JulieJordanScott

How to Use Your Intuition to Be a
Better Writer
© 2005
Julie Jordan Scott

Albert Einstein said, "The only real valuable thing
is intuition."

For centuries inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers,
parents, children and yes, artists, have all
experienced intuitive flashes. These inklings
sometimes lead to something big which
reaches into positive growth situation beyond
our usual way of thinking or being.

An inkling may lead to a new invention or an
improvement upon an already existing product.
Ralph Waldo Emerson described it this way:
"Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking
the hint of a new machine from his own structure,
adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron,
wood, and leather, to some required function in
the work of the world."

Remember a breakthrough moment in your life.

An "A-ha" or an "Epiphany" moment.

Arthur Koestler, Hungarian born writer, wrote
"The moment of truth, the sudden emergence
of a new insight, is an act of intuition". Akin to
a "sixth sense", intuition brings pieces together.
It gives the gift of heightened awareness.

It also helps to listen to your body. In Malcolm
Gladwell’s breakthrough book, “Blink”, a study of
the ability to make rapid decisions based on
the adaptive unconscious , wrote about listening
to your body when you have an intuitive inkling.
When something doesn’t “feel right” and you
get a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach
or the palms of your hands get sweaty – follow
that inkling.

So what does this have to do with writing?

Your intuition is one of your most important
partners in the process of taking your writing
to your next level. Listening to its voice will
make a substantial, heart shifting, world changing
difference to both you and those people who
are blessed enough to come in contact with
your words.

On the other hand, if you ignore the inklings
you hear – nothing will happen.

I knows this first hand. I put my writing
on the back burner for years. My idea for my
website was present in my mind for a long
time before I took action – and little did
I know my writing would be central to
every aspect of both my website and
her business.

The path wasn’t clear at all. It was murky and
filled with “Not knowing” and “doubt” and “denial”
and “I’ll do what I THINK I want to do” which was
caused by her unwillingness to listen.

The messages to focus on writing were being
divinely sent as early as college when my
classmate in “Politics of Africa” said, “I enjoyed
your paper so much, I read it through
completely – twice.”

She read a ten page single spaced term paper
on the Ivory Coast twice? Once “just for fun?”

This particular message was memorable
just because it was so outrageous. That was
a densely written term paper.

It was also written with heart, with soul and
with a strong love for the words and
the message.

More than ten years after that, I was working
(and very unhappy about it) for the County of Kern.
My free-spirited, artistic soul was busy being
a Bureaucrat because it “seemed” the
right thing to do. I thought I was
following a divine course - yet I seemed
to stop getting messages the more miserable
I became.

A co-worker said to me, “You pack more good
information in a really short memo than anyone
else I know…. And they are so artfully
expressed, too.”

I started writing on her lunch hour. It was at
a crowded meeting held at the library that the
messages began to really make
themselves heard.

Your intuition will assist you to guide your
characters, to nudge you in a certain direction
with your creative non-fiction.

Your intuition will hand you exactly the right
word at exactly the right time.

Your intuition has been your partner in all
the free flow writing we have created in
this program. It is the energy which passes
along those first words, those next words.

It opens up and fuels the flow.

Let’s join our intuition intentionally today:

Consider this: Where is the place I am
meant to go with my words and my writing?

Use free flow writing to respond....

The place I am meant to go with my words
and my writing is............

Allow your words to float across the page.

The place I am meant to go with my words
and my writing is:

When the flow slows down and comes
to an end, remember to remain open to
the messages from your
intuition today and for the next several days.
Listen to your body, listen
to people who say things to you that
seem especially surprising. They
have been sent to you,
messengers of your destiny.

Listen – and write – and listen some more.

__________________
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http://www.5passions.com home of
42 Days of Writing Passionately

Kane

Hi there, great piece. It really hits home for me, as I have been having a bit of a direction crisis. Thanks.

TimK

Hi, Julie. This piece is interesting, but a little confusing (to me, anyhow). You talk about "intuition," but I think you mean inspiration.

Intuition is the ability to learn and coordinate complex details, to see the big picture. Someone with a strong intuition may "know" things before others do. He may sometimes seem like a mind-reader or fortune-teller, picking up on other's thoughts or predicting events yet to happen. He may not even be able to explain how he knows it. What's happening is his mind is collecting and coordinating facts, signals from people, things he's seen and is seeing in the world; arranging these facts into an intuitive understanding; and intuiting a conclusion. Here's a good blurb from personalitypage.com: http://www.personalitypage.com/four-prefs.html#SN.

Not everyone's mind works like this. Many of us notice the trees rather than the forest. People with strong intiutions may be weak in anti-intuitive learning. They may have trouble absorbing concrete details and as a result may not see obvious things that others take for granted. They may not be action-oriented and may dislike following a plan, or may even get stressed out by being held to a plan. They may always be thinking one step ahead, never in the here and now. They may understand symbolism on multiple levels, but not be able to detect when the cigar is just a cigar.

For example, my intuition dominates my learning process. As a result, when I learn a new language, I pick up grammar fairly easily, but I can't learn vocabulary. Words escape me. Similarly, I've never had trouble establishing flow in my writing, going from sentence to sentence or paragraph to paragraph. But even for casual writing, I need to have a thesaurus handy; not because I like to use fancy words, but because I can never remember the word I want to use. It's always right on the tip of my tongue. But once I have the words, they arrange themselves into sentences and paragraphs. I don't even have to think about it.

That's intuition. Inspiration is about having "Aha!" moments. (I think that's the technical term.) Let's see. (Sound of web pages flipping.) Here's an interesting article: http://my.webmd.com/content/article/85/98629.htm. They call it "creative insight." Frequently, these insights happen when you're relaxed and quiet, rather than when you're dealing with the hustle and bustle of life.

That said, frequently inspiration is the result of an intuitive understanding. That is, you have to bring previously unrelated things together to form a new whole. That's very similar to what the intuitor does when he learns about the world. But I imagine inspiration takes that to the next level. It requires not just learning but also reasoning about the world, forging some connection that wasn't there before.

-TimK

TimK

Could you please explain this to me in terms I can understand? Thanks.

-TimK

mammamaia

an interesting perspective, julie... but, as this is a piece aimed at writers, a careful proofread is in order, since there are quite a few goofs in punctuation, spacing, word choice, etc...

if you can't find them all, let me know and i'll be glad to bold the parts needing fixing...

love and hugs, maia

__________________
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"You must BE the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi

TimK

Isn't that what I'd said? Definition of inspiration (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition): "3. Something, such as a sudden creative act or idea, that is inspired." Insight may be intuitive (though to a strong intuitor, the most profound insights will be anti-intuitive). But creative insight must be inspired.

So, Julie, I'm rereading your piece. The concepts you refer to in the first part are about inspiration. In the second part, you talk about intuiting an inspiration. Maybe for you inspiration is a purely intuitive activity. For many of us, it is also down-to-earth. We need to impose structure on ourselves. We need to focus on the here and now. Otherwise, our writing will have no form, if we get any writing done at all. For some of us, the biggest "Aha!" moments are those in which we see the trees for the forest, in which we realize that a cigar is just a cigar.

-TimK