Ask the Author: Antti Vanhanen
Answered Questions (6)
Antti Vanhanen
To me, the inside-out understanding is the most important thing anyone can ever learn. It holds the key to our happiness, resilience, creativity, connection and wisdom.
I wanted to help share that message - to help people suffer less and do more great and wonderful things. I felt that no one out there had explained it the way that made most sense to me, so it made sense to write my own book.
I wanted to help share that message - to help people suffer less and do more great and wonderful things. I felt that no one out there had explained it the way that made most sense to me, so it made sense to write my own book.
Antti Vanhanen
It just seemed like a good idea. I never thought of myself as a writer. I never dreamed of being one.
One day, I just found myself writing a book. And those days just kept stringing together until I had in my hands the first draft of my book, Falling into Place.
One day, I just found myself writing a book. And those days just kept stringing together until I had in my hands the first draft of my book, Falling into Place.
Antti Vanhanen
I am currently working on a book that describes the inside-out understanding in the form of dialogue between two characters.
Antti Vanhanen
1. Don't think - just write.
It's treacherously easy to overthink things. Just get on with it.
2. Forget about the outcome (the final book, the critical reviews, the people who will buy it) and just focus on writing one word at a time.
3. Have fun writing.
Why else would you want to be a writer?
4. Split the creating and the editing into separate tasks.
Creation is about expansion, while editing is about restriction. When you try to write perfect, finalized text right from the start, you are setting these two forces against each other. Split your time in two: First, write freely and creatively without caring how shitty and clumsy your text sounds. Then, go back and edit the text. Condense, simplify, rewrite.
It's treacherously easy to overthink things. Just get on with it.
2. Forget about the outcome (the final book, the critical reviews, the people who will buy it) and just focus on writing one word at a time.
3. Have fun writing.
Why else would you want to be a writer?
4. Split the creating and the editing into separate tasks.
Creation is about expansion, while editing is about restriction. When you try to write perfect, finalized text right from the start, you are setting these two forces against each other. Split your time in two: First, write freely and creatively without caring how shitty and clumsy your text sounds. Then, go back and edit the text. Condense, simplify, rewrite.
Antti Vanhanen
Starting out with a blank page, not knowing what you're going to write and then being amazed at the outcome.
Contrary to popular belief, we are not the creators of the words or the stories. They flow through us. We are just the catalyst the allows them to happen.
It's amazing what we can create when we just let words and ideas flow out of us.
Contrary to popular belief, we are not the creators of the words or the stories. They flow through us. We are just the catalyst the allows them to happen.
It's amazing what we can create when we just let words and ideas flow out of us.
Antti Vanhanen
It used to drive me mad. One moment, I was in the zone and text just flowed through me and onto the page. A few moments later, I lost the zone. Suddenly, writing became difficult and I would spend a ton of time simply starting a paragraph or combining two ideas.
At first, I thought it was a sign that it was some deeper wisdom telling me not to write in the moment. Or perhaps I needed to do some sort of morning routine or apply some other strategy to keep myself in the zone all the time.
It wasn't until I realized that the ebb and flow of ease and difficulty is the fundamental nature of creativity that the writer's block stopped being a problem. In everything that we do, our energy is constantly ebbing and flowing and it has a tremendous impact on our ability to perform and our experience of the situation.
When I saw that getting stuck is part of the game of writing, it no longer seemed so important to try to get myself unstuck. I could relax into the "stuckness" and keep plugging away, knowing that it would sort itself out soon enough.
There is no writer's block - there's just the ebb and flow of energy that creates our experience. Surrender to it, and let your words flow through you.
At first, I thought it was a sign that it was some deeper wisdom telling me not to write in the moment. Or perhaps I needed to do some sort of morning routine or apply some other strategy to keep myself in the zone all the time.
It wasn't until I realized that the ebb and flow of ease and difficulty is the fundamental nature of creativity that the writer's block stopped being a problem. In everything that we do, our energy is constantly ebbing and flowing and it has a tremendous impact on our ability to perform and our experience of the situation.
When I saw that getting stuck is part of the game of writing, it no longer seemed so important to try to get myself unstuck. I could relax into the "stuckness" and keep plugging away, knowing that it would sort itself out soon enough.
There is no writer's block - there's just the ebb and flow of energy that creates our experience. Surrender to it, and let your words flow through you.
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