Writing

I have to say I take my psychicness for granted. It is just how I am and I am not always in as grateful frame of mind as I might be. I didn’t grow up this way. I became the way I am now rather abruptly when I was 38 years old.

I suppose it started out with me being curious. I’ve never really listened too closely to people who tell me I can’t do something. If I wanted to do something somehow, someway, some day I would find a way to do it.

Take being a writer. That was a big goal for me. Nobody actually said to me that I couldn’t do it. I did, however, get a lot of, “What? You a writer? Don’t make me laugh.” Which might as well be as good as somebody telling me no. The trouble was, though, that I couldn’t write. This went on for years. I just couldn’t do it. I read like a house on fire. And, I wanted to write so much that I could taste it. Except, the minute I ever set pen to paper everything froze. So, I went around telling people that someday I was going to write a book. I did try a couple of times, but I’d get 10 pages into it and I’d get lost. I just didn’t know how.

But, I kept reading. And, finally, one day when I was in my late 20’s I asked myself if I was going to continue boring people to death with my whining that someday I was going to write a book.

That did it. I got mad at myself.

I’d tried all different kinds of ways to start writing: wall charts, extensive outlines, index cards. It was all very elaborate preparation to write, but it nothing ever got written.

So, I tried something new. I started out with a really big piece of paper. I drew a big circle on it. Within that circle, using a bright marker, I wrote the kernel of my story. Radiating out from the circle were lines. All with different colored markers. And, on each of those lines I wrote some one thing about the story. Those, presumably, became chapters. This exercise got me to thinking.

But, what finally got the whole thing off the ground was that shortly after the big circle exercise I wrote my story in the space of one paragraph. It was about 2 or 3 inches long typewritten. That’s all. Then, I took each of the sentences in that paragraph and began breaking them down until I finally had 10 sentences telling my story.

Those 10 sentences became my chapters and over the next 3 years I wrote. I didn’t deviate much from the original plan. There were times when I found that I’d written myself into a corner and couldn’t seem to get out again. That was the day I laid down on my bed with a tape recorder and talked into it for 10 minutes. I ended up with enough material to keep me going for the next 6 months.

I can remember a few times when I sort of zoned out as I was writing when my characters seemed to come to life and directed the story on their own. I liken those experiences to a writer’s high. Really terrific. As I think about it now I’m wondering if I wasn’t also tapping into Spirit Space. I wasn’t channeling in those days. That was to come some 10 years later. But, thinking back I just wonder if there wasn’t stuff going on then too.

Years later I read a boat load of Stephen King’s books in a really short period of time. That was when the psychicness really took off. And, it was a few years after that when I found myself channeling.