Untangling the process of writing and dropping expectations

Get a notepad. The notepad doesn't have to be yellow (or even a notepad). Do the thing, and do it in an ergonomic chair. Prompt below.

“We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.”
― David Lynch

Have you ever seen someone look up toward the sky, as though receiving an answer before speaking? If you watch old interviews with David Lynch, he did this.

Once, in an interview on creativity, Lynch said that if you have a yellow notepad and a pen on your lap for long enough, the words will arrive on the page. Ideas will come.

I offered a story this week that came to me this very way and that reminds me it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

You need to sit and write. Or stand and write, if the ergonomics work better. Just, please, so as not to break my heart, write your own words. Trust your messy, human self.

Like any work of expression, it’s easy to forget that the process is simplicity itself. The less we try to complicate things, the more it pours out. The more we talk, analyze, etc., the less it happens.

In other words, the notepad doesn’t need to be yellow or even a notepad.

Simple and clear often means the most honest and authentic creations.

When you need to find something or some way to release, simply look up, out, or down for a while, then allow what comes. Maybe meditate on dropping expectations.

Prompt: Write every day this week, even if you’re not a writer, and do not set conditions on it. Write for a minute, an hour, or a few hours. No formulas, no overthinking, no editing (gasp!). Just look up or down or off into the distance and write.

If you want to read my flash piece, check it out here. I removed the paywall.