Put Your Trickster Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

As promised last month, here is one way I have learned to used the three aspects of the Trickster archetype--the sage/innocent/fool--to shake up my creative work. 

Writers are told they must "kill their little darlings," the pieces of prose they most love, usually descriptions. "No, no," the writer protests, thinking her words as precious and irreplaceable as a Ming dynasty plate.

The Fool steps in to throw your sacred plate across the room and shatter into pieces.

The Sage says, "Relax. Don't worry. You you have an abundance of little darlings inside."

Meanwhile, the Innocent blithely sits down in  the middle of chaos and starts turning over the beautiful  shards.

And so a new direction is born. I'm learning to apply this process in bigger ways, not only to passages of prose or poetry, but to entire chapters, poems, even projects. If  I don't cling to an existing form, I am freer to create better ones.

Is a Writing Proverb in order? How about: The less precious you think your work, the better your work will be.