Why did it take me so long to learn this?
I first tried Pulling the Curtain only because I was desperate. Halfway through my second novel I was enduring a patch of ordinary “Monday Morning Block”…but every day of the week. In other words, I wasn’t able to engage, enter the world of my story. Something in my mind resisted giving up the things that occupied my present-moment, ordinary realtiy self–today’s news, last weekend’s beach adventure, plans for Thanksgiving, something said that I wished I could unsay. And there was my story world, pale and ghostly by comparison, waiting to be invigorated. And I couldn’t.
A friend explained what I had to do. “Sit down at your computer. Set a timer for ten minutes. Close your eyes. Imagine three feet in front of you there’s a plush, thick theater curtain three. Focus on it. Fill your mind with it…and hold…for ten minutes”
“No other thought allowed?”
“Nope”.
“Ten minutes? That’s a long time to stare at a theater curtain, even in your mind––”
“Then make it five. Or seven. It doesn’t matter. Just set the timer to make it official.”
“What if those thoughts keep forcing their way in?”
“Add something else to the picture. One thing only. And relate it to the curtain. Maybe one of your characters steps out from behind to make a speech. Focus on that…”
“But what if I’m not a visual thinker?”
“Then make it a just a voice. The voice of your character, you know, making an announcement or something. But here’s the most important step: when you hear the timer go off, open the curtain…”
“…into the world of my story.”
‘You got it. Walk through, and do your thing, baby.”
Let’s cut to the chase. Did it work for me? Wow. Did it ever.
What I didn’t tell my friend was this: I had heard of the technique years earlier and dismissed it as woo-woo stuff, meditation, not for me.
Is it meditation? Well, sure, but it’s “applied:” it’s a meditative technique used for a specific end and purpose. What always kept me aloof from meditation was the non-directional aspect of it. You weren’t trying to do anything. Then were just trying to BE.
I could never see the problem. In fact, if I did have a problem, it was that I spent so much time BEING that I never got anything done.
What do you think? Do you have problems settling back into the world of your story after a weekend flush with real life? Have you ever had this problem every morning (or evening, if that’s when you write)? Try pulling the Curtain, and tell us if it works for you.
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