A writer’s prayer of gratitude

Thanks to the Divine Source of words where all words begin their journey into the world.

Thanks for the desire to write and for the imagination that reveals what I can’t see with my eyes alone.

Thanks for the curiosity to explore the world and the courage to embark on a journey into the unknown each time I pick up a pen.

Thanks for the strength to keep going even when I feel lost, and for the support of friends and family when things appear hopeless.

Thanks for words that find their way onto the page, and for the pen in my hand and the ink that fixes the words to paper.

Thanks for the paper and for the pages that I’ve filled with words over the years, never knowing what will come next or if anything will come at all.

Thanks for the new understanding that comes with each word, and for the thrill of discovering something I didn’t known before I began writing.

Thanks for the patience to sit with silence and for the determination to keep going.

Thanks for the hope that words can help us heal and bring us closer together.

Thanks for the pure joy of feeling my hand moving across the page and the sight of words that didn’t exist a moment ago.

Thanks for the proof that I am here each day, ink flowing from my pen, gratitude flowing from my heart.

Thanks for each word that brings me closer to the Divine Source of words where all words begin their journey into the world.

At the edge of a cliff

Every time you 

sit down to write 

it's like standing 

at the edge of a cliff

and you never know 

how you'll make it across 

the abyss without falling 

there's no net 

to catch you, 

no rope to swing from

and each time 

you pick up a pen, 

it's like closing your eyes 

and jumping into the unknown,

never sure you'll make it 

to the other side,

but it's something 

you need to do 

without knowing why

(you can ask yourself 

why for years without

getting an answer),  and

it won't change anything,

every day you still

have to sit down to write, 

and it will feel the same:

standing at the edge of the cliff

waiting for a breeze

a voice

something

to compel you 

to take that step 

into the unknown

to spread your arms 

as if they're wings

and imagine yourself flying

high above the earth

no longer afraid

no longer hesitant

gliding through the air

your pen gliding across the page

no longer tethered to earth

or to fear

free

defying gravity

finding new ways

to be yourself.

Out of thin air

It's always hard to let go,

to put down your pen,

to take a break.

You don't want to lose

the connection you make

with yourself when you write.

So you debate with yourself--

stop or keep going?

Keep listening or not?

The thing is you never 

know what you'll find

if you keep waiting.

You never know if something 

will fly across the sky and 

you'll catch a glimpse

and suddenly the words

you need to write 

will appear

like magic

out of 

thin air.

But only if you

stay in your chair

and keep waiting

listening to the silence,

staring at the page

in anticipation of

whatever 

might come 

out of nowhere.

Revising, then re-revising

For my current project I’m re-reading the opening lines again and again, and revising, then re-revising.

With each draft I go a little further, adding voices, taking out stanzas, finding words malleable, nothing set in stone.

It’s liberating, this way of revising, but also terrifying. Everything keeps changing. And the implication of such changes (in my mind, at least) is that whatever I wrote to begin with must have been wrong … or not good enough. 

I have to remind myself that each draft is in a state of becoming. 

I have to tell myself it may not be good enough yet, but it will become good enough if I keep revising it.

This doubt (about whether it’s good enough, about whether I’m good enough) only intensifies with each draft and becomes another obstacle that I have to overcome if I want to return to the page each day. 

What’s critical is that I learn to ignore this voice saying I’m not good enough. (Or why bother? Or you’ll never succeed.)

To succeed I need to keep working on the draft. 

I need to keep revising. 

I need to keep alive the curiosity that wants to know what happens next… and what might happen if I add this word or take away this phrase… and how the poem or story might change… and how the reader’s understanding of the story might deepen.

So I keep revising, waiting with hope for the puzzle pieces to fall into place. 

It feels like I’m working without a net.

And on some days I wonder why I do this.

Maybe it’s because I feel such pleasure discovering what might happen, creating something new, something never seen before. 

Maybe it’s because I enjoy carving a path where there never was a path before.

You know the feeling, too, I’m guessing. 

How following your own path leads to moments of discovery that are a source of joy. (Maybe I should call them moments of revelation.) 

Suddenly, the page opens in ways I never could have predicted, and a source of light illuminates the darkness.

This is what I love most about writing.

How the words flow from my pen each morning, how the ink appears on the page, how the lines form into stanzas, paragraphs, poems, stories.

How writing lets me feel as if I’m part of a larger story that I’m trying to tell (and trying to figure out at the same time).

And, most of all, how I can look back after a day or week or month at the pages that have accumulated and feel that I am where I belong, here, with paper and pen in hand, part of an ongoing mystery.

You can't know how or why

You can't know

how or why

you can only know

what you know

the feel of the pen

in your hand

the scrape of the nib

on paper

the smoothness of

a blank page

the joy of seeing

the page fill

with words

ink flowing onto

the page

your hand rushing

to keep up

with your thoughts

that feeling of

wishing you could

stay in this place

forever

writing

feeling a connection

with something larger

than yourself

a part of the universe

inside you

that you touch each time

you hold a pen

and move your hand across

the page

like plugging 

into your heart

like hearing

the song

your soul

sings

like praying

to God

and knowing 

God is there

listening

The way words fall on the page

The way words

fall on the page

like snowflakes

making patterns

on the windowpane.

It's mesmerizing--

writing, putting words

down on paper--

every word shaped

differently, creating

a new pattern

on the page,

an image

that never existed before,

each word

like a window

offering a new view

of the world.

Every morning

Every morning I sit down 

at my desk not knowing 

what I'll write, 

not knowing if 

I'll find the words

to write anything at all.

I can spend hours filled 

with doubt that I have nothing 

to say, no words forming

in the back of my throat

waiting to emerge.

There's only silence 

and doubt, and a kind of

stubborn determination 

that I must write something

if the day--if my life--

is going to mean anything.

I listen for words,

for a sound,

for a whisper,

hoping I'll hear something 

that will prompt a word 

to emerge out of hiding.

It's like playing a game of

hide-and-seek. 

All I need

is one word--

one syllable,

one sigh--

and I can pull it 

like a loose thread

and, with luck,

find more words.

And once the words 

begin to appear,

the worries vanish.

There's only the pen

moving quickly 

over the blank page

trying to catch the words

like butterflies

before they disappear.

The Magic of Writing with a Fountain Pen

“My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course.” — Graham Greene

It may seem foolish, even a bit self-indulgent, to write about fountain pens when so many pressing issues threaten our world. 

But a fountain pen has not only helped me put aside my worries about the world for the brief time that I take each morning to write with one, it has also rekindled my pleasure in the process of writing by hand. 

The immediacy of writing with a fountain pen surprised me the moment the nib first touched the page and the ink seeped out of the pen, seeming to bleed onto the paper.

It felt like the pen was alive, a newly discovered part of my hand connecting me in some mysterious and supernatural way to my heart, and as I wrote, my hand moving across the page, it felt like the ink was coming straight from my veins.

Until a few months ago, I hadn’t used a fountain pen since high school. 

Remember how messy those fountain pens were to use back then? Often, I’d end up with more ink on my hands than on the page.

I’d write and the pen would leak and the ink would leave stains on my fingers and smudges on the pages and messy ink spots on my palms. 

For years afterward I preferred writing with ballpoint pens. I would buy cheap pens that I could throw away easily after they ran out of ink or dried up or broke in my backpack. Best of all, they didn’t drain my wallet of the little cash that was in it. 

But a few months ago my cousin wrote wanting to know if I’d ever thought about using a fountain pen. He had found one that he liked, a Pilot Metropolitan, which was supposed to be a good introductory pen at a reasonable price (under $15 at Amazon), and the thought of writing with a fountain pen intrigued me. 

I decided that I’d try one, just to find out if fountain pens were the same as I remembered or if they’d changed much since my high school days, and, after quickly searching Google, I discovered just how many fountain pens there are to choose from these days. 

There are pens made in Japan, pens made in Germany, and pens made in the United States and elsewhere. There are pens with cartridges and pens with converters, and there are so many choices for ink, more colors than in a rainbow, it seems. There are so many colors and pens, in fact, that it’s hard to keep track of them all. 

So, I started reading reviews, and I found a pen in my price range ($10) made by Pilot called Kakuno (which means “to write” in Japanese), and I ordered one, along with some extra cartridges.

After it arrived, I opened the packaging—surprised to find that the instructions were printed in Japanese—and, after figuring out how to insert the cartridge, I started writing. And … wow! 

It’s a pen, but it’s so much more than a pen!

I mean, looking at it, you’d think it’s just another writing instrument. The Kakuno shell is made of plastic, but it’s a perfect size that fits nicely in the palm of my hand, and holding it takes very little effort because it’s so light that when it’s in my hand and I'm writing, I hardly feel it unless I grip it too tightly. 

The moment I begin to write, it’s like magic: the ink flows onto the page, the blank page reaches up to embrace the pen, my hand moves effortlessly across the paper. It’s a moment of becoming, a moment of (please, excuse my enthusiasm) unexpected oneness with the universe, a zen-like immersion in the present.

It can take a while to feel comfortable using a fountain pen. But after experimenting a little with different angles and using it in different journals, I can say that writing with a fountain pen feels as natural (and effortless) as breathing. 

Why not add a little variety to your writing practice and try a fountain pen? It doesn’t have to be an expensive one. (You can find the Kakuno online for as little as $10 if you don’t mind  the color….and a plastic shell.) 

You might be surprised at how your writing—and your feelings about your writing—will change when you begin using one.

If you’re still undecided about whether to use a fountain pen, or just curious and want to read more about them and the people who find them attractive, here are a few links that you might enjoy: 

https://www.penheaven.co.uk/blog/top-5-reasons-to-use-fountain-pen/

https://blog.gouletpens.com/2018/09/6-writers-on-why-they-use-fountain-pens

https://luxipens.com/18-famous-authors-and-their-fountain-pens/

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/style/unparalleled-joy-writing-fountain-pen-five-beautiful-examples-175439

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-joy-of-fountain-pens

https://medium.com/@lancelotkirby/on-the-pleasures-of-writing-with-a-fountain-pen-3d95e8495550

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/style/fountain-pens.html

Keeping a journal

What do we discover when we sit down each morning to write in our journal? 

What draws us back to the page day after day?

And why do we keep filling up pages that we know may end up on our shelves or tucked away into drawers, never to be looked at again?

One reason we keep journals, I think, is to create proof that we exist, to announce, if only to ourselves, that we are here, alive, not an illusion or a figment of someone’s imagination. 

The marks that we make on the pages of our journals are evidence of our being here, now, in this moment.

Another reason, I suspect, is that writing helps us discover what we’re thinking in this moment, to put into words the thoughts that swirl through our heads, to enjoy the process of thinking, to take joy in following a thought wherever it might lead, whether to a dry gulley or to an overflowing riverbed.

If you’re like me, you want to feel that sensation again and again, to feel like a child gazing up at the sky and daydreaming as clouds pass by, to lose yourself in the play of words, in your imagination, in the flow of ink, the sound of a pen scraping the paper beneath your hand, each day hoping to discover something new, some part of the world or of yourself that you’ve never seen before.

Another reason why we keep journals, I’d guess, is to preserve a faithful record of what we might be thinking or feeling from day to day, week to week, year to year, so we can look back (if we ever decide to look through our journals) to see where we were and what we thought about and how we felt at a certain age or on a certain date.

Our journals can help us remember what life was like, how we might have solved a problem or failed in an attempt to do something new or to remember how we were feeling  during a challenging (or not-so-challenging) time in our lives. 

Keeping a journal is a little like saving photos or news clippings to aid in remembering so the record of our lives is a true and complete record, not merely a facade but the truth underlying our existence.

Why do we keep writing? What draws us back to the page?

Perhaps it’s simply the daily joy that writing brings, or the sense of identity the act of writing gives us. 

As long as we are writing—and continue to write—we are observing the world, exploring thoughts and feelings, learning something, which, when put into words, seems permanent and somehow resistant to the wind and change and the passage of time.

That’s every writer’s dream, I suspect, the secret wish each of us makes when we begin to write. 

We pray that the discoveries we make each day on paper will endure long after we’re gone, and for as long as the pages of our journals survive.

Wondering About Words

On some mornings I sit down to write wondering where words come from and, if they come, why they come to me or to anyone else, really.

I wonder if words come from some secret place hidden beneath our feet—somewhere deep under the earth, perhaps?— or from somewhere high above, way beyond the clouds, way beyond the moon and the stars?

I wonder if words are simply invisible until they appear on the page, which is the reason why we can’t see them floating through space like foreign objects that come to earth carrying a message from another planet sent especially to us.

I wonder how we find the words we need to express what’s hidden in our hearts, words that describe the mix of thoughts and feelings swirling inside us.

I wonder if maybe it isn’t that we find words but that words find us, as if we’re magnets that can draw to us the words we need to help us explain how it feels today or how it felt yesterday to inhabit this body, to dive into the unknown not knowing what we’ll find, just hoping words will appear to help us understand what we need and who we are and where we belong.

I wonder every morning — or whatever time of day I sit down to write — if the page is really blank or if it’s filled with words I can’t yet see and which only come into being the moment I begin writing. 

I wonder if words are inside us, locked in some mysterious storehouse, and how we’re supposed to find the key, and then I wonder if words are all around us, waiting for us to catch them, how a writer is born with a net in his or her hand to capture them like butterflies before they get away.

I wonder about words which flow on some days like a steady stream and on other days like a trickle and I wonder how on other days there's nothing more than a dry creek bed where words once flowed.

I wonder how words became as much a part of our lives as the water we drink, the

air we breathe, and equally necessary for our survival.

I wonder why we wait and wait and wait, never knowing if anything will appear on the page in front of us, until one day a word appears… and then another.

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

Connecting

As long as your pen or pencil is moving across the page, your fingers typing at the keyboard, your words flowing onto the screen or onto a piece of paper, you are connecting with a part of yourself that is hidden until the moment you tease it out with words.

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing poetry or prose, it’s the act of writing that matters, the challenge of opening your heart to the world so you (and others, if you decide to share what you’ve written) can know what’s there and can make a connection.

Call what’s in your heart the treasure beneath the sea or the pearls hidden within a shell that only you can find if you have the patience to dive deeply enough and pry the shell open with a stroke of your pen, a tap of the next key.

Whether you’re writing every day in a journal, starting a new project, or returning to a work-in-progress, you come to the page each day, if you’re like me, in the hope of connecting with the deepest part of your self, each word offering a chance to discover something new about yourself or your life that will help you understand how to live fully in each moment.

If you’re writing, you are connecting with the air you breathe, the sound of leaves rustling overhead, the taste of a peach on a warm summer day.

You are connecting with memories and with the people around you, with the feel of sea spray on your skin, with rain falling against your eyelids, with snowflakes tickling your lips and nose.

You are connecting with those you love who are no longer alive and with the person you once were and the person you are becoming.

No matter what you are writing, you’re connecting with each moment of life and with yourself as you experience life in all its mystery and beauty.

What’s so strange and wonderful about writing is the way the process reveals thoughts and emotions that you don’t always know you have until you see the thoughts and emotions expressed in the words that you write and which appear on the page in front of you like gifts from the sea.

Whatever you’re writing this morning or tomorrow or later this week, I hope you’ll persist and keep writing so you can find whatever you’re looking for.

I hope that you’ll make the connection with the deepest part of your heart so that you keep coming back to the page and learn more.

I hope you’ll keep writing and searching and exploring, and, after you’ve spent time writing, I hope you’ll look down at whatever you’ve written and discover what is most important to you.

Mostly, I hope you’ll take that first step… even if it feels like you're stepping into thin air... and find the treasure waiting for you.  

x

The Wonder of Worlds Within Words

When I was much younger and beginning my studies as a graduate student in the newly designed MFA Writing for Children program at Vermont College, I was assigned to participate in a workshop led by two writers whose names weren’t widely known outside the field of children’s literature at the time.

One of the writers was a skinny, gruff guy with a Boston accent, broad shoulders, pitch black hair, and an intimidating stare, a young man by the name of Chris Lynch, whose more than thirty books since then, including Iceman, Slot Machine, Whitechurch, Gold Dust, Freewill, Inexcusable, and The Big Game of Everything, have been named ALA Best Books For Young Adults and have received many awards.

The other writer, a soft-spoken young woman with a gentle smile and a voice that sounded like velvet, was Jacqueline Woodson, who was named earlier this year as the United States' National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and who this week received word that she had won the Astrid Lindgren Prize, the world’s largest award for children’s literature, for her work of more than thirty books, including I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, The House You Pass on the Way, If You Come Softly, and Brown Girl Dreaming.

Even then, long before these two writers had established their reputations, it was an intimidating workshop.

There was another writer, though, who helped lead that workshop long ago. She was a graduate assistant who offered insights into our manuscripts with a Southern drawl that I later learned was more of an Oklahoma-Texas twang, and who spoke about the writing process with the self-assuredness of a poet and with the sensitivity and kindness of a writer who understood our disappointment and pain when we were told our stories needed more work as if it were her own. 

Her name was Sharon Darrow, and she went on to become an esteemed member of the Vermont College faculty, teaching at her alma mater for more than twenty years, as well as publishing her own award-winning work for children--Old Thunder and Miss Rainey, The Painters of Lexieville, Trash, Yafi’s Family, and Through the Tempests Dark and Wild.

Memories of that workshop flooded back recently as I opened Sharon’s newest book, Worlds Within Words, a hefty collection of her thoughts on writing and on the writing life that she's shared with her students and other writers over the course of her career. 

What she’s learned over a lifetime about writing and teaching the craft of writing might be summed up in three words: Trust the process.

Again and again, in various chapters devoted to the writing life and to the craft of writing, as well as to the art of teaching writing, she suggests that trusting this process, which is filled with mystery and setbacks, obstacles, frustration, and despair, is the only way a writer can go forward into the dark, leap off a cliff, set foot into an unknown forest, or swim into unchartered waters.

Trust in your ability, she seems to whisper with assurance, and you will find a way where no way existed before you picked up your pen to write.

But don’t listen to me summarize her work. Here are a few samples from the book:

On first drafts:

“Allowing the reader to share in the character’s thoughts and responses as the scenes unfold, allowing more of the character’s emotional core to show through is difficult, and can’t usually be expected to come to the fore with power on the first draft. In first drafts you find the characters, setting, events, and begin to watch the scenes unfold. In subsequent drafts, do not settle for what you noticed first, but continue to discover the hidden moments in the folds and layers of your story.” 

 “In the first bursts of inspiration, a writer is struggling to tell herself the story. In revision, she is striving to show the story to the reader.” (p. 105)

 On beginnings:

“The first step in the presentation of a story is the setup, and in that setup, the spotlight shines upon the first sentence. It signals what kind of story we can expect, it gives us the first sound of the voice of the story, and, for some readers, may determine whether they keep reading or put the book down and go make a cheese sandwich.” (p. 137)

 On revision:

“The first draft is a way to tell yourself the story. The succeeding revisions will be your increasingly successful efforts to show the story to the reader. That’s why revision is such an important and necessary part of the process of discovering your real story. You don’t always find it in first draft, but in revisiting the moments one after the other and finding more than you could possibly have seen at first glance, just like entering a room day after day and viewing it from many angles each succeeding day. You will gradually discover the most minute and elusive details. Then (and only then) will you absolutely know which details are the most important ones for the story. In the same way, you won’t really know the whole story until the details have unfolded through revision and re-vision.” (p. 80)

 On finding our way:

“The contradictions and uncertainties we learners see coming toward us all the time seem to be detriments; they seem to be roadblocks, but really they are the road…We persist with courage and discover our way as we go. 

 “We walk into the dark and find the light, tread upon the rough ways and find a road. We learn by doing. We are here to give it our all, to teach, to learn, to read, to write, to grow, to become what is possible.” (p. 169)

As I turned the pages in Sharon’s book, I could hear her gentle voice, filled with the same compassion and encouragement that I remember hearing more than twenty years ago, whispering in my ear “You can do this!”

She’s the kind of teacher every writer needs to hear when facing a challenging part of a story or when coming up against a blank page. She trusts in the creative process—its beauty and mystery and, ultimately, its ability to enable us to grow and expand as writers and as human beings.

Her book is packed with lots of helpful advice, some of it, I’m sure, gleaned and stored in her heart from that remarkable workshop of ours with Jackie and Chris so many years ago.

But mostly it’s the sound of her gentle voice on each page that inspires us to keep going, to keep putting words on paper, to keep having faith in the process, and, most importantly, to trust our ability to write our story.

For more information about Sharon Darrow, visit her website: http://www.sharondarrow.com/

And to check out her book, Worlds Within Words, visit: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Within-Words-Writing-Life/dp/0998687804