Chapter 37: Practicing Imagination

My practice exercised my imagination. The more I imagined, the better my practice. The more I practiced, the better my imagination. Before I had practiced imagination by self-referen­ tial metanovel writing I’d only imagined that I’d been imagining. Technically I had been imagin­ ing, the way that lifting a toothpick is technically a weightlifting workout. Real imagining, like real weightlifting takes work. Imaginary imagining is easy. “Imagine practicing regularly,” someone might say to me. “OK, I did,” I might reply after a few seconds. That was imaginary imagining. Real imagining takes time, attention, focus, and repetition. Real imagining is detailed and specific, not fuzzy and vague. That’s why self-referential metanovel writing was such a good imagination-building tool. Writing a self-referential metanovel takes time. Self-referential metanovel writing doesn’t have to take any more time than writing Morning Pages, Julia Cameron style. It can replace Morning Pages, or it can complement them. What’s different is the structure. In self-referential metanovel writing you write the imagined story of yourself doing what you want to do. That’s what I was doing. That’s what I am doing. I imagine being the kind of person that I want to be. I imagine doing the things I want to do —which right now is writing this sentence. I imagine organizing my tasks. I imagine making a list. I imagine doing the items on my list and imagine checking them off. I imagined being interrupted, then getting back on track. Getting interrupted and being dis­ tracted was a deeply rooted habit. It would take a lot of practice to develop a new one. But I was practicing. Then I stopped writing, and did what I had been imagining. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for D*mmies