INSPIRATION- What Does It Feel Like?
I’m myself. I’m not J.K. Rowling or Leonardo DiCaprio. So I don’t know what it feels like to write a book, or create a character.
But this is how I write articles. Hopefully, some of it can help you.
First, I fast. I also find that drinking lots of water keeps my thoughts clear. This translates to: When I write something, a little voice nags and says “naaaah” and I write it again. Or, I make a face as if I just bit into a lemon. This means I know when to rewrite stuff, roughly speaking.
Second, I write it all out first. I let that little voice — the editor’s voice — speak out at the end. “Oh, this contradicts that, and this bit should be moved here.”
I once went to a Law of Attraction seminar. It was great. It was my first one, so I didn’t know what to expect. It was organized by Success Resources, but I don’t know who the individual speaker was.
Anyway, I do remember that he talked about the difference between intuition and ego. That fascinated me because nobody had explained it to me before.
“Oh, just listen to yourself.”
“Just listen to your inner voice.” We’ve all heard that. But I’ve got ten inner voices in my head (not literally) and they’re all contradicting. I both want to do something and on some level, I don’t. I’m lazy. I change my mind. I have lots of thoughts — hopefully, we all have.
So how do I know which one to listen to? Well, it’s fairly simple, according to This Guy Who Shall Not Be Named — because I don’t remember his name.
Your intuition speaks first, your ego second. So first you think of an idea, and then you think to yourself: “Ah, this’ll never work” etc. This is because your ego’s job is to keep you safe. Your intuition’s job is to connect you to your higher self.
But enough with the psycho-babble. First, I write out the whole lot. Then I judge. It’s as simple as. I didn’t say there would be no editing, no work. But I don’t judge my work until after it’s all flown out of me. After I’ve let my intuition have its say. As I’m writing it, I either feel good about it, or not, but I don’t judge it until the end.
Third, I apply The SIESTA Test. I was in a lab researching, and I found this by accident. Of course, by lab I mean my bed, and by researching I mean, well, sleeping. I had just written an article. Coincidentally, I slept roughly zero hours the night before. But I had to write something (Not for Medium). So I wrote it all out and I went through the techniques outlined above, and I finished it. I re-read, then went to bed.
What I found was that within 10 minutes of trying to sleep all sorts of ideas started coming up for me regarding the article I had written. Now, ideas are normally well behaved. They don’t come up if you’ve written your article properly. Putting it simply, if your mind is at rest after you’ve written the article, you’ve done a good job.
Fourth, I feed my mind good stuff. I learned this while in college. My Professor said, in our very first lecture, that information is like food.
Some of it is junk food. Not everything you read is intended to make you smart or to make you be able to better live out your life. Some of it is simply sensationalized rubbish that is written in such a manner as to deliberately trigger outrage or dopamine influxes in your brain. Extreme emotions. Tabloids are best known for this.
Ignore that information, and read things that have been researched by people with brains, who are not on speed. Sorry, I just love tabloids.
Well, I hope this helps you and that you have found it informative. Remember, this is one man’s opinion. If your process is different, and it works for you, I encourage it all the way :)
