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Boost Writer's imagination

How To Make Your Writer's Imagination Shine

The Writer's Imagination Boot-Camp to help you expand your imagination so every tale you tell is as rich and vivid as you want it to be.

A Blog by arabella K. Federico

What do you care about and why is building your imagination important to you

To begin, as you follow along with me in this journey, I want you to really think about WHAT is important to you. What’s calling out to you that’s making you want a vaster imagination? Is it that you feel your story has stalled? Trying to find a good plot-line for book 3? What is it? I’d start with making a simple bullet point list of what-exactly-you’re looking to improve on. Additionally, what’s the point? WHY is building up the imagination muscle important to you or the work you’re doing. Knowing exactly where and why and what is a great beginner guild to start off growing this beautiful thing we human’s have known as imagination. I’d recommend my blog-series on How to Write Your Dream Protagonist as a good place to start brainstorming your MC if you’re just beginning. 
Writer's imagination

Quiet the bullshit

Firstly, this is my biggest tip; and I need you to hear it. We ALL have a story we tell ourselves. Remembering when I use to believe I didn’t have the imagination to write the book I wanted to create, let alone an entire syfy/fantasy trilogy. It was a belief that I had about myself that literally held me back in my writing. Only when I challenged this story within myself did that illusion fall apart. We are only as limited as we allow ourselves to be. Subsequently, I want you to write down another list about what you believe about your imagination. You’re here because you want to improve it, so on some level you want it to be bigger, vaster, and more detailed. What story do you believe? Is it true?

Magic & Imagination

BONUS TIP!

 Do you REALLY want to dig deep into adjusting how you look at yourself as a writer? Then write down the beliefs you have about your actual writing along with the list from above. 

Challenge those beliefs.

Challenge the story.

Write a new one.

imagination

Now lets take a deeeeeeeeeep breath

Secondly, at this point, this is where you sit with yourself and clear your mind. Meditate, daydream, do breath work; whatever clears your mind the best. Additionally, you want to feel relaxed and be in a peaceful environment where you won’t be distracted. A lot of us who struggle with our imagination do so because our analytical, science-based mind gets in the way. Our conditioning from childhood and family, beliefs, and personal story/identity often get in the way of us fulling being able to let go and imagine fully. But this doesn’t mean you are stuck there-in fact-you have the ability to jump right out of that mundane existence and into the world of your dreams. Suspend your disbelief temporarily-about everything. In this space, everything and anything is possible.  

Imagination

Then alice plunged down the rabbit hole...

Thirdly, completely chillaxed, it’s time to expand. I recommend these Writing Prompts from “The Busy Writer’s Notebook” for fantasy writing prompts. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fantasy writer or not, that’s not the point. Additionally, I don’t want you to particularly think like a writer for this step, either. Because you’ve suspending all disbelief for this exercise, find a prompt that makes you feel excited and tingly inside. Find one that reminds you of your childhood, or a game, TV show, or movie you love. The point is to lite the spark of your imagination so you can then sit with it and purely let your mind wander. Let anything happen here, don’t judge what comes up, just follow the scene. Do this for 15-mins minimum. Remember, you’re not trying to write a new story, you’re merely following a non-committal storyline in your mind to get your imagination-muscles stretched.

imagination

Inspired thought leads to inspired action

Finally, now is when you get out of your head, out of your comfort zone; and into your imagination. Find something out in the world that makes you nervous, uncomfortable, or maybe even scares you a little-and DO IT. (As long as it doesn’t cause you or anyone else harm.) “But what does potentially dressing up in drag for amateur night have to do with my imagination, Arabella?” So glad you asked! Experiencing a rush of adrenaline/dopamine will get your brain firing-#1. #2, doing this last step gets your body involved in all that brain work you just did from above. Experiencing something new, fun, and thrilling gets your body into a flow state, and as long as you follow the steps above, your imagination will be firing just as hot. Additionally, you’ll let go of the pressure/expectation of boosting your imagination, therefore coming back with a new found inspiration.

Celestial_tree_life-1555c4c7-a4ca-4530-83fc-b8e7e6dbc91d

Re-Cap steps that'll boost your writer's imagination

  • Find out WHY you want your imagination to get better and more vivid, what is going on in your writer’s journey that’s causing you to seek out an imagination boot-camp? Why does giving your imagination a level up important to you?
  • Quiet the mind and the inner-critic. Write out the story you tell yourself about your imagination. Do you feel like it’s stunted, faulty, or simply not working properly? Write it all out. Evaluate the real issues, and re-write your beliefs as you want them to be. For example, write down how detailed and vast your imagination is whenever you’re brainstorming.

Open up with yourself about your identity as an author, and how you feel about your writing. When you can change any negative beliefs about yourself, I promise your writing will improve drastically as well as your imagination.

  • Breathe. Meditate. Calm and clear your mind. Once you’ve chilled out, begin to allow yourself a few moments to suspend any disbelief about the world and “the way it works”. Release all the rules and conditioning you’ve experienced in life, because your imagination has no place for it.
  • Find an inspiring prompt that really gets you excited and eager to explore. Then go for it, really allow anything to happen there without judgment. Do this for at least 15 mins
  • Go out and have a real life adventure. Get outta your head, and into the world.

conclusions

Your imagination is truly limitless. I’m serious about that, and about how this can be your secret weapon when it comes to storytelling. Speaking of storytelling, what “story” are you telling yourself about your writing, your books, and your imagination? Is there any limiting beliefs there? I know there was for me, and as I slowly adjusted those story-lines, I saw everything in my author-world change. Including my imagination. Therefore, I bring this tool to you, to use for boosting the limitless mental screen of space within your mind. Because you deserve to have an imagination that’s killing it, and a positive outlook on your writing.

Thank you for reading!

Please comment, check out my other blogs HERE, and share this post! There are many authors out there who can benefit from this information, and with your help it can reach them. <3

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