Retreat in the Heart of Darjeeling

Issa is a spiritual novel with a message about Jesus and how his teachings in Galilee paralleled what he was exposed to as a youth traveling in India and encountering some of the world’s great religions.  That should have given me plenty to write about, correct?

In one sense, yes.  I have something that is vital to express…that we are all meant to become our higher selves–to realize our Christ-Selves or our Buddha-Natures–as Jesus demonstrated.  But that was not enough to prevent writer’s block.   Or, was it?

I found that when working on a book or a short story I must employ “The Five-Minute Rule.”  The rule is that I must absolutely sit down at the next point in the story and write anything for five minutes.

Even if I don’t know what to write about or what the characters should do, I force myself to put something down.  I learned that the characters can’t get into too much trouble in five minutes.  However, five minutes does direct my mind and  heart into gear and even if I can’t write any more for a whole day, five minutes gets me ready for the next day and keeps the thread of the story processing through me.

Of course prayer was an essential tool for writing Issa.  Without it there wouldn’t have been any five-minute rule.  So the message was the motivation after all.