Executives must re-discover the joy (not task) of writing

“Writing the Natural Way”
Gabriele Rico
Penguin Putnam, 2000


Somewhere in our growing up years, we lost the joy of creating and the pleasure of writing. Someone wisely said that we were all artists and poets when we were young. And then most of us ceased to be.

“When we were little,” says Peter Elbow (“Writing with Power), “we had no difficulty sounding the way we felt; thus most little children speak and write with real voice.”

We saw the rainbow -- and we captured its kaleidoscopic hues in pastel drawings and in light verses. The sight and scent of a rose drove us to the nearest bench to record in a sketch or essay an overpowering sense of beauty – moved by poet John Keats’ exultation: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

A case of first love, a certain melancholy or a rush of exuberance finds itself in broad strokes in a drawing, an uncommon intensity in poetry or a simple, but nonetheless inspired, melody.

Why did the artist, writer or musician in each one of us leave us without saying good bye? And soon we realized we could neither draw nor write; we could neither etch an image nor compose a song.

Experts on the creative process explain that we have over-developed our critical thinking – the left brain, and under-utilized our creative part – the right brain. Our schools taught us to labor over an outline before we could even write – and thus creativity flew out of the window!

William Forrester in the movie, “Finding Forrester,” gave this valuable advice to a young writer – “Write and write, and think afterwards” – and then your piece starts taking shape. Two Harvard educators concluded that “writing is a guide to thinking” – not the other way around.

A valuable contribution to the joyful rediscovery of writing as a natural creative process is the book titled “Writing the Natural Way,” authored by Gabriele Rico who has been leading writing workshops and discussing recent findings on brain research as they apply to learning. Sub-titled “Using Right Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers,” the book devotes 14 chapters to unleash our creative energy for writing – almost effortlessly.

Listen to Ms. Rico: “Natural writing is first of all an act of self-definition of what you know, what you discover, what you wonder about, what you feel, see, hear, touch, taste – all of which reflects the many-faceted crystal that you are.” She also expresses this lament:

“Our loss (of interest in writing) begins in school, when the process of writing is taught to us in fragments: mechanics, grammar, and vocabulary,” she points out. Not to mention our teachers’ preoccupation with sentence diagrams and other mechanistic approaches that only succeeded in giving us dread, not joy, in writing.

The author says we have “Design” and “Sign” minds. To simplify the explanation, she uses a metaphor: Your Design mind attends to the melody of life, whereas your Sign mind attends to the notes that compose the melodies.”

Don’t be intimidated by these distinctions, because after these are settled, the book brings you to experience writing -- the natural way. The chapter on “clustering” gives us an easy way to expand and deepen an idea. The author calls it an “associative brainstorming process.”

On example used is the word “airplane.” Through clustering process, ideas like “freedom,” “power,” “danger,” and “sexual attraction” branched out of the “airplane.” Branching out further are many more ideas. You write these down and you will not run out of ideas – a sure antidote to mental block.

This book, as it fuses both the science and art of writing, deals with such interesting topics as language rhythms, use of metaphors, finding the unifying thread, appreciating nuances, creative tension, brevity and re-visions, and designing constellations.

Is this the preoccupation of professional writers? The author says that writing is a natural ability inherent in everyone, as she disputes the concept of a “born writer.” She declares: “This fallacy puts the born writer in a different category from most of us – or so we think – since we have to struggle so hard with writing.”

She delivers a liberating truth to all of us, including executives who have long given up writing: “The innate human need that underlies all writing, the need to give shape to your experience, is a gift we all possess from earliest childhood.
How to read the book? Scan it first to appreciate the entire sweep. And then follow the exercises – as easy as calisthenics (and this is mental). You will be reassured that your have been applying the right principles on writing. Then, you realize writing is kid’s play. And then you discover the joy – of writing.