Stephen King And I Float

Every master works with that intensity, that involvement—shutting out the world and projecting forth their soul’s expression in free-roaming intimacy. 

In the first ten minutes, I just stare at the page or write lines that lack magic. But little by little, something clicks, and I fall into a spell that tastes like the first sip of coffee in the morning. The trick is to fight through the strain and arrive at meditation. Nothing makes sense until everything does. It's a magical space. I float, and I want to stay there. 

If you think too much about what your audience is going to like, they will not like anything you do. I just look for ideas that I really like and want to explore further. I just get into it and have fun with it. It is my joy that the audience tastes.

Where do ideas come from? Where does information come from? It’s a consciousness stream you tap into. You are connected in meditation, pose a question, and receive the answer not in words but as a knowing. You can then put it into words for the world. That’s how I do it. I have no better way of explaining it.

Open-ended exploration. No intention. No objective. I'm just showing up and letting the work work on me. I let the work surprise me and take me where it wants to go. Then, I let it tell me what to do with it. Then, on to the next project. My projects create themselves and dictate their destinies. I oblige. 

There is no objective, no fixed goal. I just show up every day and leave the rest to God. I don't know where I’m needed, how I’m needed, or how I can best serve the world. I pray and surrender myself to God. But make no mistake, I show up every day.

Not many things are possible if you force life into a fixed position. You are blinded by your objectives. What if life has better plans for you? You can't participate because you are stubborn. Can you get yourself there faster and better? Every stepping stone allows for a happy accident. Do you know what's best for you? Do you have all the information? Don't assume a fixed position with your goals and as a piece of consciousness, but reenter life. Show up every day. Life is intelligent. Let life work itself out. Don't stand in the way of life. Don't funnel down consciousness into a fixed position—static information, aka your identity—where you are left recycling the past. You are blinded by your identity. Take the mask off from time to time and see life as it is. ‘You cannot solve the problem with the same energy that created it’.—Einstein Surrender, let go; let God. That's the only sane way to live: To trust. 

I don't know what I’m looking for. I just go clue by clue. I don't track anything. I just write every day. To achieve your highest goals, you have to be willing to abandon them.

Does climbing a mountain get you closer to the moon? I don’t think so. The constant that keeps me sane and lets me have something to hold onto is that I write every day.

I just pose a question or chew on my best idea, something that has a grip on me. A question I need an answer to. A burning topic that longs to find resolution on the page. I start from there. It’s my runway, and I take off. The rest is to be lived.

I recently read ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. He’s a fun chap to hang with for a few hours. I ate that book up in two days. I love how he thinks of himself as an archeologist unearthing his stories. He makes things up as he goes. He lets the book write itself. He lets the characters come to life and do their own thing. As you explore the pages, he does. He never knows what he’ll write until he does. So cool!

He also shows up every day. He’s prolific. He writes a book in three months. His routine: 6 pages a day, every day. Be it his birthday or Christmas morning. He shuts the door and writes. 

Here are two quotes from the king:

‘I have a routine because I think writing is self-hypnosis. You fall into a kind of a trance if you do the same passages over and over again’.—Stephen King

‘Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon or seven 'til three’.—Stephen King

How I see it is: I show up and let the work meditate on me; let the work come alive through me. I submit completely. So pleasurable, l tell you. I’m in heaven. I don’t want to leave. I only leave heaven to be sane and reenter this madness. I started to understand why artists go insane. They dance on the edge of the world; how could they not? How can you reenter life after you commune with God and the angels? That’s what drug addicts must endure. But I am only guessing here. But writing sure is my cocaine. 

I also started to realize why jogis just sit in caves. My sitting in a cave? Hunched over my guitar, writing a song, or typing away at the hot keys of my keyboard. That’s my cave. What’s yours?

Is it normal to love something as much as I love my art and what it does to me? When I am in my soul, in my inherent state of pure being, that is who I am and what I taste. I can taste that through my work. I rest through my work. I come alive through the work, and the work captures that state and transmits it to the perceiver of the art. It is an initiation of sorts. A seed planted. Words that bloom in the ripe perceiver of the art as it was conceived alone. I leave myself at the door. I don’t let a fool enter the holy shrine of my studio. If you're confused, I’m the fool. ‘You know nothing, Jon Snow’.—Ygritte, Game Of Thrones

I pull the reader into meditation and make them sit with me for a while. They submit to me as I submit to the work. We become one for a while. A little like sex, I suppose. Haha, this episode feels strange to type. 

My episodes are my children. My songs are my children. I am not exaggerating. My work is an artifact of me that I set free to grow up and do life on her own. Living as a part of me without me. Voldemort put his soul in objects. That’s what art is. A Horcrux of the vessel that birthed it. A piece of soul right there for the tasting. 

You are an artist, don’t forget that! You are alive; you breathe life into the world. You make the world come alive. You raise the dead. Art enlivens the world. If you create living art, that is. Death is not art. Is what you create alive? Are you alive? You can only create what you are. Who are you?

Artists can make objects come alive. Isn’t that a miracle? You impart direct experience of you to the perceiver of the art. Direct experience of you. A transmission. What do you care to transmit? 

I care to bring life to the world. I want to give a taste. Nektar of the state I am in when I type. I want the reader to be dizzy with love. So confused that they surrender it all to me. They are mine. A good artist makes a mortal dance with the angels. A true teacher melts your questions and leaves you vulnerable in God. 

Oftentimes I don't want to, then I just float. That’s writing.

Maybe no plan is the best plan. 

A genius: Let's the divine do it all; takes all the credit; know he's a fool. The more one tries, the less genius he is. The more one surrenders, the more intelligent one becomes. Life is intelligence. Geniuses don't stand in the way of life.

I'd love to initiate you into The Spiritual Path Of Art! First link in the show notes.