Hungry For Creative Inspiration? One Tool That Can Make Your Muted Muse Sing.
Writer’s block. That feeling when squeezing out a meaningful paragraph seems like trying to get juice from a dehydrated lime. It sucks. However, there are resources within you that lie dormant, yet if discovered can propel your muse to sing with vigor. The key to creative inspiration lies in the synergy that occurs between your heart and head, or your conceptual mind (right brain), and your logical mind (left brain).
One powerful tool for exploring the dynamics between these two is clustering. Similar to the concept of mind mapping, clustering is a technique developed by Gabrielle Rico, author of the book Writing The Natural Way. This experiential tool is more than a means for disrupting writer’s block. Clustering and writing subsequent vignettes provide a viable approach to writing even when writer’s block is not an issue.
Clustering
Begin with an idea or word describing something related to what you’re writing about. It could be a character in a piece of fiction, a focal point in an article, or the theme of your piece. In the picture to the left, I clustered the word purple. In the middle of a blank page write the word or phrase and draw an oval around it.
Set a timer for 5–6 minutes and write anything that comes to mind with no editing or stopping to analyze if any of it makes sense. Draw a line from the word that spurs the next item to the newest word and put an oval around it. Follow this process until you run out of time or the cluster loses momentum. Set it aside for a minute or two.
Vignettes
Now is when the muse becomes awakened. Set your timer again and write in prose about what is in the cluster. You could also write bullet points. Again, it is important to mute the internal editor or critic that might want to analyze what you write for logic and linear meaning. However, just write whatever comes out. The ensuing vignette will likely possess nuggets of creative inspiration that can launch your idea into an outline, or the actual piece.
Out of 50 plus times I have clustered and written vignettes, on 80% of those instances, I found significant nuggets of discovery I otherwise would have missed. Sometimes the cluster and vignette don’t amount to much, but what creative process is foolproof? The picture displays the vignette I wrote after clustering purple.
Had this been a character description or a plot idea for a short story, it could be longer. Like the use of any tool it takes practice to increase skill. My first cluster was abysmal compared to many that came later. My second cluster resulted in a poem. Often it sparks my muse into anticipating what comes next and develops my writer’s voice. Rarely has this process not pushed me forward in writing from a place I find delightful.
Writing by rule results in flat, dull, turgid pieces that seem unoriginal and stilted. Natural writing or writing from the Design mind emerges from within. Gabrielle Rico
Other Applications
In Writing the Natural Way Ms. Rico compares right brain to an instrument or voice that plays the melody of a song. The left brain focuses on the notes that comprise the melody. The melody must come first. The conceptual (right brain) recognizes patterns, relationships, and infuses emotional insight for the reader. The right brain is all about design and the left brain emphasizes the nails, wood, and materials required to implement the design. They are both necessary, but putting together wood with nails and other building materials without a design results in formless crap.
The process of Natural Writing promotes mindfulness, or the state of exploring one’s self without self-evaluation. This moves me towards authenticity not only in how I write, but also in how I live! The more connected I become via this creative experience, the more my muse will sing melodies comprised of authentic and meaningful notes.
When we were little we had no difficulty sounding the way we felt; thus most little children speak and write with real voice. Peter Elbow
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