A Fantastic Question to Ask for Authentic Writerly Success.

There is so much advice on writing & creativity out there, and if you are a highly sensitive writer just starting out, it’s easy to get lost in the morass of what you “should be” doing. Sometimes, people state their opinions with so much confidence that it’s easy to forget to ask some basic questions: Is this person anything like me? Does their approach & the way they think resonate with who, I myself, am?

Is this the way I would work best?

I think these are very important questions to ask as creatives when we come across advice that’s given as a one-size-fits-all.

As a general example, some people believe in the “tough love” approach to coaching. Some people, indeed, do flourish when they are coached by someone who challenges or even insults them.

They want to show them that they can do it.

But this approach doesn’t work for everyone.

This kind of coach would only be damaging for another person who flourishes when they are praised. These are the people who blossom when they are encouraged, when they can peek out of their protective shells and flower in a receptive environment.

I know I am definitely this second kind of person, and I think it’s very important to know which kind of a person you in many different situations.

As a writer, answering the basic question of how our own writing process works can clear out so many brambles in our path. Instead of trying to make it look like someone else’s process, we can start to understand how we, ourselves, work.

A Fantastic Question to Ask to Create an Authentic Process as an Intuitive INFP or INFJ Writer.

I have been watching a lot of George R.R.Martin interviews recently, and in this YouTube video, he talks about how he thinks of writers as gardeners or architects. Of course, all writers are a mixture of both, Martin says, but we all lean much more heavily on one side or the other side.

He, himself, leans more heavily on the gardener side (surprised?).

So, who is an architect?

Architects are the writers who start with a plan. They have a blueprint. As Martin says, they know exactly where the plumbing goes and how many rooms there are in this house they are building.

Gardeners also know the general shape of the garden they are laying out. They are not random, and, of course, they know, Martin says, whether they are planting an oak tree or growing a radish.

But a garden is a living thing. It’s dependent on the elements. The way the garden spreads its numerous limbs across the plot of land assigned to it is based on changeable factors.

So, Architects and Gardeners are Very Different Creatures.

They have different ways of working and creating.

The trouble comes when we think one way is better than the other.

Writers who are naturally architects, Martin tells us, sometimes don’t really understand how the gardener type of writer works. They have a misapprehension that the gardeners don’t know what they are doing.

But that’s not true.

Gardeners do know what they are doing.

They know what they have planted. They know they have watered the seeds and protected them from extreme weather conditions. They know that tending the garden and nurturing it is crucial for it to grow.

Martin compares this process of unfurling and discovery as a gardener writer to taking a cross-country journey instead of boarding a plane and getting straight to the destination.

Speed is not the point. Discovery is the point.

For the gardener, the discovery in the journey is what makes up the fun of writing.

As you might have guessed, I am a gardener, as I am sure, are most if not all INFP writers.

When I began writing The Empath’s Journey, I did have an outline. But it was more a guiding principle than something I stuck to religiously while writing the book.

In the beginning, there were some times when I tried to strictly follow my outline. But that seemed to drain all the fun, all the life out of writing for me.

It drained out all the discovery, all the mystery.

It was only very slowly that I realized that the outline was for me and that I wasn’t in service to the outline. It was there to show me the direction, but then I could take interesting detours.

I could change the outline as I went.

Every so often, I could also come back to it and see if there was something that I hadn’t addressed.

Having an outline was a very important step in writing the book.

Without it, I would have been overwhelmed. Without it, I would have felt like I was all over the place and didn’t know the direction in which I was heading.

It provided containment.

But then, there came a time when the idea started growing willfully outside the confines of the outline. Then, instead of trying to stuff my living, breathing idea inside its cramped quarters, I needed to re-arrange the outer structure.

I needed to let my idea shape the outline.

Sticking to the outline was not the point. The book was the point. 

I was around 70-80 percent gardener and 20-30% architect while writing The Empath’s Journey. 

I always knew that I was a gardener, but practicing and trusting myself to be a gardener was a very different thing. It brought up my fear, my feelings of whether I was doing it right, whether other people were doing it better.

But the truth is, a gardener cannot be an architect any more than an architect can be a gardener. 

For gardeners, we have to understand, like Martin’s hero Tolkien says, that the “tale grows in the telling.” The story has a life of its own. It is a living, breathing thing. It stomps its feets. It lays down for a while. It is a creature nuzzling contentedly or violently seizing us in its grip. 

That’s where the beauty of writing lies. That’s where the mystery is. That’s how we write. 

Gardener or Architect. Which one are you? Are you trying to be something that you are not? 

Both gardeners and architects can make beautiful things, but not if they don’t follow their own paths. What’s yours?