How do you go deep?

How do you go deep

and dive into places

that might hurt or

feel uncomfortable?

How do you feel

your way past pain

to a new understanding

of what's causing you

to shy away?

How do you listen

for words you can't

yet hear?

How do you write

despite uncertainty 

and doubt?

How do you admit

what you don't know

and keep writing day after

day to push past ignorance?

How do you learn

what you need to learn?

How do you keep going?

You need to sit listening to the silence

You need to sit listening to the silence, 

staring at the blank page, 

waiting for words to come, 

for letters to form beneath your pen.

You need to be patient, 

to stop rushing, 

to stop forcing the pen to write 

what it's not yet ready to write.

You need to sit in silence, 

listening to the silence, 

letting the silence wash over you.

You need to embrace the silence, 

welcome it, 

accept it, 

understand that all 

you're able to hear today

is silence, 

and that's ok

You need to know 

writing doesn't come 

with any guarantees.

You need to know 

words are shy, 

often fickle, 

afraid of committing themselves 

to paper.

You need to know 

it's not a sin 

to leave the page blank, 

to sit in silence, 

to listen to silence, 

to rise in silence ... 

without writing a word. 

On days like this 

you need to have faith 

the words will come 

and the ink will flow 

and your hand will move again

and you'll hear a voice in the silence --

just not today.

Out of nowhere

It’s so strange how poems

come out of nowhere

like clouds passing by

like birds soaring overhead

fluttering to a branch for just a moment

suddenly still

then flying off again

or like rabbits 

hiding in the grass

playing a game of hide-and-seek

or peek-a-boo. 

Catch me if you can!

What if you think of your pen 

as a butterfly net chasing words, 

trying to catch your thoughts 

before they disappear?

Or maybe writing is like fishing—

casting your line into the water, 

waiting for something to bite, 

an odd mix of waiting and hoping, 

trying not to get discouraged,

wanting words to appear on the page.

And when they appear, 

you have to act quickly, 

your pen racing across the page 

trying to capture the words 

as they spill out of your heart.

The Paths We Follow

Each day I sit down to write wondering what I'll discover on the page, not knowing what words will come or where they'll lead me. 

I remember days when I used to sit at my desk in my college dorm room staring at a blank sheet of paper and wanting to write, doubting I could write at all. 

I stared at the typewriter trying to find where the words were hiding, wondering if they'd ever come out to play. It was as if the words were shy mice or rabbits frozen in fear.

I didn't yet know how to let go of fear, how to let my thoughts go free, how to reach in and pull a strand of thought and follow it without knowing where it might lead, without worrying if it would dissolve and leave me stranded on a distant shore with no way of getting back.

Some writers rely on outlines as a way to get past their fear. But outlines inspire a different kind of fear in me--a fear of constraint, of pushing a circle into a square, or a square into a circle. With an outline, I fear that I won't be able to follow my thoughts wherever they might lead. 

I don't want anything to cut me off from the thrill of spontaneous writing, from the joy and magic of seeing my thoughts emerge on the page as they appear in my mind. 

That's why I prefer opening my journal to a blank page and seeing where the words take me. 

There's no path to follow because it doesn't exist. 

I can only see a path after I finish writing and look back to see where I've come from.

Only then can I see the distance I've traveled, and the path I carved to get here.

What about you? 

What paths do you take into your stories?

And what obstacles are standing in your way?

And how do you make your way past them?

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.

Waiting

It’s painful to sit

and wait for nothing

to happen

just sitting and holding

a pen and looking

at a blank page

listening to your breath

flow in and out—

sigh—

and feeling your

heartbeat

aware of each blink

of an eyelid,

each second that passes

without a word

to break the silence.

It’s painful to sit

and wait for nothing

to happen.

When will you realize

that whatever happens

is invisible, hidden

from sight,

and that words

will rise to the surface

whether you’re asleep

or awake, waiting or not?

Look -- all the time

you thought you were

staring at a blank page, 

and now? 

How do you

explain the words

that appeared beneath

your pen when you

weren’t looking?

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Writing Happens Like This

Writing happens like this:

You never know what will appear when you sit down to write.

You only know you are a little scared that nothing will happen—no words, no ideas, no thoughts will come—and you'll be left staring at a blank page.

So, you sit and wait for something that isn’t yet on the page.

And when you find the courage to take that leap of faith and start writing, words do appear.

And these words lead to images and scenes and new ideas and thoughts.

And the next thing you know, the story is coming to life, breathing, expanding—not always where you might want or where you might have expected it to go.

You write until the words return to wherever they come from, and then you sit in silence and wait again—however long it takes—for the words to return.

It’s an ongoing process: listening, waiting, adding words, erasing words, hoping, dreaming.

Day after day.

Word after word.

Writing doesn’t always come in a rush of words like a waterfall (though sometimes the words can come so quickly it’s hard to keep up with them).

More often it’s like a reluctant spigot, a faucet with a knob that’s difficult to turn. 

It's hard to remember that if you sit and wait, the words will flow on their own, without any need for you to twist a knob.

All it takes is learning to sit and wait with pen poised over paper, or fingers suspended over the keyboard, and remain alert and listen closely and keep hoping.

It takes enormous faith to believe that the words will come.

But when they come, they can fill you with a deep sense of connection, and that’s the best kind of writing.

It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, writing can seem as natural as breathing.

Inhale an idea, an image.

Exhale a word, a phrase.

Before you realize it, you’ve written a sentence, a paragraph, a page.

And in front of you is your story.