thought on writing
1. Using Images
Use metaphor and analogy to convey visual
picture-images. Dreams are an example of visual images that convey
both principles, concepts, and feelings. Don't be afraid to leave
some word-pictures as incomplete and somewhat abstract. Sometimes
you must allow the reader to "fill in the blanks."
Don't over-analyze for the reader. Something that's worth reading
asks the reader to do some work -- making their own conclusions
and analysis.
2. Self-Disclosure
Watch out that in trying to be honest,
you don't over-disclose. Sometimes giving too much personal detail
is unseemly and doesn't fit the occasion, author, or audience.
Yet sometimes nothing but sharing your intimate feelings works
to convey the idea. Remind people to ask questions about their
own behavior and actions. Avoid affectation.
3. Fear, Frustration, and Serenity
Don't be afraid to just write. Let the
outcome be in God's hand. Focus on releasing the life of God
in others. Work on yourself to have a calm, peaceful, gentle,
and serene spirit. Guard against becoming too easily frustrated.
Frustration happens when our desire to reach a particular goal
seems blocked and it's time-sensitive. In other words, even if
we accomplish the goal, it will mean nothing because it was done
too late. Time always limits creative aspiration, process, and
product. Never do we have the time to do everything we'd like
or think we need. Time constraints work against developing and
maintaining trust n God. He will allow us to achieve the goals
that He wants, not necessarily what we want. We must believe
that a good God has reasons for our present successes and failures.
Serenity is what enables the spiritual
person to act with grace, gallantry, without pettiness, condescention,
pompousness, or arrogance. This is not false pride but simply
taking up the position and authority that God has granted you.
Serenity comes from being under the anointing of God, without
striving for anything, but taking up a mantle, given by Him,
maintained and enlarged by Him, and simply walking it out. This
is the commissioning stage of walking in a calling. Vision become
calling followed by training and wilderness culminating in commissioning.
4. On Persuasion
You'll feel the constant push and pull
of both needing and desiring to persuade. Yet vision birthed
by the Spirit of God requires no persuasion to have its effect.
It only requires presentation. God's Spirit commends the vision
to the spirit of others.
"By manifestation of the truth commending
ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God"
(II Corinthians 4:2).
The conscience is in a person spirit. Is
not the soul or human perception within the soul. Vision is received
in the spirit through direct revelation that doesn't need the
mind to be received. Human transfer of it in not the issue for
if it is truly of God it bears the divine stamp that implants
it upon one's spirit.
With God's help, strive to receive that
single nugget of great value that's implanted in your spirit
by God. Then, shape and give out that nugget to others. Allow
Him to use your unique temperament, personality, intellect, and
feelings. Demand that the process be totally spirit-directed,
that is to pray about the approach before rather than after its
taken. Balance this with the need to allow the words to spontanously
flow. His direction is in real time -- moment-to-moment communication.
Accept that a nugget is only a small part of a whole that you'llnever
have of the privilege of knowing. Each reader forms their unique
whole from the nugget you give them. Unless the nugget a spirit-breathed
portion, it won't enter the reader's spirit to provide for the
possibility of producing a whole. Let your words be like music
that propels one into worship. Nuggets that activate a person's
spirit are actually spirit themselves as soul cannot bring spirit.
Writing that evokes images that activate
the soul -- here we're talking about emotions -- only can birth
soul in another person. They can't truly birth spirit, unless
the person realizes that their soul has been activated, reject
the soul activation, and meditate from a spirit-standpoint, to
see if there are any lessons.
Resist the desire to persuade, or trying
to persuade by evoking soul, but write by the spirit and trust
that God will do what He wants in the people who read.
5. On Specific Methods
Antithesis uses direct opposites, a contrast
of ideas. Example: "to err is human; to forgive is divine."
Paradox represents that situation of a statement that may be
true, but seems to say two opposite things. As it stands, the
statement contradicts fact or common sense, or itself, and yet
suggests a truth or at least a half-truth. This can be a powerful
representation of the coexistence of opposites or the fact that
opposites together are healthy, necessary, and enhancing.
One can generate a verbal expression of
paradox by beginning with a truth. Then consider whether its
opposite is also true. The more specific the truth the better
the potential paradox is. Also look for words that seem absolute,
like truth, whose opposite is "lie." Consider whether,
in fact, the word is relative. Here "truth" expressed
relatively would be "truth as I see it or define it; the
truth for me." A concept is relative, if in practice it
doesn't hold. For example, all people feel they tell the truth,
when, in fact, people lie all the time. Next, generate a paradoxical
postulate: "All truth contains lies," "All lies
contain some truth." Then, think about it, write about it,
and pray about it.
Copyright
2001, Robert I. Winer, M.D.
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