Annie Percik helps you harness your subconscious
crew to solve those pesky writing problemsT
he subconscious is a
powerful tool for every
writer but it’s difficult
to know how to harness
its potential to work
for you when you want it to. Think
of your mind as a ship, with the
captain steering and looking out to
the horizon, and the crew working
away below decks, out of sight. From
a writing point of view, the crew does
a lot of the work without the captain
even being aware of it and it’s very
useful to be able to communicate
with them in order to tap into what
they’re doing.
Hypnotherapist and children’s
author, Steve Bowkett, agrees that
there’s a valuable resource waiting
deep in your mind for you to access
it: ‘The subconscious is a treasure
house of potential ideas, based as it is
on the accumulated experiences of a
lifetime. It is the ground of those two
astonishing resources – memory and
imagination.’
The crew are eager to help if you
let them. But how do you make
contact with the parts of your mind
that aren’t directly connected to your
conscious thoughts?
Steve’s answer is to treat your
subconscious crew like friends you can
send messages to. In the workshops
he runs at writing events, he teaches
techniques of self-hypnosis to help
writers tap into their subconscious
and provide a structure for it transmit
ideas to the conscious mind.
Have you ever experienced that
wondrous moment when you’re
focusing on a manual task, like doing
the washing up or taking a shower,
and an amazing idea comes to you as
if from nowhere? Wouldn’t you like to
be able to control when this happens
and what the idea is about?
Well, according to Steve’syou need to be in the right frame of
mind for the creativity to flow. But,
if you train your crew and schedule
your writing time, you can create that
‘right frame of mind’ for yourself.
If you give your crew a set time for
coming up with ideas, you can use this
to structure your writing day and the
result will be much more productivity
than just leaving it to a whim.
Successfully training your
subconscious crew is all about the
presupposition of success. If you
assume the crew will come up with
the requested answer at the set time,
it’s much more likely that they will.
And there’s another way you can use
this concept to your advantage in
achieving your writing goals.
When you sit down for a writing
session, start off by writing an account
of what you intend to complete that
day – as if you have already done it.
This is exactly like posing a question
to the crew and expecting them to
answer it. If you set in your mind that
you have already achieved everything
you set out to do, then your mindset
will lean towards motivating you
towards fulfilling those goals. You will
find it’s much easier to get started on
each task and that its progression will
flow much more smoothly.
So, next time you’re stuck on a tricky
bit in your story, or you’re not feeling
enthused about getting on with your
latest project, get your subconscious
working harder on your behalf.
As Steve Bowkett says: ‘Whatever
we think we consciously know,
subconsciously we know a huge
amount more.’
Your crew can help and they
will respond with better ideas the
more you ask them to do. But don’t
neglect them. Always remember to
thank them for their help. You won’t
regret it.technique, you can.
Say you have a prompt for a
competition entry and you’re having
trouble coming up with an idea. What
Steve suggests is that you ask the
subconscious crew a question and set a
specific time and date for them to give
you an answer.
Take a moment to think about the
prompt. Then say very definitely to
yourself, preferably aloud, ‘When I sit
down to write tomorrow, I will gain
some insight into my competition
entry.’ This technique can easily be
framed more specifically - eg ‘When
I wake up tomorrow, I will know
how the story I’m working on will
end,’ or ‘At 6pm tomorrow, I will
find out why my character is doing [a
particular thing].’
The answers are always there in
your head. It’s just a case of you giving
the crew the time and space to dig
them out, and then prompting them
to hand those answers over to you at a
convenient moment.
Sometimes, the answer to the
question will just turn up in your
head at the appointed time, without
you even having to think about it.
Other times, it won’t. However, it’s
important to know that your crew
doesn’t mean to let you down, and
sometimes they just need a little
support from their captain to get the
job done. On the occasions when the
answer doesn’t magically appear, if you
sit down later in the day and present
yourself with a blank screen and half
an hour of dedicated time, the words
will likely start to flow and everything
about the story will resolve itself as
you go. The crew were just holding
back until you gave them an outlet to
present you with their work.
Writers often fall into the trap of
thinking you need to wait until the
mood strikes to start writing, or that52 NOVEMBER 2019 http://www.writers-online.co.uk
Al hands on deck