By Suzette Martinez Standring
NSNC Past President
At writing conferences, creativity often gets short shrift in favor of growing one’s business. Supersize followers on Facebook and Twitter! Get readers a-gogging with vlogging and blogging! Strengthen your footing on the technology trail. Very helpful, yes, but when all is said and done, it is about our passion for the story.
Ernie Pyle wrote with an inner fire that warmed his readers and made them care. Likewise other great columnists have branded their places in history with heartfelt originality. They all reached into a place deep within. Within a changing industry, it becomes difficult to draw from an inner well poisoned by downsizing, negativity, fear, or resignation.
Guided imagery exercises can limber up the creative muscle. I’ve just returned from the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop where I gave a presentation, “Hypnotic Recall Fills the Creative Well,” and amazing experiences poured in from attendees.
Day after day, we chase after ideas and research stories. After a while, our labor of love turns into just hard labor.
In Macon, I will do a similar workshop, “A Writer’s Meditation: We’re all Daydream Believers.” Day after day, we chase after ideas and research stories. After a while, our labor of love turns into just hard labor. It’s time to re-experience creative energy as being effortless, to once again feel the wonder and ease of an unfolding story.
How can that happen? Attendees will experience a profound relaxation as a way to mine creativity. A relaxed, alert state can bypass the critical, chattering conscious mind to enter the subconscious, which is the realm of stories, pictures, feelings, and the lessons they contain. We battle obligations and deadlines that threaten to dry up our inner reserves. Refreshment is vital. To hearken back to what we love most about our craft, and to believe, once again, in our ability “to get there.”
I was certified in hypnotherapy in 1990 out of an intense curiosity about the mind-body connection. Relaxation does unlock the imagination. I’ve applied meditation techniques to my own work, and one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received was from Jeff Zaslow when he told me, “You write with a lot of heart.” A meditative state can pinpoint the heart of a story as well as my own. I’m excited to teach this skill to my comrades-in-column-writing inMacon. Be a daydream believer with me.
Email Suzette Martinez Standring: suzmar@comcast.net She is syndicated with GateHouse News Service for her spirituality columns and her new blog, “Suzette’s Spiritual Café”
Her “Writer’s Meditation CD” is available only on her website, www.readsuzette.com Email her at suzmar@comcast.net
