An immediate path for any creative task!
by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
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This is a message to not only the many writers among our subscribed members and visitors, but also to anyone who wants to be a writer, or who faces a writing task, or who is looking to any creative project.
Learn to Image Stream—find self-taught instructions in the clusters of linked articles which begin at Image Streaming and at Welcome to Image Streaming—if you haven’t done so already.
An image-based answer is always there in response to any question you ask yourself, reflecting your best-available insight in that context, from the associations reflexively and instantly made by that 70-or-so percent-by-volume of your brain which associates by sensory images instead of by the conscious word- and word-based associations made by the loud 2% part of the brain. Once you are reasonably smooth and practiced in Image Streaming, prepare yourself specific questions in context of what you are asking for here. Image Stream on each question. Your image-based answer is always there, instantly.
What do you do with that image-based answer?
The language of that majority of your brain that’s providing you that answer, is a different language from that used by the conscious, word- and word-based associating 2% of your brain, so chances are that the translation expresses as a metaphor, just as in the more significant of our dreams.
We use inductive inference or a triangulation process to get at that metaphor, as described in the second page of the self-taught instructions set at High Thinktank; but when pursuing creative writing, we’ve a much quicker way that usually serves quite well. Simply write fast and furiously whatever comes to mind in describing the image that popped up as answer; and with that, whatever else comes to mind, a la Freenoting, for a minute or so, and it pops right in as to what you should be writing at that point.
A number of our members and subscribers here have long since learned to Image Stream—it’s pleasant and fun to explore—but I’m not sure how many here are actually using it for practical purposes, as you likely should be doing at least some of the time. I have seen only a few letters from people here who are using it for the purpose of creative writing or for any creative project. Even so, here is how that works. I hope the example here will give you a good feel for how to use the process to make great connections and applications through specific questions:
- Don’t wait for inspiration—it’s already there. At the start of any project you can ask yourself, “What’s the main point I really want to make here?” An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image Streamers who asks themselves that question. Write furiously a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context, without editing, and—boing! boing! boing!—your main message clicks into place. Very little if any of the actual Freenote scribblestorm makes it into your formal draft, but you’ve clued in to what you really want to say.
- Also at the start, HOW to start? If in doubt, just ask yourself, “How best to start this thing?” and an image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image Streamers who ask themselves that question. Write furiously a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing in, a Freenote scribblestorm whose written content you can throw away after you’ve gotten your a-ha! or a-has! from it, and your exposition or narrative gets wonderfully underway from what you’ve clued in.
- Never stall out. At any point where you find you’ve paused and aren’t sure how to proceed forward, simply ask yourself “what’s next?” An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced ImageStreamer who asks himself that question. Write furiously for a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing, in a Freenote scribblestorm, and your exposition or narrative gets wonderfully underway again from what you’ve clued in.
- At the end, you can always ask yourself, “What’s the main thing I’ve left out here that maybe I should include?” An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image Streamers who ask themselves that question. Write furiously for a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing, in a Freenote scribblestorm. After discovering the main thing left out, you can evaluate and choose as to whether or not that is, indeed, worth the rewriting to include it. If you do include it, you might repeat the procedure to see what else you’ve left out that might be important.
Use this in any field, topic or project, not only writing
You can do this for any non-routine task in any field or specialty, not only writing. Once you’ve become reasonably practiced in Image Streaming, brainstorm out a bunch of specific questions whose answers would facilitate your handling of that task. Then you ask yourself one of those questions, process it out, see what further specific question the answer raises for you, then ask that one in turn and process it out. Then go on to your next prepared specific question. The book you can thus write for yourself on the topic you are asking about will probably be better generally, and certainly better for your own purposes, than any book you can find on the subject.
Getting to the essentials in your writing or project
Back again on the topic of writing: with regard to #1 above, what do you really want to say in your piece of writing or work of art? There is a wonderful procedure suggested by Peter Elbow in his book and training program, Writing Without Teachers. His procedure is as effective for that purpose as is our ImageStream-based technique in #1. It can be used on its own quite well, and even better when used in combination with our ImageStream-based method. Here, in short, is a version of Elbow’s technique:
Write out your essay or exposition to its conclusion. Take that conclusion, set the rest of that first essay aside and, with your conclusion as your starting point, write out a new essay to ITS conclusion. Take THAT conclusion and use it to start a new essay and write it to ITS conclusion…. You will find that by 3 or 4 iterations into this process, you are saying some extraordinarily powerful things. Combine that with our ImageStream-based technique in #1 above and things will become…. quite remarkable.
There is much more, even, that can help you. The book we were originally writing, on how to totally blow past and eliminate writer’s block, grew in the writing and became a comprehensive self-taught course on creative writing techniques. We commend to your attention the book by Wenger and Bossert, End Writer’s Block Forever!
Even if you’ve only lightly thought about writing, consider the fact that, noticed or unnoticed, you have seen things that no other human being has seen, and thought thoughts that no other human being has thought, and that searched out and examined, SOME of these (and you won’t know which UNTIL you’ve searched out and examined them) are truly meaningful, worthwhile, potentially a valuable contribution.
Also consider—and anyone who has written and published a book here will, I think, agree with me on this point—that writing about a topic, especially writing and polishing a book about a topic, is one of the most effective ways of learning about that topic, and certainly is far better and more effective for that purpose than is any classroom instruction. Writing and preparing your own book on a topic especially meaningful to you, with the intent to make it meaningful to readers: to do that is life-transforming. It develops and organizes your perceptions and thoughts and understandings in ways that no other method can. I commend this to you as a major strategy for developing yourself and your life wonderfully.
See also the main book on Image Streaming.