Dear Writers, carriers of story, crafters of words, metaphorical creatures, wild ones,
For 2019, I’m going to give a load of stuff up. May I bring THE END to the things that aren’t serving my writing.
May I give up the idea that I’m not a good writer, or that what I’m saying isn’t worth saying. That one doesn’t have a leg to stand on. As human beings, we default into storytelling whenever we’re not involved in an immediate task (i.e. most of the time). Telling stories rebalances our nervous systems. Telling stories will have saved my emotional and physical life countless times; there’s no way I don’t know how to do it.
May I give up the idea that I might be writing the ‘wrong story’ and should have chosen another one. The stories I tell aren’t chosen by my small thinking self. Rather, those decisions are made largely unconsciously, by the wisdom of my whole organism. I can do what I like to persuade myself that I’ve decided what to write, but in the end I was only ever following anyway. (So what I should really talk about is how to be a better follower, in order to birth the story I need to tell.)
May I give up the idea that I have to be a ‘tortured soul’, sitting isolated in my room. I can choose to be a victim of my ‘out of control’ creativity, but I suggest not bothering. True, that way I fend people off and thereby guard my private, immersive space, but I’ll die sooner too, and that’s not fun. And if it’s an excuse to drink wine I’m after (i.e. a writer is a tortured soul who has to drink), well, forget the message and just enjoy the drinking.
Storytelling isn’t torture. It’s health-giving. It gives life. It makes everything interesting and connects me with everything. Sounds more fun, doesn’t it? So may I go with that, and find more straightforward ways to guard my space, my aloneness. That way I keep the quality of play and aliveness in what I write.
May I give up the idea that I’m ‘blocked’, because I’m not. It’s a cup-half-full/cup-half-empty thing. I prefer to regard it as ideas composting. The ‘block’ is the dam behind which inspirational, powerful words build. Sometimes that takes much, much longer than I’d like, but so be it. That book isn’t all I am, is it? So I can do something else for a week, a month, a decade. Bake cakes, or become a social worker. Until it’s time. Until it’s ready. You’ll never convince me that my ‘block’ wasn’t a necessary part of the process.
Oh, and then may I go one stage further and give up the idea that there’s such a thing as ‘block’ at all. If I give something that is working its way happily through my system a name with those sorts of negative connotations, I’ll embed it. So I won’t go there. I’ll politely say good morning to it and move on. I won’t feed it. I won’t become a victim of it.
And I hate to be the one to point it out, but ‘flow’ doesn’t exist either, of course. There’s only the moment-by-moment connection with the page. So while I’m at it, may I give up the idea that the writing is ‘flowing’ too. Why set up that benchmark for myself? I only get attached to it, and then I’m disappointed when it’s not the same next time. It’s never the same twice.
What shall I give up next? How about the idea that writing is ‘hard’ or ‘difficult’? That’s always been a big one for me, perhaps for you too. Writing isn’t hard. Writing requires that I apply myself to the task at hand, that I play and create, but that’s not the same thing. I can become fixated on the idea that it’s ‘hard’ because society tells me that the harder I work, the more I produce, and therefore the more valuable I am. When I want to be loved, I ‘work harder’, equating it with higher yield. The problem is that there’s not necessarily a direct correlation. Sometimes working harder leads to lower yield, and to less writing of quality.
And then, am I ready for the biggest challenge of all? May I give up the idea “I’m a writer”, with all the baggage, expectations, hopes and fears that brings. If I don’t tie up my identity with being a writer, it will go better—you’ll see. My value as a human being is not dependent on it. Or on what I produce. If I never write another word, I’ll still think I’m great. (And then of course, liberated from the responsibility, I’ll write many more, and much better, words.)
In fact, this year, may I give up all ideas about writing, in favour of just doing it.
It’s not that I shouldn’t name and communicate fleeting experiences in the moment, so the above radical resolutions are a little tongue-in-cheek. But writing isn’t really innately or wholly blocked or flowing, easy or hard. Writing just is. And the just-is-ness is many different things in many different moments, moving through at various speeds, always evolving, always changing to best serve my needs. Staying open to the changes, following the word animal as it scampers hither and thither—that’s what allows me to put aliveness on the page.
May I work less hard, listen more, take note of where my energy rises, and go there. May I allow in play, curiosity, imagination, the senses, the body…all those things I don’t normally value because they’re not serious enough, or because I fear them. My writing will be all the better for it—trust me.
May I make contact with the materials, with every part of my being: the smell of the room, the sound of the keys or pencil, the taste of the air, the touch of smooth paper. May I listen for the story that jostles at my elbow, roars to be heard, snuffles as it turns over in sleep somewhere deep inside me.
May I know the feelings it evokes in the body: the heat and the chill, the contractions, the expansions. May I contact the emotions, not being afraid to walk alongside my narrator, my character, myself, as the story rises from me to fall from my lips or be stamped on the page.
May I not force anything, or abandon myself or my words when I touch an edge of discomfort. Instead, may I walk alongside, recording their story. Because they ask me to. Because who wants to live with a whole world trapped inside, and all those emotions unexpressed?
May I liberate the story I need to tell.
This is THE BEGINNING…
Are you a fellow writer? If so, at Wild Words we talk much more about this kind of thing.