“[Words] break down just at the point where a new or significant meaning is beginning to break out of its shell.”—Donald Murray[i]
What do you do when your words won’t come together?
Perhaps you can relate to John McPhee: “You wade around in your notes, getting nowhere. You don’t see a pattern. You don’t know what to do.”[ii]
The ideas in your mind don’t match what’s on the page. You try to express yourself in words, but all you get is a strange, unintelligible tangle. No one can make sense of your ideas—not even yourself!
When words fall apart, how do you make them fall together?
Should you force the meaning onto the page? Or give up in defeat?
I’d like to suggest another alternative. Donald Miller said that our words “break down just at the point where a new or significant meaning is beginning to break out of its shell.”[iii]
Like an eggshell shattering as a chick makes its way into the world, our sentences disintegrate as new ideas push through.
Jumbled words are a reason for expectation, not a cause for despair. Let’s examine the incubation metaphor step by step.
Hidden Potential
When a hen settles down to incubate an egg, she knows instinctively that the egg is different from, say, a golf ball. She approaches the egg with hope because of its hidden potential.
Writers acknowledge the validity and potential that lie in “sub-symbolic knowledge”—impressions and sensations that exist in the right brain are not yet expressed in words.[iv] Underneath the hard, cool shell of confusion lies a spark of unspoken insight. That is all a writer needs to start the incubation process.
God recognizes this type of “non-worded” knowledge. He speaks of “groanings that cannot be expressed in words” (Romans 8:26) and joy so deep “that you cannot find words beautiful enough” (1 Peter 1:8, FNV). Words break open because they haven’t grown big enough to contain this type of unspeakable reality. But with the right conditions, our words begin to expand.
The Right Conditions
The hen must provide the right conditions—time, warmth, and turning—so the unseen life can flourish. Similarly, authors must create the environment where unspoken thoughts can grow into words.
Patience
An egg needs time to develop. The hen waits, motionless, for twenty-one days—with no visible signs of change. An attentive writer does not hurry the writing process.[v] Healthy delay allows the mind to become still and quiet, like a brooding hen.
Martin Lindstrom encourages us to find things that don’t “tell a coherent story,” then “ponder over [them] in a quiet place... Don’t try to stare them down. Just let your mind roam free, and the next big idea will appear. Pressure is not a friend in this undertaking. Time is.”[vi]
From a scientific standpoint, new inspiration arises when seemingly unrelated areas of the brain make surprising new connections. But the neural connections between these areas are relatively weak and quiet.[vii] We must still the traffic on the busy thoroughfares of our minds so we can hear the gentle footsteps of insight.
If negative feelings arise during this time of quiet waiting, we can remember that the Spirit looks on our unspoken feelings with empathy and carries the groanings that cannot be expressed in words (Romans 8:26).
Warmth
An egg not only needs time, but it also needs warmth. Approach your unformed thoughts with kindness, attentiveness, and care. Listen to your emerging story with the same attunement and gentle delight you would use with a small child.
Repetitive Habits
Like a hen who turns her eggs three times a day, we must perform daily habits:
Write Daily. Donald Murray writes every morning for fifteen minutes. He describes an item in the room, writes about a vivid memory, or discusses something he is learning in a book.[viii] With regular practice, ideas begin to flow.
Wait Daily. Next, Murray waits. He does something mindless—or mindful—to allow the subconscious mind to process. For example:
Rake the leaves. Pull the weeds.
Go on a walk, get on your mountain bike.
Iron the clothes, slice the carrots, peel the potatoes.
Pull out your earbuds and let your mind wander. Pay attention to your senses—not to your budding ideas. Let the thoughts bubble up on their own—if they want to.
Listen Daily. Finally, Murray returns to his writing desk and listens. With pen in hand, he listens. The fire, wind, and storm die down and make space for the “still small voice.”[ix]
Respect
We can’t force emerging thoughts to turn into words, just like we can’t force a chick to hatch. Breaking open an egg will kill it; even after the chick has started hatching, it will bleed to death if a human intervenes. Similarly, an idea can’t be forced. Invite it with “relaxed awareness: attentive, sensitive, and unhurried.”[x] Simply “suspend judgment and let it be what it is.”[xi]
The Aha
With time and patience, our attitudes and actions will develop into discoveries. Stephen Pressfield says, “When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid… Power concentrates around us… Ideas come. Insights accrete.”[xv]
When the incubation phase is complete, thoughts begin to come together. Suddenly, we can find words. We create something that did not exist before. The old becomes new.[xii] The void is filled with meaning.[xiii]
When ideas hatch, they feel like they are coming “from beyond ourselves.[xiv] They emerge from the shell—ragged and wet like a newly hatched chick, but brand new and delightful nonetheless. With a little more polishing, the newborn ideas will fluff right up and start running around on their own.
So don’t be discouraged when your mind is blank, tired, and overwhelmed.
Don’t be alarmed when you can’t find the words for the urgent feelings in your chest.
The Spirit hovers over the unformed words, blessing the ragged edges and broken places where words don’t yet fit around the largeness of a new thought. One day at a time, He will enlarge your horizons.
[i] Donald Miller, Learning by Teaching
[ii] Dana Marie, “7 Quotes from John McPhee on the Writing Process,” June 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/7-quotes-from-john-mcphee-on-the-writing-process-bd77374093ec
[iii] Donald Miller, Learning by Teaching
[iv] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, (IVP Academic, 2021), 110-111
[v] Donald Miller, Learning by Teaching Find the exact quote
[vi] Emir Zecovic, “Small Data Summary,” December 6, 2018, https://blog.12min.com/small-data-branding.
[vii] David Rock, “How To Have More Insights,” September 6, 2010, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-at-work/201009/how-to-have-more-insights.
[viii] Donald Miller, Learning by Teaching,
[ix] Meek, Doorway to Artistry
[x] David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023).
[xi] David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023).
[xii] Esther Lightcap Meek, Doorway to Artistry, 181
[xiii] Esther Lightcap Meek, Doorway to Artistry, 181
[xiv] Todd Hall, Relational Spirituality, 235
[xv] Katherine Liu, "The War of Art: Thoughts," Accessed November 23, 2024, https://petrichorate.tumblr.com/post/182236042674/the-war-of-art-thoughts
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