Actually the highest space in yourself is the space that feels scared, and struggling, and without confidence. The highest space is the honest place that is exactly where you are. Write that and watch how your feelings transpire. That’s making art of life. You’d be amazed how many writers call me with anxiety. They have heroes in their scripts who are going through something harrowing and they have a perfectly good fear in their own hearts to try and write it, then the first thing they want to do is get rid of the fear. You created it in the first place so that you could write from there. Do not separate yourself from your own juicy human emotions. You are in the business of having this feeling in yourself and then you are to pour it all over the page.
You ask about rituals:
When one of my writer clients feels a new novel coming on, he vacuums and the action and the noise starts getting him ready for focus. Another client stops all the clocks in his office, goes in, and doesn’t come out until it’s done. I love a technique developed by Dr. Claudia Rose in which you invoke the spirit of your project and have a visual, visceral experience with it as a living force. Let the spirit of your script show you the story. – V.K.