Mindful Writing

“Fortune favors the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur 

In a world that demands more and more of our time and attention, distracting us from the page and from the inner workings of our mind, a writer has to work even harder these days to carve out the quiet time to think and write. 

But there’s hope that we might find the quietness we need to write thanks to Brenda Miller and Holly J. Hughes. Their book, The Pen and the Bell (Skinner House Books, Boston), is a collection of personal essays, along with helpful writing and contemplation exercises, all designed to inspire writers to find a way of writing mindfully in a busy world.

From the opening pages, Miller and Hughes point writers gently toward a new understanding of the writing process.  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” ask the authors, “to feel that each day we’re granted an ‘honor and a task,’ and each day to know that we can easily do the work—with pleasure, focus, and joy?” 

For those who love to write, suggest the authors, or think they might love to write if they could simply find the time to do it, "this honor and task could be sitting down with our minds wide open, our pens and notebooks and computers at the ready, to articulate our perceptions as accurately and as beautifully as we can.”

On page after page, the authors encourage writers to regain a sense of their inner spirit, and they remind us that “writing serves a purpose greater than the product alone.”

Beginning with the first chapter (“Sitting Down and Waking Up”) and proceeding to the last (“Balancing Contemplation and Action”), you’ll find the wisdom of two writers who will inspire you to sit down and write.

Wisdom like this: 

The word discipline is an extension of the word disciple, and if we consider ourselves disciples of writing, we might find the energy and devotion we need to keep going, even when it feels like the practice is arduous. (p. 44)

or this:

So we don't need to have big ideas in order to start writing. We can start right in with the chores, with the laundry, with the messiness of our lives. We can focus and be fully awake, no matter what we are doing. We need to learn to create room within our lives, not outside of them, in order to expand the space for both spirituality and writing. (p. 56)

Not only are Hughes and Miller wonderful guides sharing parts of their own writing journeys, they are sympathetic and understanding companions who offer encouragement for you to make your own journey and to find the space you need to write.

The Pen and the Bell is a book about becoming “a bell awakened,” which, as the authors note, is about finding a path into our deeper selves, and about being able to share that self—and the authenticity of that self—on the page with others. 

The pen in the title, they explain, refers to the writing process, the bell to those things that can support the writing process. 

If you can get hold of this book and spend time with Miller and Hughes, you’ll find that your writing—your approach to writing, your sense of self as a writer—will deepen and grow in ways that you might not have expected. 

And over time, as you savor each page and mull over the exercises at the end of each chapter, you’re more than likely to find that contemplative state of mind.

That’s because, thanks to Miller and Hughes, you’ll have learned to listen and absorb as much of the world around you as you can.

For more information about The Pen and the Bell and its two authors, visit: http://www.penandbell.com

The Path of Silence

Following the writer's path of silence takes skill and patience.

It means writing without seeking praise for your work or hoping for success or wanting fame or longing for immortality.

It means swimming with earplugs so you no longer hear your ego shouting “Me, me, me....”

Once you learn how to swim past the shoals of these distractions, you can swim into silence rather than away from it.

Silence isn’t your enemy, your nemesis. It’s a gift that will let you hear the rhythm of your heart.

It’s what lets you swim at your own pace, without worrying about praise or criticism, in the direction that pleases you, rather than swimming to satisfy market demands or popular trends.

Following the path of silence will give you the chance to know yourself in a deeper way and to hear your own story as it emerges from the deep.

Each of us may get into the water for different reasons, but in the end we swim toward the same goal, hoping to discover whatever is at the heart of our existence, the mystery at the heart of our life and the lives of our characters.

If we’re skillful enough and patient enough, we can bring our discoveries back to the surface to share with others or simply enjoy on our own.

Don’t let yourself be misled by the sirens of trends, fame, popularity, immortality, or success.

Instead, follow the writer's path of silence to discover the treasures waiting for you... beneath the surface ... in the deepest recesses of your heart.

For more on the value of listening to silence, visit:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1081198/Quiet-Author-Sara-Maitlands-search-silence.html
http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2009/07/on-silence-anne-leclaire-listens-below.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125511963
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/05/in-search-of-the-sound-of-silence.php

Drowning in Blogs

A few weeks ago I returned from a vacation in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

There’s a sense of peace in the woods, a stillness that encourages you to search for the same stillness dwelling inside yourself.

Far from cell phones, internet connections, television, and radio, I lay awake at night after turning off the light and listened to the eerie call of a loon echo across the lake.

And each morning I slipped a canoe into the water, barely disturbing the stillness, and set off to explore the shoreline, paddling past lily pads just starting to poke up from beneath the surface of the water and into a hidden cove where the water lay so still and so black that you’d think you were floating atop the smoothest glass in the world.

On walks, I kept an eye out for birds and deer. One morning I enjoyed the sight of a faun frolicking with its mother as the pair leaped through the woods. On another morning I watched a nuthatch bringing food to its nest hidden in the hole of a pine tree. The woods were filled with birdsong, the cries of crows, the shrieks of a bald eagle.

In the woods I found fiddlehead ferns pushing up out of the ground, their stems curled into delicate folds as beautifully carved as the necks of violins.

I didn’t have to hurry on my walks. I could stroll and think and listen to the rain dripping from the newly sprouted leaves of birch and maple trees or watch the cottonwood seeds drift like tufts of loose wool to the ground.

I could hear the beating of my heart and pay attention to each breath and rediscover the rhythms of my body that I’d somehow lost over the past year as I sat at my desk typing, checking e-mails, scanning news headlines, and reading blogs.

I heard something that I hadn’t heard in a long time: silence.

Until I heard this silence–a full and complete inner stillness–I hadn’t realized that I'd missed it. Funny, isn't it, the way you don’t notice something until it’s gone?

Without the constant ring of my cell phone or the musical note accompanying the arrival of new e-mail, silence enveloped me. My thoughts floated and drifted free, and I was able to notice what was missing from my life: time to think without interruptions or distractions.

Taking a day or a week away from your work may seem like a luxury, but it’s not. It’s a necessary part of a writer’s life, a chance to re-examine your work. You can remember where you've been over the past year and imagine where you want to go in the year ahead.

One of the things I discovered as I reflected on the past few years was just how much time it took to stay aware of what was happening in the world. News, blogs, magazines, books. It all had taken time.

And I realized that I had given up a good portion of my days, which otherwise might have been spent writing stories, trying to keep up with what was happening in the world.

Somehow, over the three years since I'd started blogging, the balance had shifted, priorities had changed. When I sat down to write, I worried not about my works-in-progress but about the blog and what other bloggers were writing and how I might explore the world of stories written by other writers. My own writing projects only came after I put these concerns to rest.

But did such an approach serve my work, my writing?

How could it?

To stay in touch, I'd essentially had to lose touch.

So I returned from northern Wisconsin with a renewed vision of the world, a new sense of purpose, only to find more than 900 blog posts waiting for me on Google Reader when I turned on my computer again.

And here's what I decided: maybe I’ll get to them, maybe I won’t. At this point, it doesn't matter.

What matters is my works-in-progress, my writing.

I want to sit down at my desk each morning and re-capture that sense of peace and stillness that I felt in the woods.

I want to journey inward rather than outward.

I want to feel connected to something deeper than the daily news reports, the quickly dashed off blog posts.

It’s taken three years, but I’ve finally come to understand a former teacher's advice not to mistake blogging for writing.

My writing should come first.

It’s something that I'll try to remember as I embark on this fourth year of blogging.

Thanks, as always, for taking time away from your writing to join me in the water.

For more thoughts on when to stop blogging, visit:
http://www.slate.com/id/2140095/
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2005/10/should-novelist-start-blog.html