Metaphor as change-work

[darkemeralds]

I went to Bev Martin the other day for help with my terribly slow writing. Bev's a hypnotherapist--one of my teachers--and a writer herself. I was sure she could help, and she did.

She used Clean Language, a questioning technique designed to guide the client to her own metaphor of change, completely uninfluenced by the practitioner. It's the inverse of standard hypnotherapy, which explicitly seeks to influence.

All the questions start with "And..." Each question feeds the client's own words back, and never makes assumptions, so the questions are odd and ungrammatical, and your rational mind gives up and hides.



Me: "I love that moment of inspiration, of knowing that I have a new story to write! And when I'm writing well, it's the most fun there is. Then I get lost and start wasting time writing the wrong thing..."

Bev: "And when there is new story to write, what is it?"

Me: "There's a moment when the idea comes to me and I know it's my next story. I can feel it. I'm like a cat at a mouse-hole, completely focused, and it's the best feeling it the world."

Bev: "And when there is know the next story and feel it, where is it?"

Me: "It's here, under my ribcage, in my solar plexus."

Bev: "And when here, under the ribcage, does here have a color?"

Me: It's dark. Black. But luminous. Luminous darkness.

Over the next hour I constructed a detailed, multi-sensory metaphor of story-writing (a pitch-dark museum filled with treasures), including the problem (turning on the lights and seeing everything at once, becoming unfocused and confused) and its solution (spotlights! One at a time!).

The source of the problem was there too: inspiration apparently bears enough neurochemical resemblance to fear that a well-intentioned buffer was kicking in. It looked like a flying saucer, and I made it fly away by showing it that I was having fun, not fear. I also found a tool: my right hand will start twitching the instant the fun level starts to drop.

The session ended with an image of me following a dancing spotlight away down a dark corridor, having as much fun as a cat with a flashlight beam.



Change work without change is just self-indulgence. Any change so far? Well, I got up an hour early yesterday and wrote a missing character in a pivotal scene that I've been avoiding for a month. I think that counts.

Comments

[vampirefan.livejournal.com]

that's so interesting! and pretty cool sounding.

hope you're having a good fic day!

[serenity-valley.livejournal.com]

Very fascinating. And yay, you're writing! And go you with taking the change and freaking running with it, dude...you don't start small, that's for sure!

As you might know, The Decemberists are my favoritest band ever in the history of ever, and this icon is taken from one of my favoritest of their songs (and I have a lot of favorites in their discography, let me tell you) called "The Engine Driver". The lyric goes:

I am a writer,
A writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home.

It came to mind while I was reading this post.

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

Weird and fascinating.

[roseambr.livejournal.com]

I'm so thrilled that Bev and her work (which sounds like it was fascinating as well as effective) has had such a positive and life changing impact on you and your writing. I love the spot light image of your solution to the problem. How many times have we walked into a dark room, flipped on the lights and felt totally blinded. It reminds me of a childhood story where my parents went out for the evening leaving my two brothers and me home alone. We were constantly making stuffed dummies from our father's cover-alls so we made one up to be a cowboy. Placed him in the recliner in the living room, that faced the front door, with a cowboy hat over it's face and a toy rifle in the crook of it's arm. The idea being that when Mom and Dad come home it would startle them. Great joke! But here's what happened... Dad reached in the front door to switch on the lights and allow Mom to enter first (very gentlemanly). As he flipped the light switch the light bulb in the ceiling burned out, flashing a quick beam of light into the room and popping and rolling around in the light fixture at the same time. In the flash of light Mom saw a man sitting in the living room with a gun. She screamed, about ran Dad over backing up and scared Dad half to death. Of course, we laugh about this story at many of the family gatherings but at the time it was quite frightening and we were not allowed to make dummies any more. The purpose of the story, for you, of course, is when you get blinded by the lights you can't see what's really happening.