The mysterious rhythm of words

The mysterious rhythm of words--

how they arrive on the tip

of your pen one moment

and are gone the next

how they flow onto the page

on some days, spilling 

so fast you can barely

keep up

how they refuse

to emerge from your pen

on other days, suddenly shy

reluctant to show themselves,

unwilling to appear

how you have to learn

to wait, to be patient, and

how to coax them

from their hiding places

and how you have to learn this:

it's all part of the mysterious rhythm 

of words, part of the mystery 

of the writing process

a mixture of silence and sounds

melody and harmony

poetry and prose

each word containing a secret

each word a key to a puzzle

you need to solve,

each word a secret path

leading to a doorway

only you can open.

It's like dreaming

Each morning I listen to the silence

and hope to hear a voice and words

I've never heard before.

I listen with my ears

but, really, it's a different

kind of listening

that requires you to open

your heart, to hear

what you're afraid to say

or what you don't yet know

you need to say.

It's your voice and not your voice,

it's your hand holding the pen

and writing down the words

on the page and not your hand.

You hear something, a voice

beyond words. (Are there even 

words to describe it?)

It's like being bathed in light

or immersed in water

and you feel like you're floating

on the page as words 

emerge from your pen

and you see the letters

taking shape and the words

forming on the page

even before the words form

in your mind--as if

you are witnessing your thoughts

coming into being,

what you think and feel

unknown until you can

see the words floating 

in front of you.

It's like dreaming,

and when you open

your eyes the dream vanishes,

and you see instead

a page filled with the words 

you collected from a world

before it disappeared.

It's that time of year

It's that time of year.

Close your eyes. 

Sleep.

Let yourself dream.

You need to trust the process 

of rebirth, of dormancy, 

of silence turning into words

when the words are ready 

to appear.

You need to stop writing

in order to keep writing,

to close your journal so

you can open it again,

to put down your pen

so you can pick it up 

after you've had a chance

to rest,

revived, 

restored.

You need to feel the rhythm 

of life without holding a pen 

in your hand, to meet life 

head on, bare-handed, 

without protection,

vulnerable.

You need to let each day 

sink into you, let the world 

turn, let yourself accept

whatever comes with gratitude 

for where you are, 

for who you are.

A week from now 

you can pick up 

your pen to express 

in words what you 

can't say 

without it.

For now let yourself 

embrace the silence.

Be still.

Listen to your heart.

Open your ears to the wind.

Let your heart open, too, 

so you can sail in

whatever direction

your spirit takes you 

in the new year.

It's quiet this morning

Poems are hiding lately--

playing hide-and-seek

over the past few weeks--

unwilling to answer

the door when I knock.

Are they sleeping

or just shy?

Too tired to play

or busy working 

on a secret project?

The page is lonely and

sad without words

running across it today, 

words chasing words 

playing tag and peek-a-boo

laughter and cries of glee

rising from the page.

It's quiet this morning

the page wrapped in silence

the words still asleep

hibernating 

waiting, perhaps, 

for spring 

What Happens When You Mix Ink and Paper

It’s the kind of morning when I don’t think I have anything to write. 

I don’t feel any need to say anything new. 

I feel empty, in fact. 

Yet here I am sitting at my desk waiting and wondering what I might find on the page today.

It’s just ink and paper, yet there is a kind of magic that happens when you mix the two together. 

You can’t predict what might happen. 

The moment the nib of your pen touches the page—whoosh!—something percolates inside your brain, and your curiosity is aroused, and you wonder what will emerge from the other side of your consciousness. 

So you write to find out.

Maybe it’s a memory that you pull from a far-away time in your life. 

Maybe it’s a dream that haunts you after opening your eyes. 

Maybe it’s just the sight of sunlight falling through the window as you get out of bed. 

Maybe it’s nothing more than the sound of your breath or the sound of your pen scratching the surface of the page. 

Or maybe it’s just the feel of your chest rising and falling and the pulse of your heart beneath that reminds you of the waves of the sea and how you’re part of a universe extending beyond where you can see.

And so your pen takes you to places you might have missed if you hadn’t decided to sit down to write. 

That’s the thing about writing. 

It’s a mystery tour of the inner workings of your mind and heart. 

You never know where you’re going until you get there.

Trust words will come

To find out what you're thinking

you sit and write for thirty minutes,

each word like a knock on the door

and you wonder what's hidden on the other

side and if you should answer.

You start out not knowing what you'll find,

which words will appear in what order,

yet you trust words will come out of 

the silence, out of some mysterious

source you've never understood.

Even after years of sitting every

morning, writing page after page,

this process is still a mystery-- 

how (and why) words appear 

the way they do, and what you'll find

on the page after you finish writing.

It's like waking from a dream--

not knowing where 

the dream came from... 

or where it went.

This is the practice

So you sit waiting, listening to the silence of early morning,
and in the silence you can hear your breath, and in your breath
you can find the words you need to begin.

And the pen begins to move and thoughts unfreeze like flows of ice
breaking away from shore, slowly moving downstream, the current
taking you where you've never been before.

You have to trust your breath, trust your hand holding the pen moving
across the page, trust that the words will make sense later when you put
down your pen and return to read what you've written.

It's as if you are writing in a fog, a daze, a dream, not knowing what
the words mean, just accepting them--the sound of them, the shape of
them--as they spill and fall and tumble onto the page from your pen.

How you find the words or how the words find you is a mystery. Why
this word? Why these words in this order? It's all part of the process of
writing, of letting go, of observing without judgment whatever comes,
whatever life brings you.

This is the practice.

Sitting and Waiting

Are you willing to sit and wait for a while?

Are you prepared to sit and wait for more than a few hours a day, more than a few days a week, more than a few weeks a month, more than a few months a year?

Are you capable of sitting and waiting for more than a year?

If you’re not willing to sit and wait for your characters to reveal themselves to you—however long it might take—then how can you expect to write about their world?

One of my teachers told me long ago that she rarely wrote fewer than thirty drafts of a novel or short story. Thirty drafts! 

Sometimes that's just how long it takes.

So, when you finish one draft, or two, or even three, perhaps you’re only starting the process, and there’s more sitting and waiting ahead.

Writing requires patience. Not just the patience to sit and wait for words to come, but the patience to wait until a character is forthcoming and willing to open himself or herself up to you.

Your characters need to trust you, and they can sense your impatience, your doubts, your discomfort sitting and waiting. They can sense when you are afraid of their story, fearful of the truths that may emerge from their lives, reluctant to face the events they want to share with you, unwilling—or unable—to confront the challenges in their day-to-day existence.

If they sense the slightest hint of fear, uncertainty, or doubt, they will remain silent.

They may show you the surface of their lives, but they will withhold the deeper issues, hide the fissures that cause them pain, and conceal the cracks that reveal their need for love and acceptance.

If you can sit and wait, though, they may grant you a gift.

They may tell you who they truly are and how they live their lives and what they want and what they fear and what they’re willing to do for love.

They may give you the gift of a story.

Sometimes writing isn’t just about getting words on paper.

It’s about trusting and doubting, and about being afraid and being able to love, and about hoping and believing in a story that you can't yet see and in characters who you can't yet hear.

It’s about sitting.

And waiting.

The Way It Starts

Sometimes it can start with an image--a red apple held in your father's hand, say, or the weathered wall of a wooden barn in Wisconsin.

Sometimes you aren't given an image at all but a word--raisin, for instance, or magenta, or owl, or hope.

Sometimes it can begin with silence, with the sound of your breath, with nothing but a blank sheet of paper waiting beneath your pen.

You have a choice.

You can sit for years complaining about why you have nothing to write, nothing to say.

Or you can learn to sit with silence, waiting.

It isn't until you learn how to sit and accept the silence that you can begin to hear words singing beneath the silence and see how they fit together to form phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pages.

It takes a good deal of patience to learn how to do this, how to sit this way for weeks and months, listening to the silence rather than running from it and from whatever might be scaring you.

When you start out, no one will tell you that you need courage or a reservoir of hope or faith in your own ability. (When I started out, I was told all I needed was a typewriter.)

No one will tell you how the blank pages will remain blank day after day with stories left untold, or how the silence of the blank page will haunt you on days when words refuse to come.

If you persist, though, and can find courage and hope and patience and faith, you'll discover a part of yourself that you never knew existed.

If you persist, you'll discover stories hidden inside you which have the power to reaffirm your belief in life, in the world, in those around you.

You'll find the energy of life that runs through all beings, all stories, so you can feel connected to something larger than yourself.

First, though, you must sit with the silence and wait.