Writing the Mind Alive : The Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice

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Summary: An Elegant Practice
Review: As I finished `Writing the Mind Alive', I was drawn to put on Baroque music, light a candle, and sit down with my unlined white paper, eager to write what I heard, listen to what I wrote, and be ready to ask the proprioceptive question. These are the basic elements of Proprioceptive Writing, an elegant practice that provides a liberating framework in which to become attuned to ourselves through attentive listening to our thoughts and feelings.

I attended a PW Workshop at Esalen many years ago, and through the practice of PW, have had opportunities over the years to `know the delight of discovering new meaning in an old story after realizing something about themselves that they didn't know before, then telling the story differently.' While many of us have experienced this delight, PW provides an ongoing practice for the discernment of the stories in which our lives are embedded, and to hold them up to the light for reflection.

The book provides a brief background on how PW was developed, clearly presents the practice, then speaks to different dimensions of the practice: as a path to better writing, a path to emotional health, and as a secular spiritual practice. Along the way, passages from a number of PW `writes' are cited to illustrate and clarify.

I strongly recommend this book and this practice.

Rating:
Summary: Writing the Mind Alive
Review: From my experience at Proprioceptive Writing workshops over the years, I know that Linda Metcalf and Toby Simon are inspired teachers. When I heard of the publication of their book, Writing the Mind Alive, I was intrigued but at the same time wondered: Would the voices I knew from the workshop come through in book form? Would Linda and Toby be able to describe Proprioceptive Writing in such a way that readers would be able to start their own practice on the basis of the book?
"There's no such thing as 'the greatest'," Linda said at my first Proprioceptive Writing workshop in 1988. This isn't performance, she was saying. For me, at that moment, her words were liberating, because as a would-be fiction writer I was intimately and painfully aware of "the greatest." It was out there somewhere. I heard Linda; I listened.
"Write what you hear," they said. "Listen to what you write, and always be ready to ask the Proprioceptive Question." The Proprioceptive Question is what sets Proprioceptive Writing apart from other forms of "free" writing. When you come to a word that resonates (e.g., "the greatest"), you write, "What do I mean by the greatest?" And you listen, and you write. It's a simple move, but its effects are dramatic: you slow down, you move inward, you access the concrete details of experience and memory that lie behind the intersection between the word and the often unrecognized emotions that are attached to it.
Writing the Mind Alive, I was happy to discover, delivers. The book succeeds in making the practice of Proprioceptive Writing accessible; you don't have to attend a workshop in order to get started (although you might well be motivated to attend one, after reading the book). Metcalf and Simon describe the nuts-and-bolts of practicing Proprioceptive Writing (the Proprioceptive Question is, to me, at the heart of it, but there are other elements), and they also share with their readers the stories of many students--vignettes that convey the tentativeness of beginnings and the development of trust in these writers' own voices. Not just as "writers" in the usual sense, but as listeners who are slowly but surely learning to tune in to what lies beneath the nattering that we so often take for our thinking. Slowing down, asking the Proprioceptive Question--not with the attitude of a critic but with the attitude of a curious listener--the writer learns that every thought--even the most prosaic--may turn out to be the road to somewhere interesting in the internal landscape, the intérieur non moi. The vignettes give a sense of the texture of the practice, beyond the concrete details, the "how-to."
For me, the book also offered deeper insight into the dual potential of Proprioceptive Writing. It is helpful as a means of improving writing (as the authors discuss in chapter 3), but it is also valuable as a therapeutic/spiritual discipline. Because of my own personal focus on writing as a form of self-expression, as opposed to self-exploration, I was somewhat blind to this aspect of the practice. After reading Writing the Mind Alive, though, I see that the Proprioceptive Question--which to me forms the heart of the practice--is also a means for self-exploration. The Proprioceptive Question (What do I mean by -_____?) leads you inward, or downward, moving you toward recovering the concrete details of memory/experience. This is good for story writing, but it also helps you to foster that small but crucial space between you and your thoughts--the space that allows you to know that although you experience thought and emotion, you are not these thoughts and emotions. If you are interested in exploring writing as an interior journey, Writing the Mind Alive is a good place to start.

Rating:
Summary: overrated
Review: has some virtue, but these guys are marketeers and not writers i feel.

Rating:
Summary: Don't dismiss it because of its simplicity
Review: I agree with all the preceding reviews...both the good and the bad. I found the meat of the whole concept in the first part of the book...the rest did feel a bit like overkill.

BUT I have been writing for my self process for well over 20 years. For someone unfamiliar with this type of exploration, the framework presented is very helpful.

Regardless, I did find the essential questions used to deepen the explorations VERY effective and sometimes use those same questions with my clients (I work with drug addicted adults) to help them cultivate their insight.

So while I don't think each element outlined is important to the process of writing (the unlined paper or the candle for instance) I cannot dismiss how much what I did pick up from this book has influenced my own personal and professional process.

Personally, I think it is well worth the cover price....especially if you are intimidated with the idea of writing or keeping a journal. If you are going through a transition or coping with a trauma or grief of some sort by all means spend the fifteen bucks. I think this could really help you.

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Summary: Getting in touch with your subconscious
Review: I just finished a writing class where the teacher spoke about our character's early childhood wounds and how those wounds lead our characters to see the world through a flawed perspective. Epiphanies in stories occur when the character recognizes that this flaw prevents him or her from attaining the goal. The character still lives with the wound but is able to recognize the flawed thinking as a detriment to personal growth, and, in the dramatic situation, a hinderance to attaining the external goal. This, I think, is all our stories, and I think this book, by way of the proprioceptive method, allows one to get in touch with the wounds that hold one back. Does it work? Who knows. We are talking art and science here and proof is not easy to come by. For under twenty dollars it is enormously more simple than numerous visits to the therapist.

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Summary: Read this book! Attend a Workshp!
Review: I recommend supplementing this wonderful book with a weekend workshop (as I did).

Linda Metcalf and Toby Simon have developed a simple, kind practice that is absolutely transformative. I feel newly armed with a practice that will help me develop my connection to the meaning inherent in my creative work, my professional life, and my personal life. I cannot recommend Proprioceptive Writing enough!

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Summary: If you've gone as far as you can with freewriting,
Review: morning pages and the like, this book is worth serious consideration. The authors take a clear, compassionate and even-handed approach to the practice of writing. If those other techniques have left you wanting, I strongly recommend you buy this book, read it and practice the technique for 30 days, as the authors recommend. I did and my writing improved immediately.

While PW doesn't go as far as to guide the reader on how to create structure, it can take your writing to a deeper level. For my money, it beats reeling out random thought after random thought into a notebook or computer screen by a country mile.

The authors also make a case for PW offering other benefits such a acquiring deeper personal understanding plus other psychological and spiritual benefits. If you become adept at PW, those extra enrichments appear to be possible as well.

Overall, the book is highly readable and the Proprioceptive Writing technique is explained in detail. The examples are terrific and inspiring. And, to my delight, the authors tactfully address other popular writing methods. Their approach: free the writer vs. unleashing the limitless amount of thoughts we all have simply works.

P.S. The other reviewers here who dismissed the book and validity of the PW technique as a serious writing tool, should take another look. The old saying applies here: It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

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Summary: Right the Write questions' answers to get your voice to flow
Review: The best tool from this book are the Proprioceptive Questions and the ritual of doing a "Write" the right way. This book provides lots of examples of how clients have benefited from this techniques. It's interesting to know that people have used this to uncover subconcious core beliefs as a complement to therapy as well as help with creative expression. Proprioceptive writing is good to know especially when you're on a deadline and just can't expell a word onto the page. Wonderful for brainstorm session to get literary voices flowing. Brilliant in its simplicity.

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Summary: Tubular Bells, Book, and Candle
Review: This book teaches an interesting technique. My chief quarrel with the book is that the authors present it as a virtual panacea, which I think overstates their case.

After following the technique carefully for some time, I can report the following. Here is its essence: you can deepen your powers of insight and develop a meaningful writing practice by doing the following regularly, several times a week, thirty-five minutes at a stretch:

(1) Light a candle
(2) Play Baroque music (the slower stuff)
(3) Write on unlined paper
(4) When meaningful, ambiguous or loaded terms emerge in your writing, always ask "What do I mean by _____?", which is the "proprioceptive" question. Proprioception is usually used to refer to our sense of where we are in our own bodies, but the authors adapt it to refer to a sense of orientation in our own minds.

The first two are meant to create a sense of ritual. Nice, but hardly necessary. The unlined paper is meant to convey a sense of freedom and spontaneity, and strikes me a useless requirement. The touchstone of the authors' method, and really the only necessary part, is the persistent reflection on what one means by the terms one uses, both as one works through each individual "Write," and as one regularly sets pen to paper day after day, month after month, year after year.

The guidance this book provides on introducing precision and clarity into one's writing and one's thoughts is useful. A structure that gently encourages insight can hardly be harmful. But many individuals who keep journals for an extended period of time, or who cultivate an unwritten meditation practice, are already writing proprioceptively without candles and Baroque music.

The authors' enthusiasm about their technique is odd for something that seems frankly a touch mechanical; the spirits that they invoke are denatured and bland. To write well, write often. The candle is entirely optional.

Rating:
Summary: Important, Original, Practical Life-Enhancement
Review: Writing the Mind Alive: the Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice is an important, original book. It delivers what its title promises. Proprioceptive writing is an utterly simple, practical method for gaining "insight into and power over the way we live and think," as the authors say. It has developed through twenty-five years of experience based on Linda Metcalf's re-discovery, during a long writing retreat, of the natural, innate, unceasing energy of human thinking. It is an obvious but often unrecognized truth and the ground of the ancient admonition: "Know yourself." Everyone can think, so no extra or special skills are needed to apply this method of knowing yourself. There are no tricks or gimmicks or foggy spirituality to it. Anyone who can read and hold a pen can apply it. In it one writes down one's thoughts as "heard" in the mind and interrogates them through the Proprioceptive Question "What do I mean by ________ ?" Unpacking the word that fills the blank brings revelatory results. I write this review as the testimonial of an ordinary person, like (and unlike) everyone else, a job-holder, spouse, parent, colleague, friend, self-questioner and juggler of all those roles, sometimes quite unsuccessfully. Though I'd been acquainted with the method for some time, I hadn't practiced it. Since this book brought it clearly into print, underlining its relevant history and well-tested principles, I've been doing a daily "Write." It helped immediately. It brought more professional focus, less interior Sturm und Drang-- certainly a mind more alive and a life more enjoyed hour by hour. Whatever your age, sex, occupation or pre-occupation, you should buy this book and try the method for yourself. It's a practical life-enhancement.