I don’t know where my songs come from Dylan said. It’s like a ghost is writing a song. It gives you a song and it goes away. You don’t know what it means. Dylan had no idea where this narrative was going or how it was going to end. And so he decided to blindly follow his imagination.

Imagine
Jonah Lehrer
Page 53

Reading again and quoting from what I’m reading again.  Does this REALLY surprise you anymore, knowing the type of person I am?  There’s an entire chapter devoted to Bob Dylan in this book and being a Dylan fan, I found the book all the more enticing.  I like what Dylan says:
It’s like a ghost is writing a song.  Dylan had no idea where this narrative was going or how it was going to end. And so he decided to blindly follow his imagination.

Let’s not forget this was in the 1960’s and he is discussing writing his song Like a Rolling Stone.  This was long before anyone had coined the term Flow.  However that’s EXACTLY what Dylan is describing here.  It’s as I wrote in Wednesday’s column Quality of Your Day:
I find it fascinating how so many well known authorities discuss these topics BEFORE there is EVEN a name or a title for them.

How many writers, artists in general have experienced the same situation as Dylan?  Where you become so immersed in what you are creating that you lose all sense of time and space?  Where you begin at a certain time and entirely lose yourself in creation and when you finish; think only moments have passed when in reality it’s been hours?  It’s a remarkable realization and it doesn’t happen often but when it does it leaves you breathless.

The other example in the Dylan’s quote:
Dylan had no idea where this narrative was going or how it was going to end. And so he decided to blindly follow his imagination.  happened to me on a regular occasion when I was writing short stories.  I’d sit down at my computer after dinner and have a running dialog with my characters as I wrote.  I never REALLY knew where my characters would bring me.  I relied on my muse, my imagination to carry me toward the light, to the end of my story.  That’s typically the way I wrote.  Yes!  There were times when I knew the ending first, as with my third unpublished novel.  I actually wrote the last chapter first and the characters led me on a journey to arrive at the end.

Any other writers and artists have something they’d like to add?  Would love to see your input in the comment below.

Be Happy!  Be Well!  Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
—
Chris