Part One

On Writing

Nobody else can write what you can write. You are one of a kind and have had one-of-a-kind experiences. And, on top of that, nobody else sees or feels exactly what you see and feel. Right this very minute, you've got enough material stored within you to write a shelffull of books.And who doesn't want to write? I've rarely met anyone who didn't eventually confess a secret yen to write something important "someday." The motivations vary--some think it'll get them on Phil Donahue, some think it'll make them rich, some fantasize about the free-wheeling life of a writer. But there is some magic pull for nearly everyone about writing.

Yet the act of writing looms higher than Mount Fuji for many of us. Rather than the integrative activity it could be, it becomes yet another outside event which pulls us away from ourselves. We have to write papers, memos, letters, reports. We have to meet deadlines. We have to convince, entertain, impress others. Soon we discover that there is "nobody at home "in our writing. Certainly, we ourselves are not there. Some sputtering machine has taken up residence and is spewing out dead words that mean nothing to anyone--especially to us. We have forgotten that any writing worth reading hasto originate from some genuine place within us.

My own relationship with writing changed for the good once I realized that all my writing is mostly for me--and comes only from me. I decide that I'll write, I choose the project, or it chooses me, and then I become the instrument by which it gets written. I have even come to understand that I don't have to like everything I write. My job is just to be the scribe, to write one piece and then go on to the next.

I've found that the major starter for me in anything I write is voice. I can't take a step until I get the voice that's going to write that particular piece. What I mean by voice is that as I'm writing some real person seems to be there. I actually hear a voice as I write. When that doesn't happen, I'm stuck; when it does happen, then I can feel my muscles and bones flexing and warming up to write. Most of the time that voice is one of my own: the scared me, the schoolteacher me, the irreverent me, the raunchy me or whatever. I recognize each of them as one of the voices I walk around with in my head. The most exciting moments, however, come when the voice is that of a visitor, a person I don't know, who comes and takes over my awareness and my writing for a while. When these people drop in and tell me about themselves, I find myself writing things I never even thought of before.

The exercises in this book are designed to help you discover as many of your own voices as possible and to open you to other voices as well. I hope the exercises will lay the groundwork for that moment when "something" takes over and you find yourself writing for hours--totally absorbed and having fun. Start your writing from the inside, from a placewithin where the real you lives. Begin with yourself--dip into your memories, feelings, body sensations, observations, imagination, and make something exist that was not there before.

I'll walk along with you for a while, encouraging you to find that point of ease in your writing that feels like your true and natural self. I hope you'll soon come to feel that you're not a writer struggling with words, but a human being through whom writing can flow into existence.

"Provides teachers and students with exercises that are useful in the areas of self-exploration, sensory awareness, and thinking skills; and more generally, will provide a wealth of writing exercises that should genuinely encourage the writing process."(--Steve Beck, Southeastern Comunity College)

The 63 writing exercises in Writing from the Inner Self teach writers to activate their memories in order to stimulate creativity and overcome writer's block. Designed to be used when inspiration lags or when refreshment is needed, here is a new kind of exercise book that teaches how to combine writing and meditation, emphasizing the value of looking into our inner selves.

Practical writing and meditation exercises that foster creativity, inspire imagination, and help overcome writer's block.

Includes bibliographical references and index.