Today the Associated Press reported that Hosni Mubarak, ousted president of Egypt, is not healthy enough to be moved to a military hospital. He will continue to be held in detention in a hospital at Sharm el-Sheikh until his condition is more stable. Here is a link to my recent article in Carbon County Magazine about the revolution in Egypt and some thoughts on freedom of expression.

The Triumph of Instinct

Time to tune in to the soundtrack of spring. Crows, robins, turbulent waters, wind, dogs -- there's sound everywhere silence once reigned. Instinct churns all of it. When writers listen to their instincts it will also tell them where to find the real story.

Some writers create characters that embody instinct. In great novels like The Girl Who Played with Fire, Lisbeth Salander is able to survive a million threats to her life because her instincts are as sharp as those of any animal. Rape, gunfire, police manhunts, technology -- nothing actually overpowers her highly developed gut knowledge of the true threats in life. She also has a well developed sense of morality that underlies her sometimes violent approach to justice.

E.M. Forster speaks to the alchemical process that pushes writers to hear their instinctive voices and incorporate them into great fiction. He says, "What can we say about the creative state? In it a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subcionsious and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art...And when the process is over, when the novel is complete,....he will wonder how on earth he did it."

When your gut pushes you toward a story, follow it. For months, I had notes for a story on Egyptian filmmaking waiting for me to turn it into something. About two weeks ago, I was overcome with this idea that the time to write the story was on that day. I wrote it, found an interested publisher and wrote it out as fast as I could. The next day, Hosni Mubarak and his sons were taken into detention for questioning on charges of corruption and abuse of power. It gave me a lot of satisfaction to hear the story break on the news the day after I turned in my final draft. If only my instincts were that accurate for all aspects of life -- today I'd be writing from Paris instead of the Poconos.

Passion Ain't a Dirty Word

Yesterday, as the wipers raced to clear my windshield, passionate men of all ages and shapes parked their cars along the roadside and slogged to nearby streams. No storm could dampen their love of fishing on the season's first day. They just hitched up their waders and marched.

As a kid, we watched people pursue their hobbies with discipline and gusto, but the word passionate wasn't one we'd ever use to describe them. For us, "passion" described soap opera love affairs or small town scandals. The word only made it onto the covers of books written for adults and shelved beyond my reach. But now the judges on TV talent contests keep telling contestants to display passion, connect with the song, dance, or whatever...and deliver an emotional performance.

Great writers have always followed this advice. Isak Dinesen ran away from her rich family to paint in Paris. She later followed her husband to Africa where she fell in love with the landscapes she described in her novels. Ernest Hemingway stalked the bullfights and safaris in search of material for works that married emotional life to other feats of daring.

Though we have a million great examples of passionate writers, it's often really hard to pursue a story idea that takes us out of the realm of our daily life. Routine has its own gravitational force. Breaking away often seems impossible.

Don't let yourself be a prisoner of inertia. Want to write about the circus or the world of modern dance? Have a yen for sushi or a new slant on love? Take a tip from the determined anglers. Invest in the right tools, pick a date to begin, and don't let stormy weather keep you from your goal.

The Plot of a Lifetime

To deliver a good plot, a writer must find clues that emerge from every landscape. Rich symbols and ideas appear in odd places at strange times. But it's the writer's job to use these signs to enrich the adventures we put on paper and those that drive our lives. Synchronicity is as valuable to a writer as it was for Jung and Sting. (Note: both guys have one syllable names ending in G.)

Jung thought of synchronicity as a "meaningful coincidence" of outer and inner events that are not linked by causality. He encouraged people to pay attention when certain ideas, symbols, or events occurred in clusters. Their occurrence did not suggest that these moments "caused" each other – just that significant ideas tend to occur in patterns. Jung believed that these patterns signaled a new phase in the process of psychic growth.

Creative people have also embraced the concept of synchronicity as one that can help drive the development of a work as it proceeds from inception to finished product. Julia Cameron, who has written extensively about the creative process believes that when we encounter a problem in our lives or our writing, taking a single key action may be enough to make a solution appear. She says, "Synchronicity is like a tap on the shoulder by the universe. It tells us pay attention, that we're on the right path." In lyrics from his bestselling album with the Police, Sting describes it as, "An effect without a cause, sub-atomic laws, scientific pause, synchronicity."

Now, for the I-swear-to-God finale: While writing this piece, I was paging through a treasured volume of Jung's articles and ideas. It’s a nice hardback with illustrations and photos that I got for $8.50 in a used bookstore. While searching for quotes, I happened to look at the inner fly leaf for the first time since I bought the book. Written in pencil on that blank page was the name Jan Price. That is the name of my best friend from elementary school. And this is what happens when you start looking for meaningful coincidences that nudge your work toward the unexpected.

Thrill of the Random

On my left were empty seats with place cards for Bob Marley and Marley...my boyfriend said hi to my family and I asked if he'd be lunching with us. He said, 'Just 'til Bob Marley and Marley show up...' Then I woke up, strangely pleased. M.L.von Franz, a Jungian sage says, one must "remain alert of hints and signs, both in dreams and external events, that the Self uses to symbolize its intentions." Reggae or not, when the Marleys speak, a writer should listen.

The creative impulse is mischievous and can elude direct efforts to summon it. But a random adventure almost always wakes my muse. Yesterday, in a familiar town, I felt bored by the usual scene. Then, on a dim back street, I saw a Moorish style fountain spraying water near an old tavern.

We looked at the menu and decided to go in. The front of the building had a small, dark bar with antique furniture. It was the kind of place where a cheating wife would feel at home. But the back dining room was another story. It was built like a chalet with a vaulted roof and floor-to-ceiling windows. Diners gazed out at a giant willow tree flanked by a rushing stream.

The visit surely sparked my morning dreams. The place had three qualities that wake my creative drive: 1) Novelty -- I'd never seen the place before; 2) Strong natural imagery -- that willow tree, that stream, and eventually, stars; and 3)Randomness -- the entire adventure was completely unplanned.

Today I realize that entering that restaurant felt something like a dream. Nothing I saw was what I expected. Isn't that also the basis of a great plot? For a writer, new places and odd dreams are more refreshing than rain. They call your attention to different symbols and original ideas.

As Gandhi said, "If we have listening ears, God speaks to us in our own language, whatever that language is." That giant willow tree had words with me last night, then somehow raised the ghosts of the Marleys. This morning I inspected a willow near our house. In full sun, I saw a hint of green on its limbs and felt real joy. Creative renewal is always closer than it appears, and as Bob Marley said long before our phantom lunch, "None but ourselves can free our minds."