Creative Viagra?

Very few human beings have voluntary access to their deep creative wells. It may be on the same spectrum as “voluntary tachypsychia” — psychological time distortion, a phenomenon most of us have experienced, usually in an emergency situation or under very high pressure, but is damned difficult to test in a lab. I look at creativity as accessing the “burning core” (Harlan’s words) of our being, and then filtering that light, channeling that magma through years of meticulously crafted skill.

Then what? You have to either calibrate that to a market, or be lucky enough to naturally gravitate toward a market that appreciates what you’re doing, or find allies who can find those people.

Get that? Three stages: the core energy, the skill, and the right market. Lack energy, and you have nothing to say. Lack skill, and you have no way to say it. Lack market, and you can produce wonderful work that no one will ever see.

Gotta have all three. The “Lifewriting Six” steps are both a prescriptive (“do this!”) and a diagnostic (“can’t do this? Where do you break down. Let’s take a look!”) to see where writer’s block hits you. And here, we are describing writer’s block as “anything that stops the creation, polishing, submission of stories and the progressive advancement of skill.” This is why we don’t care much about people’s individual stories. We care about the PROCESS of writing. An individual story is no more important than an individual workout. The truth is that if you keep going to the gym, get the right coaching, eat right and rest…your…