I'm not suggesting you try this but . . .

I used to do a lot of professional palm-reading. Didn't tell fortunes or futures; it was character reading mostly. Great practice for trying to quickly 'get' someone. I'd be at some big corporate dinner or whatever (Arsenal Football Club once; Pink Floyd concerts another time), and every fifteen minutes another stranger would sit down opposite and I'd have to give them something real about themselves immediately.

Then I had the idea of doing the same thing only with poems. So I set myself up in Greenwich Market with a laptop and small printer. Someone would sit down opposite and I'd try to get a feel for their character - and this is the key bit really, because it's very much like the creative process for me: a kind of leap into the dark but towards something that is definitely there; you just can't get to it until you jump. Then I'd quickly write a poem to capture that essence. It worked really well. Every poem was completely different. People were very happy with them, I think.

I didn't do it for too long, however, simply because it was exhausting. But I think I learned from that experience that it's important to have that kind of faith in creativity and to put oneself on the line to reach it.

Ooh, how interesting! It reminds me of something i read ages ago in Writing Down The Bones. I seem to recall that Natalie Goldberg did something similar - not the palm-reading part, but setting up a stall and writing poems for people on the spot. She talked about it (if my memory serves me right) in the context of "letting go" - writing stuff she wouldn't keep a copy of, to give away. I always associated it with the idea of "present moment living", and also the notion that "ideas beget ideas" so getting too possessive about them can cramp one's style. But it's interesting how you've put it in terms of having faith in intuition.

3 poems is awesome, Maria!

Also, re: writing with the monitor switched off - i took my laptop into the garden today. In the bright sunlight (I know, right!), i could hardly see the screen at all. Worked like a charm, and as a bonus ... fresh air! I highly recommend. Maybe not in the rain though.

and also the notion that "ideas beget ideas" so getting too possessive about them can cramp one's style. But it's interesting how you've put it in terms of having faith in intuition.

I couldn't agree more. I think this is often the problem with people who spend years on a novel. Essentially, they're not writing enough, at least not creatively. So when they sit down to write a scene, say, their creativity is blocked. Which means that if the scene does get written, it won't exude the spontaneity and excitement of real life - well, real life as shaped by a writer (so that it's better).

There's a balance to be found, though. Commercial writers can churn out words like nobody's business. But that can easily by-pass creativity; just a different kind of avoidance. So, the balance is to be fluid enough, by writing enough, to be able to capture a feeling, mood, sparky piece of dialogue, whatever, and not block the flow of words best used to transfer it to someone else.

Then I had the idea of doing the same thing only with poems. So I set myself up in Greenwich Market with a laptop and small printer. Someone would sit down opposite and I'd try to get a feel for their character - and this is the key bit really, because it's very much like the creative process for me: a kind of leap into the dark but towards something that is definitely there; you just can't get to it until you jump. Then I'd quickly write a poem to capture that essence.

Terry, that's fascinating (and brave), but what did you do when someone sat down with a collection of negative vibes? I'm reminded of the portraitist's dilemma when faced by a subject with a disfigurement.

It's not surprising you said it was exhausting.

It was brave. I wouldn't fancy trying to do that, and I can imagine that it was exhausting.

Terry, that's fascinating (and brave), but what did you do when someone sat down with a collection of negative vibes? I'm reminded of the portraitist's dilemma when faced by a subject with a disfigurement. It's not surprising you said it was exhausting.

Alan, fortunately, that didn't ever happen. One of the reasons why, I think, is that anyone putting themselves in the way of an exercise like that tends to be open to it, otherwise what would be the point. However, I don't anyway believe that the essence of a person (unless they are seriously sociopathic) is a collection of negative vibes. Negativity tends to be on the outside, and I was always trying to get a sense of the person's deeper, real, self.

Which is why it was tiring: I wasn't cheating! A lot of palm-readers cheat, e.g. by cold reading, guess work, etc.

I'm going to have to try that "typing with your eyes closed" thing. Sounds fun!

I do it sometimes. I set the text colour to white, then I least I don't have to keep my eyes closed. If you have your eyes closed, you can end up thinking your fingers are in the correct typing position, when in fact they have all shifted left or right by a key ... which makes the work interesting.

I set the text colour to white, then I least I don't have to keep my eyes closed.

Why not just turn the monitor off?

You can, of course.

But you can see how many words you have done and where you are on the page with it set to white. And I think it looks more normal - bit weird with a 'dead' monitor.

I didn't even know you could set text to white, Catkin! Good idea cos I know what you mean about the hands shifting.

I kind of touch type, but I look at the screen. I type very fast but looking at the screen so I know if I've gone off piste...

Commercial writers can churn out words like nobody's business. But that can easily by-pass creativity; just a different kind of avoidance.

That is such an astute comment, Terry. I'd never thought of it as an avoidance before but it is, in its way.

Maria, you've already had great suggestions. The only two things I can think of is to save all work to a memory stick or two then delete it from your computer itself, and take the laptop out for a coffee, with nothing more than a skeleton sentence or two of what happens next. Write for at least an hour. Then come back and edit all you like.

Just promise yourself that you'll cover an hour's new ground before edits, each time you have a writing session.

Love some of Calliotrope ideas.

One author I know changes the typeface to white so that when she types in public places, it's invisible. Have to say I prefer to nip and tuck as I go, at least to a small extent, but am impressed by her commitment to the first thought.

Commercial writers can churn out words like nobody's business. But that can easily by-pass creativity; just a different kind of avoidance. I'd never thought of it as an avoidance before but it is, in its way.

Yes, I'd agree - the standard-issue, off-the-peg reactions and behaviours, not quite clichés but not really new either, the signalling of emotions, the usual, reasonably lively ways of putting things... It's easier to write and read than something which the mind catches on. Anyone with a bit of craft and technique and professionalism can do it, once they know the plot.

A doing-very-well, business-like self-publisher, who does it all professionally, did say to me that she does probably spend rather less time on her prose that, say, I do or most of us here would; it's good enough, and that means she can write a couple of novels a year, which is what the business needs. If to keep it going she needs to write more than that, then yes, she'd consider hiring a ghost. The decision about how hard to work at the writing itself is a business decision: profit and loss.

Which let me off thinking that I "ought" to go down that route ... I'll take the time-and-emotional-energy, thank you, and find another business model for myself.

It can be avoidance at the emotional level too. When I don't know where I'm going with a scene or I've lost touch with the real, hot heart of novel which has been driving me, or I'm tired or not well, I can write convincing-sounding dialogue by the yard - and/or convicing-sounding "description" of scene and setting. Any given page looks fine, in an off-the-peg sort of way. But it does sod all for the story, because I don't know what I'm trying to do, or I can't, or I won't, actually dig into what this scene really needs to be about.

I think this is a crucial point. That on the one hand, there is the trap of trying to write pure quality and ending up writing very little at all, while on the other, you can bang off thousands of words but with none of them doing much more than getting the reader from A to (predictable) B.

Now I think about it, this is exactly the struggle I go through every time I sit down to write. So what I try to do is borrow from the fluidity of the commercial writers while dropping in mental log jams every now and then to try to steer the flow into new channels. So maybe it's a bit like surfing between the two great rocks of avoidance (hmmm, wonder if the Beach Boys ever wrote a song about that).