It’s amazing how I suddenly get bursts of inspiration. It reminds me that even if I lose track of my journey, God has a way of steering me back in the right course.

I hear him saying, “Hey kid, you already know this. But I just thought you needed a reminder.” He makes me stop and reflect again on the things that truly matter.

A week ago, I came across this article at Tiny Buddha. The author Janna Brayman Krawczyk was a prolific journaler and she has proven time and again how it has the power to change your life and to fulfill your dreams.

While I was reading it, I suddenly felt this urge to write in my journal again. I wanted to find that quiet time again when it’s just me, my lovely pages and my pen. I remember how I used to get lost in those pages as I created my world with my words.

I’ve witnessed the power of a journal to hurt and to heal, to destroy and to rebuild. Wielding that power with my pen, I’m just so amazed at the infinite possibilities that writing brings. And yet, sometimes I forget that it’s just there waiting for me to create miracles.

The danger of living life unconsciously is you get lost in the mundane things that do nothing to empower you. You go on with your routine day after day until you wake up one morning stunned that so much time has gone by yet very little has changed.

So now, I go back to my journal and my pen. I ask myself:

What do I truly want?

And I write.

I let the words flow and create their magic.

I watched as the flames devoured every word, every page and every inch of my pink journal.

Seeing it turn into ash felt liberating.

Thank God, I was finally free.

—

I have loved writing in journals all my life.

It felt good to have some form of release, a way to make sense of my thoughts and emotions.

And although it seemed right to record everything I thought and felt, I realized I was doing it wrong all along.

Words are powerful.

Very powerful.

Writing about your past and your imagined future does not serve you.

When you put all your negativity, pain and bitterness into words, you are only creating even more of it.

—

If there’s one thing I learned for sure, it is this:

If I’m going to put anything into words, it will always begin with THANK YOU.

If I’m writing about my life, I will only tell the story of the wonderful life that I want to create. And thank God for it.

I consider each entry as my prayer to Him. I thank Him for all the blessings He gives me and the blessings He has yet to give.

I’m still amazed how everything I write becomes my reality.

I’m still using a pink journal but I now write words that bless me.

How do you write?

I have been battling a severe case of writer’s block for weeks now. I’ve been staring at blank screens waiting, then forcing inspiration to come out of me. But nothing comes out. I felt like I lost my muse and wondered where she had gone.

And now I’ve found her.

She’s been with me all this time, waiting for me to come to that inner wonderland where all my ideas and inspiration arise.

I was the one who was lost all along.

Getting lost

It all started weeks ago after one of the pieces I wrote got “severely edited.” At least for my standards, it was.

I was passionate about that piece and I thought I wrote it so well. When it came back to me all cut up and mixed with words and ideas that were not my own, I felt like my muse disappeared taking all the inspiration I had in me.

So when the next assignment came along, I couldn’t write. It was a relatively simple piece that needed very little inspiration to begin with, but whenever I tried to type something, I still ended up with a blank screen.

Truth: I was afraid to get cut up again.

First there was pride. I’ve fallen in love with my writing too much, I convinced myself that I was a perfect writer. And perfect writers don’t get edited like that.

Then came insecurity. Am I such a bad writer?

Desperate to write, I went looking for my muse, trying to grasp at sparks of inspiration when I could. But I couldn’t find her and the glints of inspiration faded too soon.

I forced myself to write methodically, looking at other people’s works and copying how they string their words. I did manage to finish a piece. But in the end, I knew it was missing “me.”

Finding my muse again

And then I surrendered.

There’s something amazing about surrendering. Because when you finally give up, that’s when things start to work out.

I surrendered my pride as well as my insecurity.

The moment I did, my vision began to clear. And I saw the signs leading me to the place where my muse was waiting.

I was going through my feed reader when I spotted this article about hooking your audience. It had links to blog posts by author Steven Pressfield which absolutely hooked him.

I clicked links and started reading Mr. Pressfield’s post “Write what you don’t know.” It may just as well have been titled “Write when you can’t” because it was his ideas that got me writing this post at past 4 in the morning.

Here are some of his insights that really hit me:

The part of us that we write from is far deeper than our everyday selves. In fact it has nothing whatsoever to do with our everyday selves. It comes from the Muse. It comes from the unconscious. It comes from some place we only tap into in dreams or intuition or inspiration.

It takes a little madness to write what you don’t know. It’s like leaping into the deep end. But it’s also tremendously liberating. I’m reading a wonderful book now called Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson, who for years was one of the star teachers of drama at Stanford. Her thesis is “Don’t prepare, just show up.” In other words, trust in the mystery. Open your mouth and see what comes out. I’ve heard Jackson Browne say that he writes songs to find out what he thinks about something. In other words, he doesn’t know going in.

There’s stuff “down there” in all of us. It’s vast and deep and limitless. That’s the vein we need to mine as artists and as entrepreneurs. I’ve heard start-up businessmen say the two qualities they needed most in their initial ventures were arrogance and ignorance. You gotta be a little crazy (or desperate) to write or do what you don’t know. But there’s great wisdom and magic in that act. It demonstrates faith in the universe, in the Muse, in the source of all inspiration. And that faith, almost invariably, is rewarded by the cosmos and vindicated by events. I recommend it.

After reading that, I just know I won’t be able to sleep anyway if I don’t write this. So I did. And it feels so good.

I am so fired up again and the sparks have turned into flames of inspiration inside me. I have reunited with my Muse and I intend to be one with her from now on.

***
Are you feeling uninspired or stuck lately? Find your inner wonderland and reunite with your muse. She’s just there waiting for you.

Have you gotten over writer’s block? What did you do?

Photo: john

One of the best lessons I learned about writing this week:

Set your words free, let your thoughts flow and write like there’s no tomorrow.

I was trying to write a post for one of my blogs and it was taking me forever to get it done.

After every few sentences or so, I’d pause to re-read what I’ve written and ask myself,

Is this the right way to say it?
It doesn’t seem fluid enough.
Maybe I should reword it like this.

Needless to say I never get past the introductory paragraphs.

I got stuck and just stopped writing altogether.

When all I really needed to be was…

Be an imperfect writer

The problem with perfectionist writing is it hampers the flow of creative thought.

You become too concerned with creativity and fluidity that you end up losing both altogether.

I was sitting in front of my computer wondering how I was going to write. But I kept typing and hitting back space over and over.

Until I just decided I had enough.

To heck with creativity and fluidity.

I’m just gonna type whatever comes to my mind and deal with the finished post later.

I quit trying to be an expert wannabe who wanted to let the world see that I know it all.

I just wrote from my experience because that’s what I know.

I wrote from my heart because that’s where my words are.

And almost instantly, my words started to flow.

Suddenly, writing became so easy and effortless.

Do you experience writing blocks?

If you do, the best way to get rid of it is just start writing.

Just write.

It doesn’t matter if your words don’t make sense the first time, the important thing is to just stimulate the flow of words.

Once you’ve loosened up you’ll find that it gets easier and easier with each word, each sentence, each paragraph, each page…

Another important thing to remember when you write:

Focus on your work and don’t read somebody else’s!

You have your own thoughts and voice. Let them be heard through your writing.

Everyone has a wonderful story to tell, feel free to share yours because it is as important and as special as everybody else’s

What is the greatest writing lesson you’ve learned?