Creative insight

After publishing four books, I hit writer’s block. I couldn’t understand it. I could still put sentences and paragraphs together, but I was no longer able to intuit a plot. Eventually, after struggling with one book for nearly five years, I was forced to accept that knowing how to write was only half the battle. Writing is part technique and part creative insight.

What’s creative insight? It could be the sudden realisation that X leads to Y or the awareness that two things you thought were separate are actually related. Insight is the making of a new connection. It’s a timid little bird that tends to fly away when grasped but will alight upon an open hand. Consequently, insights often surprise us when we least expect them — when we’re stepping off a bus or getting out of the shower or dropping off to sleep. Why?

For new insights to occur we need to momentarily let go. We need to stop focusing on what we already know in order to allow our unconscious to realise new connections. If you are stuck for a solution to a problem, try freewriting. Freewriting is writing steadily without stopping and without knowing where you’re going. If you feel a resistance to trying this, consider that your unconscious may already know the answer to your problem. Freewriting can give your unconscious a chance to reveal it.

Why not try it out? Write down a problem or a question that you’d like to resolve. Then try freewriting for five minutes on one of the following prompts and see what arises.

• Write a paragraph on what the solution isn’t.
• Describe what would happen if you changed one aspect of your particular situation/problem. What if you changed the colour? The material? The method? The place? What can be made larger? Smaller? Divided? Rearranged?
• Write a paragraph or two describing the situation from a different perspective. How does it look from outside? From above? From the point of view of an object, or a forgotten voice?
• Try describing how you feel about this situation.

I tested these exercises at a writers’ workshop last month, and several people reported that freewriting had allowed them to see their problem in a new light or had enabled them to make progress towards a solution. When we write without knowing where we’re going, our unconscious sometimes gets the chance to provide new insights.