[Neurons] 2014 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #30

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2014 #30

August 4, 2014

Writing #1

 

THE STRATEGY AND ART OF WRITING

 

When it comes to writing and writing easily and naturally, 1994 was the
turning point for me.  That was the year that I discovered the Meta-States
Model and applied the Meta-State pattern of "accessing the genius or
engagement state of writing."  Prior to that event, I struggled constantly
(nearly every day) with "writer's block."  I'd get some idea and think that
I could really write about that idea, but then I couldn't find my words.
Stuck.  And when I did manage to write something, I found the process itself
a tremendous struggle. 

 

The Meta-States Model changed all of that because it provided me a way to
turn on and off at will the engagement state of writing.  After that, when I
needed that state, I simply stepped into and accessed the frames, the
resources, the state of mind, etc. of my best writing state.  Similarly,
when I stepped out, I would do so cleanly so that I left that state intact
... ready to be re-accessed.  In doing so, I did not contaminate it by
dragging it along as part of my consciousness when doing other things.  A
full description of that state is in the book, Secrets of Personal Mastery
(1997) which is the text for the Accessing Personal Genius training that is
now the flagship of Neuro-Semantics around the world.

 

So how do I write 2 or 3 books a year and have since 1994?  How have I
consistently written 3-plus articles every week for a dozen years?  Plus
articles for publications in various journals?  I credit it first of all to
the flow-state of absolute engagement that the Meta-States Model has allowed
me to access.  Secondly, I attribute it to the strategies that I have
learned over the years for writing itself.

 

Writing Strategies - Thee are Stages in the Writing Process

At the heart of the writing experience, and the beginning, is an idea.  This
idea can be a thought, a feeling, an experience, a story, an understanding,
a belief, etc.  It is something that has arisen within you as the writer
which needs to be expressed.  This is the pre-writing stage.

 

In this pre-writing stage, your writing is a creative art.  In NLP we have a
strategy of creativity that Robert Dilts modeled from Walt Disney which is
an excellent set of steps from dreaming, making it realistic, and testing
it.  In this first stage of writing, when you get an idea, it is like having
a lightbulb go off in the mind.  You then experience a feeling that excites
and delights and which has to be told.  At first, writing is accepting and
being with the creative experience as we give birth to something.  Writing
is therefore embracing ambiguity and confusion and chaos as all of the wild
and undisciplined thoughts flash in and out of consciousness.  Writing is
coping with all of the thought-balls that bounce in and out of the court of
our awareness.

 

Writing is tolerating the glimmer of a new thought or feeling and accepting
the stress, distress, and even pain of not-knowing what it is or how to say
what it is.  Writing is being with such rollercoaster feelings and going for
a ride. Writing is a love affair with an idea.  It's dating, courting, and
seducing the idea or the feeling so that it invites you in to make love and
stay the night.  In this stage we organize our thinking, frame our ideas,
research, explore, and interview.

 

The second stage of writing is the free-writing stage.  Here aim simply to
get your thoughts down on paper.  Forget about being neat, grammatically
correct, etc.  Just get words down on paper!  Now your writing as a
communication  process outside of your head will typically become a pretty
wild process.  This is where most people suffer writer's block and which
shuts down the whole process.  It is in the second stage that we simply have
to do the mind-to-paper act and to write down the wooly thoughts.  In this
free-writing stage the point, the goal, and the outcome is one and only one
-write it down.  At this point, grammar, spelling, structure, format,
clarity, etc. does not matter, all that matters is that we write it down.

 

What is writing at this stage?  It is the translation of wild chaotic ideas
to paper.  Here writing is like a mental whirlwind of unstructured thoughts.
The purpose and focus is entirely single-minded, to get it out.  Writing
here will have little to nothing to do with the final product.

 

What frame of mind supports this stage?  The belief, the value, and the
decision that, "I'm going to do it wrong the first time and have lots of fun
making a mess of it!"  Of course, without that frame of mind, without that
inner permission to mis-spell and to write our confusions- "dragons" arise
and would-be writers become blocked.  Another supporting belief at this
stage is, "I can and will correct things later.  Revision comes after I have
something down on paper to revise." 

 

Ah, relief!  The idea, the dream, the vision, the feeling, etc. is out.
Most writers feel an amazing unburdening after the free-writing stage.  The
relief is the unburdening of the inner energy, it is the relief of having
given birth and delivered something wonderful and precious-well, messy too.
But new life has been given birth! 

 

Now comes the clean-up work.  After the delivery comes the third stage,
revision.  Like parenting, this is the  work of shaping, forming,
restructuring, reforming, training, and honing.  I like what E.B. White
wrote, "There is no great writing, only great rewriting."  No one, not the
best, most famous, or most successful of writers write it right the first
time.  That's the structure and strategy for writer's block.  It is in
re-writing again and again that excellence and mastery emerges.

 

In recent years I have developed the practice of doing six-revisions, each
one for a different theme.  This came about through my exploration and
research into the field of writing.  As part of that study I began exploring
the structure of best sellers.  What is the strategy that writes a best
seller?  What are the qualities and features of books that are best sellers?
As I identified them, I began revising to those features.  This now is part
and parcel of the prolific writing workshop.  It's a way to benchmark the
particular qualities in specific terms and to craft one's writing product so
that it meet that level of quality.  In brief, this means revising for
structure, for energy, for state induction, and then for the specific feel,
mood, and style with which we want to texture our text.

 

What is writing at this stage?  Writing here is a meta-skill, the skill of
stepping out and beyond the content that you've written to work at the
structural level. Writing here is meta-structural thinking and processing.
Writing is parenting the unruling and untamed child.  Writing is discipline
and disciplining.  Writing is patience and persistence and the willingness
to cut ruthlessly.  In fact, the best writers say "Cut one-fourth of
everything!"  Here writing is wielding the sword; it is butchering that
which you've given birth to.

 

Writing in the revision stage is "tough love."  I know many authors, even
NLP authors, with decent manuscripts that could be refined and honed into
excellent books but they refuse to take up the knife.  They lack the courage
to cut, to plummet the sword into their brain-child.

 

The last stage of revision isn't revising at all, it is proofing.  It is
cleaning up the final revised text and examining the text for mis-spellings
and grammatical problems.  Again, this is where many people waste lots of
time and energy.  They inefficiently waste time and energy by proof-reading
(or proof-seeing as Jacobson and Hickman, 1998, call it in their book, The
power process: An NLP approach to writing) before the revision steps are all
complete.  What is writing?  Writing is the meta-detailing of examining a
text without seeing or caring about the message.  Writing is pulling every
mote out of the eye of the text.  Writing is the tedious minute and time
consuming task of caring about grammar and spelling.

 

Afer that comes the stage of selling one's product.  This entails the
business smarts of working with and through people to get to the editors and
publishers who will buy what we have written.  This means being able to
package, present, market, and sell the specific article, book, screen play,
novel, short story, etc.  What is writing at this stage?  Writing is
passionately selling the romance that your work creates.  Writing is
standing up and standing out and doing a song and dance so that people will
give it attention.  Writing is the business intelligence that can and will
negotiate a deal so that all can win.

 

As you can see, writing is a lot of things and calls upon the writer to step
in and out of a lot of states.   That's why I make "impeccable state shifts"
in and out of the "genius" state.  As a writer, you will need to sequence
your states so that you can play the various roles and wear the different
hats as appropriate to where you are in your writing.

 

References:  Improve Your Writing with NLP by Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D. 

            Writing Genius, Training Manual, L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

                Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

                Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

                1 970-523-7877 

                Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


     

    

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