The Creative Process By Roland Fishman, Creator of The Writers' Studio

"To write a successful story you need a step by step process."

The lights went on for me in a seminar called Learning to Learn. I'd just completed the second draft of a novel and I knew something was missing.....But what?

I knew I could write. I'd been a journalist for 11 years, had written page one stories and columns for The Sydney Morning Herald, cover stories for The Good Weekend and a book that sold over 30,000 copies.

Yet I knew that my novel lacked that certain spark of magic that fiction demanded. I had no idea what to do.

Then along came Learning to Learn and this left brain/right brain drawing exercise.

The left brain is orderly, controlling and rational, and the right brain is intuitive, magical and creative. The right side of the brain is that part of us that, if left to its own devices, is capable of surprising us with its wisdom. Other words for the right brain include the unconscious and the imagination.

"Harness the power of your imagination."

The first part of the drawing exercise, using the left brain, consisted of studying a hand and logically and rationally drawing it. The second part involved drawing a hand following a process that accessed the right brain.

The left brain drawing stared back at me - flat, dull and predictable. The other version possessed a sense of life, possibility and vitality that drew me in.

I knew what was missing from my novel. I set out to learn everything I could about writing from the unconscious and the imagination.

My experience as a writer and leading writing groups is that writing, more than any other endeavour I know, throws our shadow up in our face.

Our fears in the form of self-criticism and self-censorship come to the surface. We worry that we are not good enough, have nothing to say and we have to be perfect and control absolutely everything or we will fail miserably.

To write to our potential we need to get out of our own way, let go of self-judgement and access our imagination and unconscious.

If we write with sheer will power and try to make everything we put down on paper perfect, not only will the writing be dead, but the process of writing will torture us.

"Somehow the activity of writing changes everything."

In order to write well we must do the opposite. We must stop judging ourselves, accept our imperfections, be in the moment and surrender to the process of writing and life. We must be kind to ourselves and realise that writing, like life, is a process. If something is worth doing it is worth doing badly.

We must learn to trust our imagination and unconscious - the true source of creative power. William Blake described the imagination as the best part of ourselves - the God within. That part of ourselves that is just out of our grasp, yet within our reach. John Keats said:

"I am sure of nothing but the heart's affections and the truth of the imagination."

If we learn to get out of our own way and trust our imagination, not only will the writing be stronger and more effective, but the process of writing will warm our spirit.

Writing from the imagination is a mood changing activity.

As Joyce Carol Oates said: "One must be pitiless about this matter of mood. In a sense writing will create the mood...Generally I've found this to be true. I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes...and somehow the activity of writing changes everything."

One Eastern view of art is that it involves carrying buckets to the river of the unconscious. My aim since understanding the power of the imagination is to develop the best buckets I can. In my search for sturdy buckets I attended courses here and in America and read nearly 100 books.

Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind had a profound impact. Her basic message is to keep our pen moving, capture our first thoughts and let ourselves write junk.

These three rules are an article of faith in my imagination, in my unconscious, in my writing and in myself. And when I and people who've done my writing course follow these principles I'm amazed and delighted at the quality of what comes out.

And like most things it is one thing to understand a basic lesson intellectually, another to own it. The script writer Jean-Claude Carrier said that

"The imagination is a muscle and like any other muscle it requires work to develop it."

It took me several years to own the power of my imagination.

In the first half of 1992, I researched and wrote a book about the Australian cricket team's tour of the West Indies called Calypso Cricket, using many of the techniques I'd picked up since attending Learning to Learn. The book read well and the process gave me the most fun I'd had writing.

Two years later I found myself in California doing a three month work study program at the Esalen Institute, a therapeutic community where Fritz Pearls developed Gestalt Therapy.

In the second month I was there, a number of staff wanted to form a writing group. I said I had some processes and exercises I wanted to try. They agreed.

Essentially following Natalie Goldberg's maxims, we began writing. The quality of what came out of the other people's pens instantly amazed me. We first see the good in others before we can see it in ourselves.

Over time I began to value my own writing and the power of my imagination. I learnt the truth of what Plato said long ago. "He who without the muses' madness in his soul comes knocking at poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that poetry he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen."

"The most important thing is to make your reader see and feel your fictional world."

The power of the imagination does not just apply to writing and the other creative arts.

I've been obsessed with sports since I scored a try in my first Rugby match for the Newport Seahorses under nines team against the Dee Why Lions and my other team mates all patted me on the back. For many years, how I performed at sports has been linked to how I felt about myself.

Needless to say, I got in my own way.

Occasionally I'd perform brilliantly and surprise and delight myself. Only to find the next time I played, usually when the pressure hit, mostly self induced, I'd fall to pieces and play way below my potential.

To varying degrees this phenomena has plagued and baffled me in every sport I've played and cared about.

I had my epiphany in a bookshop in Santa Cruz, California in 1979. The book - The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey opened my eyes.

Gallwey identified two parts of ourselves - self one, the conscious, and self two, the unconscious. The left and the right. Gallwey said in order to play to our potential we needed to learn to turn self one off and trust self two.

"I learnt to focus on the process and be in and enjoy the moment."

Instead of focussing on the end result, I learnt to focus on the process and be in and enjoy the moment. And lo and behold my relationship to sport changed. I began enjoying myself and playing far more consistently.

When I worked as a sports writer, I discovered that the elite athletes had somehow learnt the lessons embodied in Gallwey's book.

It goes both ways.

When I'm surfing and my head is racing and I start feeling that I just have to get the next wave, that the other surfers are my enemy, judging every move I make, that I'm not good enough and will never be good enough, that I'm too old and I don't like surfing anyway and I'll never catch another wave, I remind myself of what happens when I get out of my own way and trust my unconscious when I write. Invariably something shifts and I catch more waves and enjoy myself.

The power of the imagination is amazing, but to write to our potential and communicate our visions and emotions to the reader we need more. We need to master the art and craft of writing.

There are no rules in fiction that guarantee success. Yet there are certain guidelines that if followed will invariably make the writing stronger and more effective.

"The most important ingredient in fiction writing is to evoke emotions in the reader."

The most important ingredient in fiction writing is to evoke emotions in the reader. At a seminar about sitcom writing at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, producers and writers from American sitcoms, including Rosanne, said the most important story in any sitcom is the emotional story.

Strong and effective writing evokes emotion in readers by capturing the details that matter.

The same principles also apply to therapy.

In 1995 I was sitting in a group at Esalen. Whoever spoke waffled away in their heads. People drifted off. No one was listening. The room reeked of boredom.

Then a young woman, her voice wavering, started sharing details of her feelings of inadequacy. She painted a scene of how her parents had often praised her, but rarely affirmed her. And how ever since she'd chased praise all her life, and the praise had never been enough. The room went still. Everyone leant forward desperate to catch everything she said.

It's the same in writing.

We bring emotional focus to a piece of writing through structure.

Structure works on two levels.

First, it draws the reader into the story and keeps them there, making them want to know what happens next, wanting to turn the page.

Second, and most importantly, the story takes the main character on an emotional journey of change. The basic logic of a story is that a character with a weakness overcomes a series of obstacles and changes as result.

"Structure puts characters under pressure."

Structure puts characters under pressure, taking them out of the problem towards a solution. It takes them from having a psychological and/or moral weakness to having a self realisation where they see themselves clearly for the first time. In the most moving stories they have a spiritual awakening.

A classic example is the movie Dead Man Walking.

At the start of the movie the prisoner, played by Sean Penn, is emotionally constipated and blames everyone else for his being on death row.

In the middle of the story with the help of the nun, played by Susan Sarandon, the prisoner fights for his life and in the process discovers unconditional love and learns to take responsibility for his actions and asks forgiveness. I was moved to tears.

"The story takes the main character on an emotional and spiritual journey of change."

The same process occurs in the best action movies.

Take The Terminator. On one level the story is simply about Sarah Connors and a soldier from the future running from the robot, played by Arnold Schwarznegger.

The film works on a deeper level. By having to deal with the robot, the soldier from the future learns to love. Sarah Connors goes from being a woman having trouble getting a decent date and working in an unsatisfying job to the woman driving a jeep across the desert with a bandanna wrapped around her forehead who will bring up the future leader of the human race.

The character's journey is the most fundamental part of a story and should lead the whole process. The question the writer needs to ask him or herself when deciding on a story is not who we are, but who do we wish to become.

Milan Kundera said: "The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. Each one has crossed a border that I have circumvented...Beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about."

When we write a story we take our characters on a journey where they learn the lessons we need to learn. So when you write a story, write about something that will change your life. It is the best gift you can give yourself.

Fiction allows us to explore the best in ourselves, our characters and mankind in general.

For example, there is a scene in War and Peace where the Rostrovs and servants are packing up their house with all their possessions the day before Napoleon and his army are due to arrive in Moscow.

Natasha, who until then had been a self obsessed and self centred character, woke up late and saw wounded Russian soldiers, gathered around the Rostrov's house, desperate to get out of Moscow.

"The question...when deciding on a story is not who we are, but who we wish to become."

She tells her family that they have to forget their possessions and take the wounded. At first the family says they can't because if they leave their belongings behind they'll be financially ruined.

Natasha says people must be more important than possessions. Gradually the family agrees with her, throws away their goods and makes room for the wounded. The scene moved me to tears.

Not only does the scene make us see the good in Natasha, and then in her family, it makes us feel good for the capacity of ourselves and human beings in general. This is the highest potential in story telling.

Deep structure has a mythic form that resonates with the psyche. To achieve that requires the right brain and conscious attention to the details of structure. And yet for our writing to reach its potential we need to maintain freedom and spontaneity. The great way, said the Third Chinese Patriarch, is not difficult for those without preference.

J.P. Salinger in Franny and Zooey quotes the Bhagavad Gita: "You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of the work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness either...Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety....They who work selfishly for results are miserable."

And at the same time persistence outstrips all other virtues. We need a goal in mind to drive us forward. To keep us going. To give us the desire to realise our vision. To give our daily work meaning.

"The character journey is the most fundamental part of a story and should lead the whole process."

It's the universal balancing act of applying spiritual principles in a material world. Like the samurai we need to go into battle with a plan and once the fighting starts we need to combine the imagination with will power and analytical intelligence.

It is the difference between walking across a plank at one metre as opposed to 50, catching the ball at training as opposed to in front of 50,000 people.

When I get this right. When I have a story I care about and believe in. When I follow Isak Dinesen's advice and write each day without hope and without despair.

When I remember how I've seen people in countless writing groups let go, keep their pens moving, capture their first thoughts, let themselves write junk and have faith in the process and produce magic.

When I remind myself if they can do it so can I.

When I do all these things, I feel high and refreshed, like a runner who has just finished a long run and is cooling down with the endorphins pumping through the blood stream. It's the best feeling I'll get all day. By a mile.

Elmore Leonard, who's sold a ridiculous number of books, after years of struggle, said he only started to get somewhere when he started having fun and enjoying himself.

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