I think I know where the story should be going, or what I should be working on.  The results are very often stellar.

The hardest thing about this process can be the Stuff that comes.  Case in point, a serial killer character with a dark mind.  But, the process of bringing the story to Life – like breathing a spark into a Golem – is about letting the story tell itself.  I get there best writing blind.  And, hopefully my readers will appreciate the story with a life of its own.