25 Dec Renewing our New Year’s Writing Resolutions
January has almost gone and in life’s busyness, I wonder how many of those good intentions to write have slipped…
Rather than come up with all the sensible reasons to write (there are lots of blogs that do that), I want to share advice from author Natalie Goldberg. Over the break I devoured her classic Writing Down the Bones. It shouted at me to write for writing’s sake – not to get published or show off or as a career. It inspired me to write without a destination.
She calls it ‘Writing as a Practice’. Like running, ‘the more you do it, the better you get… You practice whether you want to or not… You train your mind to cut through and ignore your resistance.’
Most runners don’t expect to complete a marathon first go. But there’s a myth that if you write, the muse will instantly come. Occasionally that happens. Most of the time, you need space and time. So if you haven’t written much before, it’s tough completing a full-length travel memoir or novel. Take small steps before you attempt longer strides.
Goldberg encourages her students to ‘write the worst junk in the world’. On bad days I just give myself permission to write s**t. It’s counter-intuitive. If I have no expectations, then I’m more likely to surprise myself. Above all, it gets me clacking the keyboard.
Her personal guideline is to finish one notebook a month. Her ‘ideal’ is to write every day. When she writes in her journal, it’s her way of warming up and flexing her muscles. She’s doing it for herself, not to get published. She’s doing it as practice.
A committed Zen Buddhist, Goldberg’s all-embracing attitude is infectious: you want to start scribbling straight away. Here, writing is a form of meditation, a dance, a way of life.
‘It’s a place that you can come to wild and unbridled, mixing the dream of your grandmother’s soup with the astounding clouds outside your window. It is undirected and has to do with all of you right in the present moment.
Sit down right now. Give me this moment. Write whatever’s running through you.’
Over to you. What makes you write?