Write What You Don't Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow
is a revolutionary approach to learning to write and improving your writing. In this culmination of 20 years spent developing the Imaginative Storm method, Huston and Navé have created a step-by-step guide that's both inspiring and practical.
There's no other guide to writing like it!
But how can you write what you don't know? Think of it this way: when you're living life, you don't know far more than you know. You don't know what other people are thinking. You don't know how the story will turn out. But when you sit down to write, you know what happened--or if you're writing fiction, you know the story you're writing. And that's why, when you just "download" what you know onto the page, the writing doesn't have the tang off life.
When you write in the Imaginative Storm, you surprise yourself. You're curious about what will come out! So you're energized, and your writing is energized, because you're generating images, thoughts, perceptions, insights, that you've never put into words before.
Have you ever worried about finding your voice? Worry no more! It's there; it's always been there. You just have to find a way of letting it come out onto the page. Your imagination knows what to write. You just have to
unleash the storm.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the Imaginative Storm writing method changes people's lives. They say so themselves:
"After Imaginative Storm, writer's block is a myth." -
Abdullah H. Erakat, journalist and screenwriter
"It's like meeting a part of yourself you didn't know existed. What a gift!" -
Wendy Shaw, artist
"Every session has been deeper and more fulfilling. It's infusing my entire life with creativity." -
Chris Minnich, businessman
Advance praise for
Write What You Don't Know:
"BRILLIANT! Not only are your concepts and exercises both common-sensical and revolutionary, the writing is so calm, intelligent, friendly, unpretentious, precise, loving, funny and warm--it's inspiring to read this--and so moving, as I think about aspects of writing I haven't seen put into words before. I love this book. It's so true and so excellent and kick-ass."
- Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist and former faculty at Iowa Writers' Workshop
"
Write What You Don't Know
is like a writer's recipe box: first it helps you recognize the ingredients you already have at your fingertips. Then its clever exercises and prompts help you create a banquet out of your own stories and perspectives. Add a dash of encouragement, a heaping tablespoon of insight into the writers' process - and you end up feeling both spiritually and creatively well-nourished."
- Nicole Perlman, screenwriter of
Guardians of the Galaxy