Quote of the Week

July’s quotes are all from a name most people have heard of. Albert Einstein was the most prominent physicist of the twentieth century. his contributions to science dramatically changed how humans interact with our world. He was a deep thinker, engaging his brain cells not only matters of science, but on metaphysics as well.

“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”

“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

Have you ever been told to “sleep on it” when you couldn’t find a solution to a problem you had after obsessing over it for hours, or even days?

I run into this with my stories fairly frequently. I get stuck on a plot point, or make a character do something that doesn’t feel quite right, or I write a scene that seems fine and I move on. I know the issues need to be fixed but don’t know how.

If I move on to something else and focus my mind on other things, I’ll suddenly get a thought that fixes the plot issue. Or I’ll wake up the next morning and think, “Raine would never do that. This is what she needs to do.” Or, “If I take the story in that direction I’m taking a detour to nowhere.”

Finding something else to do when I’m stuck with my writing has been a tried and true method for freeing up my thinking processes and fixing the issue that is causing me trouble. Sleep also helps, especially if I go over the problem and then tell my mind to work on it right before I go to sleep. Nine times out of ten, the solution will be waiting for me when I wake.

I picture Einstein noodling over a physics problem in much the same way, following trains of thought, trying on different ideas, and then, while he’s talking to his dinner guests over a glass of wine, the solution comes to him.

This is why it’s important to be able to clear your mind, to be able to empty the conveyor belt of thoughts that constantly besiege us. Only when our minds are at rest can we hear our intuition speaking to us.