HOW TO CALL ON YOUR MUSE: WRITER'S INTUITION ON DEMAND

Intuition often comes to us unbidden, suddenly providing an answer that we have been seeking, but hadn't consciously asked for. But is it possible to incorporate intuition into our writing? Can we really get important insights into solving a writing problem just by asking our inner voice questions? Identify the writing issue. Let me give an example from the writing of my latest book, Ask Your Inner Voice. When Ask Your Inner Voice was written, I started with an outline, and quickly realized that the first inner guidance people recognize is probably conscience. But conscience isn't the inner voice because conscience is always negative and is made up not of inspiration from the light within, but of guilt, fear, random thoughts, and societal norms. Furthermore, conscience isn't always right, as in the historical examples of the Inquisition and apartheid. So, it would be a literary mistake to begin a book about positive inspiration from within by examining the human experience of negative information from without. Also, who wants to read a book that starts with a chapter about conscience? This was an immediate problem in writing Ask Your Inner Voice: how to develop the book logically, but how to make the first chapters interesting, and not preachy or negative by starting with a chapter on conscience. After struggling with this problem for a while, I finally decided to take the steps the book itself suggested and ask my inner voice how to solve the problem. Ask your inner voice. I first formulated the question: how can I make the first chapters of Ask Your Inner Voice interesting? I wrote the question down. I quieted my mind. I asked the question expecting an answer. Then, I listened intently and patiently. Ultimately, I got: "Don't start with the first chapter." I wrote that down and thought about it after the session was over. Act on the answer. As I thought about it, I began to realize that the book didn't have to start with conscience at all: it could start with some of the other chapters, like the chapters on hunches and creativity, which described common human experiences that were much more uplifting than the experience of conscience. I then realized that the answer I received from my intuition - "Don't start with the first chapter"- could simply mean to rearrange the chapters so that the chapters on hunches and creativity came before the chapter on conscience. I tried it and it seemed to work perfectly. The beginning chapters were uplifting, and the chapter on conscience seemed to flow naturally from the beginning chapters on hunches and creativity. (If you have an opportunity to read Ask Your Inner Voice, evaluate for yourself whether placing the conscience chapter third worked better than leading off with it!) Steps to calling on your muse. How to solve a writing problem using your intuition? Try calling on your muse: identify the writing problem that you want to solve; formulate a question about how to solve the problem; write the question down; quiet your mind; ask your question expecting an answer; listen intently and patiently; write down what ever comes; verify that it came from your inner voice; and try out the action suggested by whatever came. You'll be amazed at the results.