I pace around the kitchen. Make tea, put away dishes, wonder if there’s coconut milk in the pantry to make that curry I’ve been tasting since I woke up.
There’s a kind of restlessness in my activity. I don’t find any satisfaction in this puttering. It’s a distraction from the pressure I feel building, the anxiety.
Something in me wants me to write it.
For me, this restlessness looks a particular way. It’s gruff, and a little touchy. My eyebrows frown and my jaw is set. If there’s anyone around to see me in this state, they keep their distance, because they know I won’t be agreeable again until after I’ve had some quality alone time with my notebook.
The restlessness wants nothing more than to steer me to my chair and minimize Firefox with its gazillion open tabs and write something. Anything.
It’s rarely easy, even when I can stand the anxiety enough to sit down and begin.
Mostly, I slog. The hardest part of the slog is letting myself feel the pre-beginning anxiety enough so that I’m actually driven to sit down and write.
Often – too often – I toss something shiny at the anxiety to make it leave me alone. And it does, for a time. But it always, always comes back.
I’m grateful that it does. Because what will I be when I no longer have this ocean of words pushing at the dam inside me? Dead, most likely.
But that doesn’t make the sitting-down-to-write part any easier.
I’m not claiming to be representative in this way.
Writers vary, just like the cussed stubborn humans we are, and I’m happy to know there are people who just sit down and do it, with minimal torment and maximal results.
Because I hope and believe it’s possible to cultivate this. To practice facing up to the anxiety so that it becomes a wee little gecko I pat on the head each day as I sit down, instead of a dragon enflaming my fears. I intend to keep facing up to it.
In the meantime, I have some tricks.
The first trick is going on retreat.
Just me, a chunk of time, the bare minimum of life stuff, and a tiny cabin in the woods where I will be left entirely alone. If necessary, I tell everyone about how I will be observing silence to go deeper into my communion with the divine (which is not so far from the truth, plus it gives people a good reason why I can’t be disturbed).
The first few days I nap. And read. And fret about why I’m not writing, and count down how many days I have left, and do paranoid mental math like an insomniac waiting for dawn, like how if I write X-thousand words a day starting immediately, I could have so many by the time I go home.
Then, sometime around the third day, I start to let go of the world. I sleep at odd hours, whenever I feel like being horizontal, and eat when my stomach growls. And I noodle, and look out the window, and have strange, deep, useful dreams. This is when the writing starts to happen, almost without me doing anything about it.
Because there’s no risk anymore.
I am safe, cocooned away from the world, suspended in a dream space of doing nothing but taking care of my most pressing animal needs. Any critics – real, or in my head – feel very far away. It’s just me and my inner life, floating in an inner tube on a calm ocean of peace.
I’m totally fascinated by my inner life, when I’m not distracted by the world’s demands. Inner Me has smart things to say. Plus, she’s hilarious.
Then the words flow. They don’t come in any orderly way. I don’t try too hard to corral them, or to slot them into my outline. I just take dictation.
And I come out of retreat having made Real Progress.
Though I love it and recommend it highly, it’s not always feasible to go hide in the woods for a couple weeks at a time. It’s worthwhile to cultivate methods for fitting writing into my regular life.
My other trick is the exact opposite of going into deep seclusion and floating in the womb of the forest.
I write with others.
I write with a friend, or with a group. We write together at the same actual time to the same actual prompts. Also, we have deadlines!
Just by making a commitment to show up at a certain time with some writing to share, magic happens. Writing happens.
It sounds so simple, but I really can’t over-explain the wondrous effectiveness of this method.
A meeting is going to happen. The group is waiting to read your work. By hook or by crook, you produce some and send it out to them on time.
You show up, and they’ve read your piece and have brilliant and validating things to say about it, and you come away knowing that you’re a writer and that you’re feeding your Writer Self the best kind of food. And you’ve written another chapter or essay or series of blog posts.
I’ve led many writing workshops, and experienced the magic of this effect firsthand.
So many of my fellow writers (and you know who you are) could benefit from this. I sure as hell have.
It’s actually super-simple. Once you show up and make a commitment to your community to produce something, miracles happen.
I heart creating this sort of safe incubation space for writers to write and grow and explore.
I am running a fabulous online workshop, called Writing From Life. This one is for women writing memoir, personal essays, and other You-based creative nonfiction.
You can read all about it here.
It starts September 19th and goes for ten weeks.
There are but ten spots in the group. If you want structure, and the magic effects of writing alongside friendly others to bring forth the work that wants to come out of you, you’re invited!
(If you love the sound of being part of a community of writers, but you write fiction or poetry or other stuff, I’m hatching a workshop especially for you! Get on my Happenings list to hear about it and get first dibs.)
Comment Fu
What do you talk about, when you talk about writing?
This space is like a Quaker meeting that is happening in my living room (albeit one where emotions can run high). Honored guests, please speak as you are moved to. And let’s be awesome to each other.
