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By Roberta Allen
For many years, I have used timed exercises to teach writers how to tap in to their energy to make their writing come alive. For me, the key to writing is energy, which I define as the impulse to write, the power deep inside that drives you. I work with a timer, because the timer creates pressure and brings energy to the surface. The timer is an important part of my method.
When you have, for example, ten minutes to write, you don't have time for your
internal conversations. You don't have time to tell yourself, "I should have
taken up weaving," "This isn't any good," or "My husband would kill me if he
read this."
You may never rid yourself of those thoughts--even when you're writing--but you
can learn not to listen. Resisting those thoughts gives them power. If you just
allow them to be there without paying attention, they will fade into the
background of your mind.
The timer is one sure way to bypass those thoughts. But the timer is not enough.
Writers need to focus their energy on a particular topic or image. One of the
first exercises I ever used was, Write about a lie. But I could have said, Write
about a lizard or the moon or anger or love or an invalid. I could have used the
newspaper headline "FALL FROM GRACE" or a magazine photo of a chimpanzee. I
could have used a postcard of Venice. I could have closed my eyes, opened a
dictionary and pointed at random to the word "proof."
What matters more than the particular topic or image you choose is the act of
focusing. The verbal or visual cue gives your energy direction. Once you set the
timer and go--without knowing where the topic or image will lead you--you are an
explorer going into the unknown.
When you follow your energy, you get out of your own way. You relinquish
control. You let go of judgments and expectations. You write with the abandon of
a little child.
The story, essay, or play that wants to be written by the deeper part of you is
often not the story, essay, or play you think you wanted to write. Thinking
about writing is very different from the experience of writing.
How do you know when an exercise has energy? You feel something. When your
feelings are strong, you know you have tapped something deep within yourself.
When you tap something deep, you feel more alive. Feeling more alive is not
always feeling better. Feeling more alive is allowing yourself to feel whatever
you are feeling--whether it is pain, love, joy, sadness, anger, or fear.
Not every exercise you do will have energy. You may need to do quite a few
before you find the ones I call "triggers," the ones that take you to places you
didn't know you wanted to go.
If you have difficulty tapping your energy when you write, find it first in
everyday life. Try the exercise I call "Moments." Notice moments in your life
that have energy--that make you feel more alive. Every day for a week, list one.
At the end of a week, write a five or ten minute exercise about the moment with
the most energy. That moment might be the one when the colors in the sky at
sunset moved you or it might be the moment of regret when you accidentally broke
your mother's favorite cut-glass bowl.
If you, the writer, are not moved by what you write, the reader won't be either.
It is very important to be aware of what you feel. It is not the words that
matter in an exercise but the energy behind the words. Words can be changed and
revised but the energy is the life in your writing.
Roberta Allen is the author of eight books, including the short short story
collections, CERTAIN PEOPLE and THE TRAVELING WOMAN, both praised by The New
York Times Book Review; a novella-in-shorts, THE DAUGHTER; the novel, THE
DREAMING GIRL; the memoir, AMAZON DREAM, and three writing guides, FAST FICTION,
THE PLAYFUL WAY TO SERIOUS WRITING, and THE PLAYFUL WAY TO KNOWING YOURSELF. She
teaches at The New School and has taught in the writing program at Columbia
University. A visual artist as well, she has exhibited worldwide, with work in
the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She gives private writing
classes at her home and teaches also by email and phone.
www.robertaallen.com
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johnsgirl
Sydney N
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