Writing and the Creative Life: “That pure part of you”

Writing words of wisdom from the screenwriter of Ordinary People.

I’ve been a professional writer for nearly 40 years. In that time through interviews and profiles, I’ve studied the work habits of hundreds of writers. One of the most interesting approaches I have run across comes from two time Oscar winning screenwriter Alvin Sargent (Julia, Ordinary People, Paper Moon). Here is a quote from an interview with Sargent:

“You must write everyday. Free yourself. Free association. An hour alone a day. Blind writing. Write in the dark. Don’t think about what it is you’re writing. Just put a piece of paper in the typewriter, take your clothes off and go! No destination… pay it no attention… it’s pure unconscious exercise. Pages of it. Keep it up until embarrassment disappears. Eliminate resistance. Look at it in the morning. Amazing sometimes. Most of it won’t make any sense. But there’ll always be a small kernel of truth that relates to what you’re working on at the time. You won’t even know you created it. It will appear, and it is yours. Pure gold, a product of that pure part of you that does not know how to resist.”

That pure part of you that does not know how to resist.

As writers, we devote much of our time asking pragmatic questions about our stories:

Does this scene work? If not, how can I make it better?

Does this dialogue feel authentic to the character?

Does the pace of this sequence fit the narrative?

Is this too much exposition or just enough?

Would it be better if I flipped this scene with that?

And on and on. Almost all of the time, we work with these type of questions in our conscious mind, sorting through and assessing various options using logic and a learned sense of the craft.

But we need to feed that beast with the raw materials necessary to energize the creative process. We need to source the heart, soul, blood and marrow of our story universe, get in touch with that part of ourselves that is most deeply connected with our characters.

Sometimes while we may surface that content through logic and rational effort, more often than not, we need to “take your clothes off,” if not literally, then metaphorically and “eliminate resistance” to tap into “that pure part” of our creative self.

Whether real or imagined, it behooves a writer to think that there are these roiling waters of inventiveness within ourselves, and if we can get beyond the chatter of our conscious world, we will be able to ride waves of inspiration throughout the story-crafting process.

And what Sargent seems to be suggesting is that while our conscious self may put up resistance, by pushing ourselves, sometimes to an extreme, we may move beyond the noise and find the “pure part” which does not resist, but rather welcomes our attention.

So free associate. Blind write. Take off your clothes. Do whatever you must to engage that pure part of you.

For there… “pure gold” lies awaiting you.

Writing and the Creative Life is a Go Into The Story series in which we explore creativity from the practical to the psychological, the latest in brain science to a spiritual take on the subject. Hopefully, the more we understand about our creative self, the better we will become as writers. If you have any good reading material in this vein, please post in comments. If you have a particular observation you think readers will benefit from and you would like to explore in a guest post, email me.

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For more articles in the Writing and Creative Life series, go here.