The Practice of Writing
After I finished my memoir, I didn’t feel inspired to write. It had been such a long, arduous process, and writing – while I clearly had a bit of a knack for it – felt like a chore. I gave myself a break.
Then, at first to promote and market my book, I committed to writing a blog. Break’s over. But – as in most things that are hard – I needed structure. I’m simply not good at sitting my butt in a chair and going to work. So I signed up for a weekly 3-hour writing class taught by my first teacher, Laura Davis.
Today was my first class. I met with Laura early to go over the class format and rules.
We are instructed to write, non-stop, for the allotted time – usually 25-30 minutes. No editing, no judgement, no crossing out. This process is the best path to letting the ideas flow, to access the part of the brain that is creative and deep, not critical or self-conscious. The part that says: here’s the real truth. Here’s the part I never told anyone before.
The group - about twenty strong – consisted of writers from Santa Cruz to Bellingham, WA to South Carolina. As we were zooming in, the talk unsurprisingly centered on the impending election. We did a short guided meditation. Laura read this poem:
In the center of the storm
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher
I’ve never been much of a poetry person – strongly preferring prose – yet this poem spoke directly to my aching, anxious heart. How to get through the next six days, let alone the aftermath? Will the air truly be kind, the pastures promising?
We don’t know. But as Laura read, I was comforted. The power of words to heal, to soothe, and to touch souls, is strong and lives in me. I hadn’t expected that experience in the first five minutes.
We were then given two prompts: “It seemed like a simple request at the time…” and “Tell me about a wound, given or received.” After each writing session, we were put in breakout groups of four-five people in order to read aloud what we’d written, with no critique offered.
In our early meeting, Laura had made it clear that this is not a feedback class, rather a writing practice. At first I was disappointed. I’d signed up thinking “great, I’ll use the class to knock out some blog posts.” But then, as often happens, I realized I was in exactly the right place. I needed to get back into the feel, the flow, the practice of letting my thoughts flow through the pen (really, I used a pen and not the computer) without the fear of how it would be received or if it was good enough.
Yes, there will be blog ideas generated from the class. Perhaps I’ll share some of that writing here. For now, though, I’m looking forward to the practice.
