Listen closely

You need to listen closely

to what’s in your heart

even if you can’t always

understand the language

it’s speaking.

You can feel it beating

in your chest, just beneath

your ribcage, pulsing

with life, with words

that flow onto the page

like an endless running

stream, 

like ice melting off the mountain

filling the page with

what you need to hear

just the softest of sounds, 

nearly inaudible on some mornings,

sounds you can’t always decipher, 

on some days just silence

flowing through your pen

leaving no marks on the page,

while on other days 

a rush of words,

a wave, a tsunami of words

that nearly carries

your pen away,

that’s almost impossible

to contain on the page,

words spilling

overflowing

washing over you

leaving you soaked to the skin 

your pen exhausted in your hand, 

your heart content, 

grateful for each word.

—

How do you know what to write?

Questioner: How do you know what to write?

Wordswimmer: You don't know before you begin.

Q: Don't you plan ahead?

W: Sometimes. But you still don't know how your plan will turn out once you begin.

Q: There's no formula?

W: No. Just the blank page and your pen.

Q: And you just begin?

W: That's right. Let your hand start moving. See where it takes you.

Q: Like this?

W: Like this. 

Q: You didn't know we'd be having this conversation, did you?

W: I never imagined it, no, not until the pen started moving.

Q: And you found my question waiting for you?

W: Right. The question appeared.

Q: And then what?

W: I responded, and it turned into an interview, of sorts.

Q: You didn't even know I existed?

W: You don't. Except in my imagination.

Q: This is writing?

W: Yes, this is writing.

Q: You never know what will come?

W: No, never. It's what makes writing so challenging... I almost wrote treacherous.

Q: Treacherous? How?

W: Not knowing what you'll write. So you never know what you'll find on the page. And you need to lower your guard. To be open, vulnerable. Treacherous in the sense that what you write might surprise and even hurt you.

Q: But you write anyway?

W: Yes, of course.

Q: Why?

W: To find out what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. To take pleasure in the process of discovery, to dive into a world I didn't know existed before I started writing.

Q: A world inside you?

W: Yes, but also a way of looking at the world inside and out.

Q: You just write what you see?

W: What I see and feel and think and imagine. There are so many ways to make connections. Memories. Experiences. And then to try and figure out how to make sense of these connections.

Q: That's writing?

W: Yes, that's writing.

Q: No wonder why you love it and write every day.

W: You never know what you'll find when you begin. 

Q: It's all part of the mystery?

W: Yes, that's it. You feel connected to the mystery of life in a different way when you're writing, when you're holding a pen or pencil in your hand, or when you're typing on the keyboard.

Q: Connected to what exactly?

W: It's hard to describe. Connected to life, I guess, on a deeper level. To who you are. To a spirit, if you want to call it that, inside you but also guiding you, if that makes sense.

Q: Maybe, I'm not sure. Is it like praying?

W: Well, kind of. 

Q: I guess I'll just have to pick up a pen and start writing. 

W: Yes, see what happens. 

Q: Maybe I will. 

W: Good luck!

Q: You, too!

This pen in my hand

There's something about grasping this pen, holding it in my hand, 

that calms my mind, something about waking each morning 

and opening the box that holds my pens 

and selecting one and removing the cap 

and wrapping my fingers around the barrel 

that softens my heart, lets me feel connected to the world, 

as if the pen is a secure ring that I can hold onto 

while spinning on the merry-go-ground of life, 

or like the string of a kite that lets me imagine myself 

soaring into the sky, floating in the clouds. 

It's like I'm holding my mother's hand again, 

feeling safe, protected, as she leads me into the world, 

even though she's been gone for more than forty years. 

It's like a memory machine that lets me hear my grandfather's voice again 

as he sits at our kitchen table on Sunday mornings

sipping his coffee and retelling stories about growing up 

in a Polish shtetl and coming to America 

and making a life for himself. 

It's like holding a magic wand that silences the negative voices in my head, 

and all I need to do is wave it over the blank pages of this journal 

and words will appear, like these words, which came out of the blue, 

out of thin air, out of nowhere, part of the mystery of the way writing works, 

and this pen in my hand is the key to entering into this mystery, 

to opening the door to my imagination, 

to feeling connected to the secret universe hidden inside my heart. 

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.

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.

Just a glimmer

You reach a point when your mind goes blank 

like a blackboard that's been erased, 

only chalk dust clinging to the board 

but no words,

and you stare into the blankness

wondering where the words went

and if you’ll ever find them—

if they’ll ever appear again,

and suddenly a word—or the shadow

of a word—appears

just a glimmer

but you see it and grab hold and

suddenly it’s like pulling open

a flood gate you didn’t even

know was there 

and the words come spilling onto 

the page again, splishing and splashing, 

words that only moments ago were hidden, 

invisible, nowhere to be found.

 

It's like a miracle happens

Each morning I set aside 

a half-hour to write these pages.

It's the time of day I love--

the silence of early morning, 

the blank pages waiting

in anticipation for words,

the not knowing what I'll find 

on the page, what ideas

or thoughts I might discover.

It's like a miracle happens 

every morning: I open my eyes 

and get out of bed and sit at my desk 

and hold this pen and move my hand 

across the page and see words appear 

beneath my hand, and at the end of 

the 30 minutes I can find a page 

or more filled with words 

like a bucket filled with water, 

sustenance of life, 

evidence of my presence

that I am here, alive, 

savoring this moment. 

The way ink dries

The way ink smudges

before it dries

the way letters form 

on the page

the way a simple line

can convey meaning

the way words

sound like your voice

the way your hand

holds the pen

the way a poem

takes shape

the way we fill

the silence

the way each letter,

each line, is part

of the mystery.

—

Why do I write?

Why do I write?

Trying to answer that question is like trying to define love.

How do you put a feeling into words? Why do you love anything?

You feel something strongly... but what is that feeling? And where does it come from? Out of the blue? Or like a gentle wave that gains momentum and strength as it approaches the shore?

You see words appear on the page beneath your pen, and your heart melts.

You open a journal to a blank page, and something stirs inside you.

Just holding a pen in your hand sends a shiver up your spine.

You are where you belong.

Doing what you were born to do.

Who knows why this and not that--writing instead of drawing or playing an instrument, adding numbers, parsing the law, whatever.

Maybe it's not something to question, just something to accept.

A part of your identity as much as your fingerprint or the features on your face or the sound of your voice.

You write because you can.

Because there's nothing else that lets you be yourself in the same way... without pretending, without needing to wear a mask.

There's no hiding from yourself on the page. No barrier (except for your own limitations and talent) to keep you from seeing (being) yourself.

With each word you come closer to the truth of who you are, and, in the process of putting words on paper, you discover who you might become.

Each word is a gift into the nature of being you.

Swimming against the current

There are some days when writing can feel like we're swimming against the current, and we have to acknowledge we aren't able to make any headway. 

It can feel like we're caught in a riptide pulling us further and further from shore, and even though we keep trying to swim toward our destination, swimming only gets harder.

And the harder we try to return to shore, the more fatigued we become... and the more impossible it is to keep swimming.  

Each stroke leaves us weaker, and each effort we make to keep writing feels more and more futile.

What are we supposed to do? 

Do we stay in the water and keep trying to swim against the current? 

Or do we try to get out?

In such a situation, the first thing we might need to do, I suspect, is to recognize that we're caught in the riptide.

And then we need to stop struggling, stop trying to swim back toward shore. 

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but on days when it feels like we're swimming against the current, we need to let go of what we want to do and allow the current to take us where it wants to take us. 

Only then, when the current begins to slack off and loses its power, can we slip out of its grip and start swimming again-- parallel to shore rather than directly toward it--until we've escaped the current's clutches entirely and can swim back towards shore unimpeded. 

It may take a while when we're swimming against the current to realize “this isn’t working,” and it takes courage to be willing to let go of what we're trying to write, to stop struggling, put down our pen, and refrain from pushing on.

But in order to keep writing, we need to figure out another route, a different path, to reach our destination. 

There is a fear in all of us, I suspect, that if we stop writing, we’ll sink to the bottom of the sea and never return to the surface again. 

Writing is what keeps us afloat, after all.

But here's the thing: when we stop writing, we don’t sink.

We keep floating, sustained by the desire to write, our love of words, our need for stories and poems.

And floating--that stage when we're still in the water but not swimming in a particular direction-- can give us the perspective we need to regain our bearings and see where we are and where we need to go.

Once we're able to stop swimming against the current, we can begin making our way towards home.

If you'd like to check out a few helpful articles on when writing is hard, visit:

https://www.well-storied.com/blog/hard-truths

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/7-things-to-try-when-writing-is-hard/

https://writingcooperative.com/5-simple-reasons-why-writing-is-hard-really-hard-1cfee9ced1f5

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-incorrect/201804/writing-when-its-hard

https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/if-youre-having-a-hard-time-writing-maybe-this-is-why-f1802a0b86b3

Where do words come from?

Where do words come from?

The air, 

like specks of dust

floating free, unseen,

until they fall

onto the page?

The heart, 

flowing through 

your veins

and arteries 

until they reach 

your hand?

The eyes, 

seeing so much 

beauty in the world

you can't help

recording what

they see?

The pen, 

in your hand,

moving across the page

leaving words behind

as proof that you were here

if only for the blink

of an eye?

The breath, 

out of which each word 

forms and is brought 

into being?

If You Want To Write: Jena Schwartz

Writing teacher and coach Jena Schwartz lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with her kids, Aviva and Pearl, her beautiful wife, Mani, and their bulldog, Chalupa, and describes her life and work as “anything but predictable.”

In her work, Jena says, she talks a lot about practice: “It’s the basis for my writing and life, for how I parent and how I work with writers. To me, practice means we don’t have to hit the bullseye, we just have to throw the arrow. Permission to stumble, self-forgiveness, fierce compassion for the ache and beauty of being human — these inform and guide me. I’m not interested in love and light; I’m interested in the truth.”

Jena was kind enough to share with us a recent post that appeared (in slightly different form) on her blog:

Tonight I noticed in my "COVID-19 diaries" Word doc that I've written exactly 50 pages and 24,000 words since March 17, which was day four of quarantine for me. 

I am not generally focused on word count, and often don't even keep all that much of my day-to-day writing, so it's interesting to see it adding up, especially since I'm not working towards anything but rather just writing my way through this experience. 

This isn’t all that different from what I’ve been doing since 2007 when I first started blogging, but the pandemic puts life in full relief and sharpens the edges in some ways.

Last week on a walk, a thought came to me—it may have been prompted in part by the short poem I wrote inspired by a local poet’s baguette baking—about the similarities between bread and poetry. 

I had the thought that maybe I am a baker-kind-of-writer. Hopefully, people eat the bread. Hopefully, the bread brings nourishment and perhaps pleasure. Maybe it accompanies a meal that brings people together.

But there is no big opus of bread the baker leaves after she'd gone from this world. In this same way, I don't know if I will "leave" any significant single work or body of work; the shelves might never be lined with books I've written.

In a world with far more than its share of big names, fame has never been a driver for me. And the longer I'm here, the longer I keep writing and sharing with no expectation of some magical day when something different happens, the more at peace I am with leaving behind mostly writing that was consumed in the moment, then forgotten. Or maybe occasionally remembered in the way one might recall a satisfying meal. That would be more than ok with me.

A new coaching client who has been writing with me online for years asked me the other day about my brand. I wonder how my face looked on Zoom in that moment. Brand? Huh. Not so much. I told her with a laugh that at one point when Aviva was in middle school, she told me what my brand was. "Mama," she said earnestly, "your brand is coffee, and real life, and being short." I laughed and laughed.

If you want to write:

Forget all the nonsense about best-sellers and brands and sales funnels and platforms and all the things you should do on social media. The world does not need more brands. The world needs more of YOU.

Write like you're baking or making a meal for someone you love.

Write like you're making your favorite tried-and-true recipes or write like you're experimenting and have no idea how the thing is going to turn out.

Write like everyone is so hungry and you are making an offering, like bringing a dish to a fabulous potluck filled with ordinary people who all have extraordinary stories to share, plates filled with every kind of cuisine there is.

Write like it's simple -- flour, yeast, water, maybe a pinch of sugar or salt or honey.

Don't worry about what it will amount to or where it's all going or how you'll know when you get there. You won't, because, in the famous words of Gertrude Stein, there's no there, there. 

There is always only here, and now, and this.

Jena Schwartz earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College and her B.A. in Russian Studies from Barnard College, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. For more information about Jena and her work, visit her website https://www.jenaschwartz.com or her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thepromptress/

Note: “If You Want To Write” originally appeared on Jena’s blog and Facebook page in slightly different form. It’s reprinted here with her permission.

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.