How do you get into flow state writing? by Kyle Phoenix

I write.

I’ve read a lot of books on writing. One of my favorites, I found and read by accident, it’s by a little old lady. 

https://amzn.to/46znK3Z 

A Time To Write by Louise Grace Erdman

I’ve read all the others. (Personal Pet Peeve # 473—-when people suggest to me, a teacher, general books that everyone has read. Esoteric books, bring it on. King, Moseley, others on writing—-read it. Or other topics—-like business or African American culture or history or world history or women studies or LGBT stuff—-I own 5000 books, I’m sure 5000 more read—-trust me, I’ve read it.)

So writing for me is the summation of what I see/experience. Generally dreams.

I had one this week about—-a cult, I think—-they were wearing track suits.

But see my dreams aren’t like hey, what’s that monkey doing on the ceiling?

My dreams are: Go to work tomorrow, if you work at an office, go into the office, folk come over, papers are handed to you, you scan some emails, blah blah blah.

That’s what my dreams are like.

Less like dreams and more like consciousness sharing of another person’s reality. (No, I don’t know if it’s valid super power because I can only do it while asleep. Which yes, puts me up there with Franklin Richards in Power Pack.

(Some guy, it’s generally a White guy, will fill the comments section about how Franklin Richards is so much more powerful and don’t I know blah blah blah blah. I’ve had over 50k comic books in my lifetime. I often wonder if people really take in people who have written stuff, know stuff, kind of look at them and realize—-you don’t have to tell most of us the basic stuff. I digress…or do I? (Yes, that was a Peter David reference.))

I suspect the consciousness sharing is multiple things at the same time. I think one it’s bridging from one multiverse to another. Again, no deep incredible spectacular things occurring other than observing.

I think secondly, sometimes it’s my own imagination rearranging some things—-sometimes I can actively nudge an idea, a thought, a reality.

I am both observer and creator.

I then wake up and I jot down these ideas—-I have two ways I do it.

One I have notebooks, just for “dreams” that I try to get down as much of the overall “idea” as possible—-fragments, thoughts, colors, impressions.

Secondly, sometimes I type things into story form.

No 3D

In typing or handwriting in story form I can then build more, conversations, dialogue, descriptions, I clean up little bits and pieces. I pass on to another character, story idea.

I started writing up this whole track suit cult thing and I wanted to capture the cruelty that this woman was doing to the initiates. But at the same time the initiates were somehow undercover into this cult.

Yup, all in the singular dream.

Wackier still, it was a lot of White folk, one Black guy. It was like watching a 3D movie (which is why I have never interacted with a 3D set up nor drugs. Got to keep the mindscape purely unto itself, I am sovereign unto myself. Especially mentally.)

That’s him!

Start typing it up and I start grooving to the idea of flogging and having read all of Csikszentmihalyi’s work, I’m all in there, I know what I’m in, I know what flow is, and it’s a minute, ten minutes, an hour, two hours.

And I’ve got 10–15 typed pages.

Now within the context of that flow, typing up that scene in the room with that lady and seven other folk and her handing them something—-I took it farther—-and I’m thinking about multiple works as I’m typing up this piece. Rarely is one work completely unto itself in a raw typing/handwriting.

See, my work is like the whole island of Manhattan.

My work, my writing work, is the island of Manhattan.

Each story is a block.

Each book an avenue. Some books are neighborhoods.

So when I’m writing about this cult thing going on, I’m writing it from a mental helicopter and I’m looking down at the island of Manhattan that is Kyle’s works in progress—-all lit up below me—-and I’m thinking to myself is this its own section, its own piece or more insanely am I writing a chunk of something that is part of another already in progress piece?

Huh.

I have found that often as I doubt my creativity—-doubt isn’t the right word—-that I think to myself—-hmm, this is reductive or banal—-that what invigorates me about a piece is when I assemble disparate parts together.

Now, that’s interesting.

I’m writing a horror novel Mbube Mbube. Hmm could it fit there?

I’m writing a trilogy Race War, 3 Books, could it fit in there?

Wait, wait, wait, I have a 12 book series, Myriad, that I’ve mapped out and written some chunks of—-maybe, there?

Hmmm?

Then I was watching something and thought to myself, why not try and link up some of my work through some of the characters that have moved through the multiverse? How could I do that?

Does the 12 Book series—-Myriad—-could that be like the tree root/trunk that touches elements and chapters in the published and available on Amazon: Stay With Me, Hush, S, Puzzle, Mbube Mbube books?

I also have another faint idea for a book—-Holocaust that might be attached to Mbube Mbube. Hmm, maybe there?

What is Flow Then?

Flow is not simply productivity/production, the word to the written page, to the typed page, it’s also reaching your fingertips, your mindscape up into the ether, to the Universe itself and allowing it to seep into your ears, up your nose, down your gullet and chewing it, recognizing it as another universe, the multiverse, or the ascension to a God within one’s own mindscape and reassembling bits of collected reality into a story line.

I don’t know where the pieces will end up, I trust the Universe to bring me more as I open files, to bring me bits and pieces and truths and lies.

I’ve tried audio recording my words—-writing—-transcribing my thoughts. Doesn’t work.

What I am experimenting now with in the eventual launch of a podcast is 30 minutes of discussions, stream of consciousness about how and what a book is, how I conceived it, how it got to be, what I think worked and didn’t, that challenged me.

The work itself must be explored and questioned and then from the helicopter you drop in a whole new block to the neighborhood and command the neighborhood to sew itself together, to become interesting.

Flow is attaching to the frequency, the ephemera of the Universe itself and dreaming the dream of the Dreamer and recognizing that you just might be consciousness sharing like a little White boy in comic book or in a helicopter over an imagined mind palace of a Black man. lol

#KylePhoenix

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Spirituality: Being In Flow by Kyle Phoenix

Are you in flow in your life?  By flow I mean that when you sit back and look at your day to day life, the manifestation of it, does it feel right?  When I meditate and prayer and muse and think, I often look for the natural state of flow to identify where I'm at.  Recently here in New York the weather has violently effected the physical landscape and therefore the people, displacing them, destroying their property, disrupting their lives.  Then of course there's been a massive election campaign happening everyday on television and the internet.  And a third element has been the media constantly feeding into the social zeitgeist about war, lack of employment, political divisiveness and apocalyptic weather conditions.  What does that do to people psychically when all of these mega-events are happening on top of a person's normal life.

The way I stay in flow, as an introvert, is I take time for myself.  

Take It: No Excuses:

Not simply make but directly take time for myself.  That means that not every phone call will get returned in five minutes, every email replied to, every tap be acknowledged.  I take as much time as I need to sleep, rest and sometimes I directly do nothing, I simply laze and haze and contemplate my navel and rent bad dvds and spend a good day just napping.  Like a cat.  By taking cues from cats when I need to spring into action, I generally have the energy to do so.

Force Fields:

When people tell me about their day or their stressors, they often bring up crazy people.  People who are time wasters, who are crazy makers, who are always going through crisis, who want you to call them NOW because of-----no, thank you.  My rule about crazy people is that you will see them coming, down the figurative or metaphorical street, and responsibly, to myself, I cross the street.  I don't engage or assume that I can fix people's problems.  I can offer an alternative perspective and then I can go get a Pepsi.  What you do with the advice has nothing to do with me and it's not that I don't care but I practice the two D's.

Dispensability and Detachment:

Everyone relationship is dispensable  I am comfortable with that.  And I let people know.  There are no permanent parts/position in my life if what you do isn't healthy towards me (or yourself).  From parents, to family, to friends, to lovers, to pets---I am comfortable with saying: Thank you and Good Bye.  That's rough to people in thought but it is generally the desire I hear from people, to be able to disentangle.  When I tell people this they often ask me if that makes me simply cold but in fact it does the opposite,  If I am in your company, spending time with you then I genuinely want to be there.  

When I am in people's company, I very rarely use my cell phone and only look at it from a need for the time or if there's a vibrating alert that it could be some of my ill relatives.  Other than that, I'm paying generally my full attention to the person I am with.  And you know what I've noticed?  How much other people are constantly checking their phones, going mute during conversations to check Facebook---while with people---how sad.  I generally limit time with them.  It's stupid to be with people and because technology gives you the option to want to shift from someone in front of you to others.  Or you disengage just to check on the idiosyncratic thoughts of others online, how insulting.  I am present with you.  How often are you truly present with other people?

A few days ago in one of my classes a classmate asked me had I gotten an email from them an hour beforehand and I said no, I hadn't seen it.  She was shocked and pressed, hadn't I gotten it???  Wasn't I checking my email----hourly?  No, and that leads to Detachment and by that I'm not attached physically, spiritually to every alert from the universe because not every pebble into the pond has much to do with me.  In fact when I really meditate and look at myself beyond the ego, I realize that I am not spiritually attached to anything I don't choose to be.  I'm just the observer of the universe.  Detachment allows me to see myself much clearer, to make sure that I am not distracted by other people's fluvia, their messy identities and instead I can either see them as whole people or see beyond the emotionality of the moment for them and into the outcomes, the future possibilities, the strategic options of their problems. Contradictorily, detachment allows me to feel and be even more connected. 

Quiet Sacred Space:

I make time to be quiet.  For there to be as little sound around me as possible.  I've slept under some form of candle light nearly every day for the last 20 years because it's a wonderful way to bring the bedroom down visually to small flickers.  It's amazing how many little creaks and cracking sounds there might be that you never notice with TVs on, radios, phone chirping.  I've really gotten into the using feng shui in the past few years so I'm conscious of the kinds of objects I have around me, opting for just a bed, a table with a candle, lamp and book.  No televisions.  If I have music playing, it's low from the living room, no electronics generally in the room.  If I feel the urge to watch a movie late or from bed, I wheel/turn the television and bring it to the bedroom doorway and watch it from there.

All of this moves me into flow.  It allows me to look at my life without all of the distractions that the above strategies divert.  I can then see my life, see the events occurring in it, see my desires and capabilities and ask myself is this working?  Is God steering me to the left or the right?  Am I experiencing anxiety from fear or is there a level of tapping that the universe trying to get my attention about?  In a level of solace and clarity I can then face my own nerves and fears or I can pay attention to what the signal is.  Ahhh, I'm suppose to be taking more classes, that's what a series of dreams have been trying to tell me.  Or I can sit on a bad date and directly challenge obvious crazy or misogyny from a date because I'm not attached to being liked or my own neediness.

Experiment with some of the strategies above and let me know what you were able to hear, feel, see or recognize that you were being moved along exactly as synergy would have you.

Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
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