The creative process has long bragged of a tint of magic, and indeed, it sometimes does feel that way. A eureka sentence or two appears on the page or a new character shimmies into your writing space and voila! Magic, right?
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Maybe, sort of. And if you want to believe that, go for it! But although wise folk have suspected as much for a long time, neuroscientists are discovering one of the secrets to creativity—relaxation. When brain waves slow to an alpha state as opposed to a busy, busy, busy, firing-away beta state, wonderful associations emerge from our subconscious.
Consider the cow.
She stands in the meadow swishing her tail, chewing her cud, at peace with the trees, with the breeze, and with her companions. While she relaxes, she produces 19 liters of milk every day!
Like the cow, the writer ruminates. The writer takes in the fodder of life and digests it in the subconscious. There it lies waiting for release. When the writer relaxes, words flow.
Here’s something I was delighted to discover: Cows are Zen masters. They’ve been known to utter the sound that is spelled mu rather than moo.
Mu is a Zen koan. A koan is a paradox that Buddhist monks meditate on. They hope the process will lead to intuitive enlightenment. When writing, you can choose to relax and produce. Mu (or Moo) is about stepping aside so that your creative spark has a free connection to the page. It’s about staying out of your way and finding your way in the process. Free your creativity, and you will delight in the debut of stories you’ll discover hidden inside.
Exercise, meditation, and deep breathing help writers relax. Good ideas meander in when they feel welcome. To provide a comfortable environment and encourage your writing to flow, breathe deeply and, if you’re able, try taking a daily walk or engage in other forms of relaxing exercise.
When I think back over my 30-year career as a poet, a freelance writer, and a newspaper reporter in the U.S., I'm delighted to recall the free-thinking and individualistic attitudes of writers I met in newsrooms, on college campuses, in writing workshops, and online associations. Why is that important to the Moo of Writing? Because our world chews up laid-back attitudes and spits them under speedy feet rushing past us on the way to somewhere. As individualists, we can relax, yet still remain productive. How many pages do you think nineteen liters of milk per day translates to?
However, the pace of our lives does resemble the big bang that created our universe and like our universe's expansion, the pace is picking up.
Do we want to be left behind?
Maybe. What if it meant creating a Hobbit or a Harry Potter? A James Bond? An Alice heading down a rabbit hole or a girl with a dragon tattoo?
Happy writing!
Nan Lundeen
http://www.mooingaround.com/
http://www.nanlundeen.com/
Nan Lundeen's book of poems, The Pantyhose Declarations, is available at Amazon. She is seeking a publisher for her handbook, The Moo of Writing: How to Milk Your Potential.
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