"I have always believed that if I pay strict attention while I am out in the physical world - and for me that often means the natural world - the physical world will give me everything I need to tell my stories. As I move through my day, I wait to feel something I call a glimmer, a vibration, a little charge of resonance that says, 'Hey writer, look over here.' I feel it deep in my chest, this buzzing that lets me know the thing I am seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting on the outside is going to help me unlock some part of a story I have on the inside. I keep an ongoing record of these glimmers, writing down not my interpretation of them, not my imagined connection to them, not an emotional contextualization of them, but just the thing itself. Get in, get it down, get out and move on to the next glimmer. Then, when I have some time to write, I read through the glimmer files in my computer and try to find a handful that seem like they will stick together, that when placed in proximity with one another will create a kind of electricity.
"I try to keep my big analytical brain out of this process as much as possible, because I believe my analytical brain at best only knows part of the story and at worst is a big fat liar. I believe - like religion - that the glimmer, the metaphor, if you will, knows a great deal more than I do. And if I stay out of its way, it will reveal itself to me. I will become not so much its keeper as its conduit, and I will pass its wisdom on to the reader, without actually getting in its way.
"In addition to being my method, the way I have written every single thing I have written, it is also the primary way I worship, the way I kneel down and kiss the earth."
More about Pam Houston is here.
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Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What
her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the
gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her monthly letter, blog,
listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to
further you along your own glorious creative journey.
