It\u2019s challenging to know your truth\u2014and just as challenging, sometimes, to embrace it<\/em>.<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s a complaint letter, a personal essay or a story, my writing generally comes about by me getting an idea, then letting it develop and gel into an argument or structure during a two-hour walk. Only afterwards do I write anything down. <\/p>\n According to researchers, this sequence fits the way the introvert mind works. Neurologically, introverts are most comfortable ruminating first and expressing later. Extroverts prefer to think out loud, spontaneously.<\/p>\n No wonder I balk at enthusiastic recommendations of freewriting, a method of generating ideas by writing off the cuff, nonstop, for 10 to 20 minutes\u2014on a 1-to-10 scale of introversion, I\u2019m an 8 or a 9. Freewriting undoubtedly helps some people. But because of the way my mind works, it yields me nothing but frustration and nonsense.<\/p>\n Contrary to many, many pronouncements about universal psychology, different people\u2019s minds work differently. It can be stressful and bewildering to confront an expert claiming that \u201ceveryone\u201d thinks in images, for instance, when you don\u2019t feel you do, or that \u201cevery\u201d creative person needs to work on just one project at a time, advice that you\u2019ve never managed to follow.<\/p>\n Years ago, when I ran workshops for writers on the creative process, I\u2019d invite them to recall four successful projects of any type that they loved doing. Then I\u2019d ask them to examine the four examples for commonalities. Very interesting, idiosyncratic patterns turned up that often went against received wisdom.<\/p>\n A college professor, for example, shared that though she\u2019d always heard \u201cWrite every day,\u201d her successes had all involved huge bursts of energy over a weekend or so.<\/p>\n An essay author said formulating goals had never helped her one bit. Instead, her pattern of projects revealed that she innovated by feeling her way forward, without having in mind an ultimate desired outcome.<\/p>\n A science fiction writer understood that he was supposed to work on one story at a time. But he took inspiration from painter Claude Monet, who had a row of canvases set up when facing Rouen Cathedral or haystacks on a farm, adding to one or another painting as the light shifted or his angle of vision changed. The writer said, \u201cI like to have seven or eight stories going at the same time, and I work on one or the other according to my feelings that day or that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Along those lines, another participant realized that people in her life were always admonishing her to focus, focus, focus. Yet, she actually accomplished things by piddling on one thing for 10 minutes, another for half an hour, going on to something else and then going back to the first or second task\u2014and so on. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019ve finished several things. So there, you focusers!\u201d she declared.<\/p>\nDifferent people\u2019s minds work differently<\/h2>\n
\nUnderstanding your mind is the first step<\/h2>\n
\n![\"Young](\"https:\/\/cdn.shortpixel.ai\/spai\/q_lossy+ret_img+to_auto\/www.themindfulword.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/man-bench-understand-mind.jpg\" "\\"UNDERSTAND")