So what’s on the side of the road? Maybe it’s a piece of paper, a faded envelope. The “and” part of “Yes, and…” is observing what else you see, hear or smell. The “Yes” part of “Yes, and…” is that you continue to walk in your imagination. Okay, now you’re your character wearing boots and walking on concrete somewhere. Go with your first idea, don’t dismiss it in search of the “perfect” idea. What might that tapping be? Maybe it’s boot heels on concrete. (It doesn’t matter if you hear it in your imagination or in the real world.) Don’t dismiss that meaningless tapping or get irritated with your neighbor for making noise. In the writer’s trance, “Yes, and…” means you accept without judgment whatever tiny sense impression comes to you in the darkness behind your eyelids and build on it. You intensify it, expand it, stretch it or twist it. And you add to whatever your colleagues give you. The “ uber principle of improv” is to always say “Yes, and…” On stage, this means whatever your fellow improv actors say or do, you accept wholeheartedly without editing, censoring or judging. You’re feeling impatient that this improv-meditation is not working for you? Great! Your character is impatient because something is not working for her/him/you. Your back aches from lying on the floor doing this silly improv-meditation thing? Great! Your character has a back ache. Whatever sense impression you have, give that to the character. One of the principles of improv is that you never have nothing. You might get just a hint of a sense impression - a whisper of sound, a flutter of sight or color, or a fleeting whiff of scent. From the Tiniest Grain of Sand, Your Imagination Creates a Beach The tiniest of details, which make no immediate sense, will lead you where you need to go. Silently, lying on a mat or sitting in a chair, eyes closed, letting your imagination run.ĭon’t worry if it seems not much is happening at first. You may start with an idea of which character’s shoes you want to step into during the trance, but stay open to the possibility that your unconscious may lead you into a different character.Ĭhances are you are not going to fall immediately into a waking dream where a mental movie plays in your mind with Imax 3d soundscape and CGI effects. This scene may or may not be end up in the manuscript you’ll write, but you can trust that it is part of the story you need to tell yourself to discover what story you’ll tell readers. You imagine yourself as you the person you were at a different time and place. *For memoir writers, “characters” means the people in your memoir including your narrator self. Allow scenes, settings or situations featuring this character to unfold in your imagination. Let yourself shift to an “improvisational-meditation” where you imagine you are a character* in the story you’re going to write (someday, not today). Let your own personality, thoughts and concerns fade for the time. Spend 10 minutes or so in your usual meditation practice to move into a relaxed trance state. Inner Improv Your Way Into the Writer’s Flow Here’s what works for me and the students in my Enter the Flow classes. The writer’s trance is notoriously illusive, but you can enhance your ability to enter that state of conscious at will. Whether we call it the writer’s trance, creative flow, flow writing, freewriting, dreamstorming or the awakened dream, it’s where most writers find creative bliss. To discover a story, writers use a different kind of cognitive activity and enter a different state of consciousness.
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