Creativity is a subtle and magnificent dance between the rational and the intuitive, between the left and right parts of the brains, between technique and imagination. Both partners in this dance are absolutely necessary and are needed in equal proportion, which means that imagination is as important as technique, and visa versa. If you only live in the imagination, you will never get organized, you will never complete your story. However, if you start from the rational, linear, organizational part of the process, (e.g., Gotta have the perfect opening sentence and first paragraph… better yet, a outline…) you will never fall into the rich, passionate, cosmic landscape of the imagination where anything is possible –– you will never experience the mystery and magic of Wonderland.

            The main problem I have seen in my twenty-five years of teaching fiction writing is over-dependence on the rational part of the equation. People want to get the story written and ‘get it out’. They want to leap frog the process, get the words down on the page and finish the story. (Not that there is anything wrong with finishing your story!) However, it is in the process of writing that the writer experiences the deeper, life-enhancing journey of creativity.

            There are many examples of ways we short-cut gifts offered by the creative process. Take the adage, “Write what you know.”  If you write only about what you know, you are limited to your concious mind. You will remain stuck in the straightjacket of your conscious perception of reality. This is totally contradictory to creativity, which by definition brings into existence that which has not been before. Your experiences can be a jumping off point for your writing, but the key is to not be slavish to the known. Rather, we need to have our writer’s antenna on the lookout for the unknown and the unseen. Gertrude Stein put it this way: “You cannot go into the womb to form the child... What will be best in it (your writing) is what you really do not know now. If you knew it all it would not be creation but dictation.”

            Paradoxically, when we write from the imagination we are writing what we “know”, but from such a deep level of knowing that we don’t know that we know it until it is revealed in our writing. (Stop and think about this before moving on…)

            When we are true to the process, we discover worlds within that we did not know existed. I call this, “Falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland,” which is a perfect metaphor for the creative journey that can never take place in the “real” or conscious world. Creative writing finds its origins in the dark, fertile chaos of the unconscious – your personal Wonderland. If you don’t meet Cheshire cats and Mad Hatters, Tweedledees and Tweedledums, mad queens,  dragons, flying monkeys and monsters, or your own version of the above, then you have not fallen down the rabbit hole. You don’t have to be writing fantasy or horror to open to your unconscious, but the journey must hold metaphorically a good sprinkling of both.

            There is tremendous freedom for you as a writer in falling down the rabbit hole because the Inner Critic is terrified of the creative unconscious, which is the place of feelings, dreams and images; it is the place of intuition and the imagination. The Inner Critic has no imagination. It knows what it knows, loves order and the status quo. It’s home is the world of linear thought, judgment, language and evaluation. That is why if you begin your story looking for the perfect opening sentence or paragraph, you are headed for trouble. How many hours have we all, at one time or another, wasted on the search for the perfect first sentence, only to find we’ve hopelessly spun our wheels. We end up disgusted and depressed, with the Inner Critic ranting.

            “I’ll never write again. I might as well give up now.”

            “Nobody wants to read what I write anyway.”

            “Just look at all this time I wasted! I would have been better off cleaning the toilets.”

            “I’m stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! And I don’t have a creative bone in my body!”

            Sound familiar? It’s prime time Inner Critic jabber.

            Compare this scenario to writing in the rush of creative white heat. Time flies by unnoticed; when you finish writing, you are exhilarated and feel, well, complete. So complete you don’t have to read what you wrote just then. The memory of the writing experience settles about you like a warm, cozy shawl. Next morning, though, you can’t wait to read what you wrote. And when you do, you are delighted.
            “Wow! I wrote that!” you think. Except, wondrously, you have no memory of writing the words. There’s a reason for that. You, the conscious you, weren’t writing. You, the conscious you, weren’t thinking language. You had lost your conscious self to your characters and the unfolding drama. You were writing from your heart and gut. You were in Wonderland.

            This is writing as a visceral experience, and writing should be, first and foremost, a visceral experience. You have to feel your stories and characters in your body. In fiction writing, this means you have to become your character, which can only happen in Wonderland. There, free of the Inner Critic, you have the possibility of experiencing real creative freedom and the passionate characters and stories that await. Then the true dance can begin!

Would you like to find out more about your own personal Wonderland? Do you want to find out what stops and starts you from writing the stories you dream of writing. Explore my workbook, The Art of Fiction Writing or How to Fall Down the Rabbit Hole Without Really Trying.