Appendix I
Writing is a practice of attention.
—JANE HIRSHFIELD
These days, whenever I ask a colleague or a friend the simple question, “How are you?” the answer inevitably arrives as one terse word: busy. And they are busy: with work, with deadlines, with family, and with errands that seem to multiply rather than abate. As I let them go on their busy ways, I can feel my own busyness fluttering up in response; I rush to type in one more thing on my smartphone app’s to-do list. As I do so, I’m barely aware that my breathing has become more shallow and rapid, and my shoulders have begun to creep up to my ears.
And throughout all this, the news keeps jutting into my line of sight. My neck begins to tense, my head starts to ache, and a vast weariness overtakes my body. By the time I get home, I barely have enough energy to make dinner, much less even think about writing. And worse: I’ve barely noticed the world around me, hardly taken in the details of life that could provide the impetus for writing in the first place. I’ve been walking in a fog of stress and amorphous anxiety.
So today, I take a breath. I sit up straight, roll my shoulders back, and look out the window. My copper beech tree is shedding its brilliant leaves. A small breeze jitters the branches, and they wave in a pattern that looks almost choreographed. As I glance at the base of the tree, my busy mind wants to note that I need to rake all the spent leaves—and that I’ve already missed the opportunity to do so before the rains come—but I allow that thought to drift by, for now. For now, I just want to look, take in this temporary beauty before it’s gone.
—BRENDA
In an instructional book such as this one, we aim to provide lots of good, practical information that can help you generate and revise your writing. But often such instruction can neglect or gloss over a fundamental skill we all need to cultivate: the ability to create the space in our lives—and our minds—for writing in the first place. All the instruction on the use of sensory detail or ways to research won’t matter unless we’re able to actually create the structures we need to slow down, focus, make space for writing, and pay attention.
Such a skill has become even more imperative, and more difficult, in a world that has become increasingly cluttered. We’re available for interruption seemingly 24/7, and our gaze can become shortsighted: limited to the distance between us and our screens. Finances can become strained if we choose writing over other work, or when we can’t find good-paying work in the first place. We have families and other obligations, all calling to us at the same volume. As Felicia Rose Chavez writes in her article, “The Mental Load: Honoring Your Story Over Your To-Do List”:
I’m always choosing. Which mental load is it today? Man the kitchen table and forgo the rest, knowing that if I choose writing over housework, I’ll suffer the physical manifestation of my to-do list, evidence that I’m a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad Chicana? Or else forgo the writing and suffer the heat-hot psychological cargo of golden stories burning bright?
There are so many obstacles to writing, and we’re not necessarily taught how to take care of ourselves or how to foster an observant frame of mind. When and if we do so, we prioritize not only the products of writing, but also the practices that help reduce stress and enhance our ability to be patient observers and patient writers.
Practice, Practice, Practice
If we think about writing as a practice, we can liken it to the ways artists, musicians, and athletes incorporate practice as an essential aspect of their work. They make practice part of their routines—sketching, playing scales, running drills. What are the ways we can form practices to increase our stamina and skills in writing?
Practices of Mind and Body
The first order of business? Breathe. It seems almost too simple: we breathe all the time, right? But becoming aware of our breathing—this literal lifeline between inner and outer worlds—can be the key to settling down and settling in to your writing.
Breathing is one of the few functions of the body that is both conscious and unconscious. The body will happily keep on breathing, whether you’re aware of it or not, but you can also bring your attention to the breath and direct it in powerful ways. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the secular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, draws on the basic teachings of many spiritual leaders to show how simple mindfulness practices can benefit both body and mind. He writes of the breath as the foundation of these practices in his book Mindfulness for Beginners:
Take the breath, for instance. We take it so much for granted. . . . Suzuki Roshi referred to its coming in and going out over and over again as a “swinging door.” And since we can’t leave home without this vital and mysterious “swinging door,” our breathing can serve as a convenient first object of attention to bring us back into the present moment. . . . It is an ideal anchor for our wayward attention.
There are dozens of breathing awareness exercises available, and a quick search on the internet will lead you to some helpful resources (see also the list of resources at the end of this chapter). They take just a few minutes, and the more you practice, the more you will find yourself automatically turning to the breath as a way to “reset” yourself and your day. By coming back to the self, you also create the space to be more observant: both of the world around you and of the associations your mind makes. This is the fodder for writing.
Moments of Transition
We often feel as though we are moving nonstop through our days, barely remembering how we got from one place to the next. But in reality dozens of moments give us opportunities to stop and take a breath.
1. Become aware of the moments of transition that occur in your day. These can be as simple as moving from one room to another, from one classroom to another, leaving the house, entering the house, getting in your car, leaving your car, waiting in line at a store, and so on.
2. The next time you’re aware that you are in a moment of transition, slow down and pause for a few seconds.
3. Take a deep breath. Reset yourself.
4. Notice something in your environment, just observing life around you for a moment.
5. Continue on with what you are doing.
One easy way to begin this practice, if you drive, is to use the unbuckling of your seatbelt as a reminder. Park your car, and before you automatically unbuckle the seatbelt, breathe three times. You’ll be surprised at how effective this practice can be, and it takes less than a minute. And you can use any opportunity—an elevator ride, a stoplight, waiting for your coffee order—as a moment of intentional transition, breath, and observation.
Desk Yoga
Writers spend a lot of time at their desks. And perhaps you also spend time sitting at a desk in your job or your studies. Our bodies can suffer from sitting too much, and an unhappy body can often lead to an unhappy mind.
1. Take notice of your posture when you are working at a desk. Are you sitting up straight or are you hunched over? How are you holding your neck? Where are your shoulders?
2. Set a timer. Every twenty minutes or so, take a moment to sit up, roll your shoulders back, adjust the position of your neck. Take an intentional breath.
3. There are many online programs and books available that can offer you simple stretches that take just a few minutes and that you can do at your desk. One of our favorites is “Desk Yoga” by yoga teacher Rodney Yee. You’ll want stretches that counteract the unhealthy postures: chest openers, side stretches, etc. (Of course, don’t do anything that feels uncomfortable or causes pain.)
Dealing with Technology
For many of us, digital technologies are intricately woven in with our daily lives. We’re writing at our computers, which are linked to the internet, and we have our cell phones that keep us in constant connection with both our local and global communities. Technology isn’t a negative thing, per se, but the omnipresence of technology makes it easy for our devices to take over and become distractions. They can also become an underlying source of stress and anxiety.
The answer is not necessarily to abandon use of technology; such a thing just isn’t possible anymore. But we can, perhaps, become a bit more aware of how and when we’re using technology intentionally (helpful) and not-so-intentionally (unhelpful).
A good resource for dealing with technology is the book Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives by David Levy. Much of the material came out of his work with the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (another great resource), and his observations on how digital technologies were affecting his students. He supplies many possible avenues for becoming aware of ourselves in relationship to our everyday online habits and using that awareness to shift their power over us.
By doing these kinds of observations, you might find yourself making some simple changes. For example, maybe you allow yourself a half-hour in the morning without any input from the online world. Try it for a week, observe how you feel. Or you set a timer while you’re working—twenty-five minutes, say—and can only go online when the time is up. Or perhaps you go a little further, instituting an “Internet Sabbath” where you don’t go online for one day each week. Or a weekend “offline retreat.” The important thing is to experiment and find whatever works for you.
Practices of Reading
Many of us became writers because we loved to read. As children, we often might have been found tucked away in a favorite hiding place, reading for hours on end. Reading itself can be a profound way to find moments of stillness and absorption in the midst of busyness.
Unfortunately, for some of us, the time and space to read deeply can feel in short supply and reading online can foster the habit of skimming.
Reading as Preparation for Writing
One way to prioritize reading is to see it as an essential preparation to the act of writing. Such a perspective may enable you to set aside the time necessary to read in a focused way. And as with the breathing practices offered previously, you don’t have to set aside wide swaths of time for this; just a half hour, or even fifteen minutes, would do nicely.
Most important is the way you will read. You can certainly read for pleasure, but as writers-in-training you’ll also be reading to learn how the authors you love do what they do. Following is a practice adapted from the ancient ritual of Lectio Divina.
1. While reading, make note of a passage that feels especially strong (vibrant, alive).
2. Reread the passage aloud, slowly.
3. Take note of what you hear when you read it aloud (rhythms, images, sounds, etc.)
4. What “speaks” to you in this passage? Why did it stand out to you?
5. If you’re so inclined, you can keep what is sometimes referred to as a “commonplace book”: a journal to write down these passages and your responses to them.
Reading as a Writer
As avid readers, we often read for content first, taking in the story and the images for pleasure. As writers striving to learn from our reading, we need to do a second read that analyzes how the writer achieved his or her effects (and think about how we can “steal” some of those techniques).
Preceding the Anthology, we provided you a handy list called “Reading as a Writer.” You can use these questions just for yourself, as part of your reading practice, but you can also use these ideas as part of a group or class. They will focus your reading on techniques and skills you might practice for your own purposes. A good way to learn from other writers is to emulate their craft, much the way an athlete will study game tapes, or artists might make copies of the masters as preparation for their own work.
Practices of Writing
All writers have their own tried-and-true writing routines, and what works for one person may not work at all for another. So the only way to find the writing practices that work for you is to experiment and be open to changing things up. Try writing every day at a particular time and place to make it part of your daily routine (this can be for fifteen minutes or several hours). Or set aside two hours once a week, on the weekend. Or carry a notebook wherever you go, jotting down ideas and observations as they come to you.
The poet and essayist Lia Purpura has said to her students: “Touch your work every day.” This touch—staying in contact, even if for only a brief hello—helps create momentum, keeping your writing mind engaged. Kim Stafford, in his essay “Writing Daily, Writing in Tune,” likens daily writing practice to the way a musical instrument holds the vibration of song long after the music has stopped:
An instrument dies if not played daily. A guitar, a violin, a lute chills the air for the first fifteen minutes of fresh play. It will need to be quickened from scratch. But the fiddle played every day hangs resonant on the wall, quietly boisterous when first it is lifted down, already trembling, anxious to speak, to cry out, to sing at the bow’s first stroke. . . . The instrument is in tune before the strings are tuned.
The key word for any routine, though, is practice. Not all writing sessions will produce viable work, and production might not be the point. The practice of writing aims to be just that: a training that makes you stronger. And as with any practice, you need to do it regularly to see results. As Bonnie Friedman writes in her book Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life: “Talent is not rare. What’s rare is the devotion and stamina to keep writing, and the ability to build on the successes that your work already displays. Caring for the writerly self is a decisive component in being able to keep writing, and writing better.”
Many writers feel they need solitude to write. They can write only in isolation, with no noise or interruption. Others enjoy writing by themselves, but in the midst of daily life (notice all the laptops and solo writers you see in your local coffee shop!). And still others have found that it helps to write with other writers who give both support and accountability to the writing routine. And you may find that what worked for you in the past no longer works so well; you can keep evolving your practice as your writing self evolves.
In Chapter 14, “The Power of Writing Communities,” we give you some ideas on how to develop and use writing groups, writing contracts, and writing challenges to help you generate new work. Look back to that chapter and see what small steps you can take now to find the support you need.
FOR FURTHER READING
Resources Available Online
• You can search “apps for stress reduction” and find several different kinds of apps to use on your phone or computer.
• The Center for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education offers several different articles, guided meditations, and practices.
• “Desk Yoga” by Rodney Yee. Short four-minute stretches you can do at your desk.
Print Resources
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
• Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life by Bonnie Friedman
• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
• Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice by Larraine Herring
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
• Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives by David Levy
• The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life by Dinty Moore
• The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World by Brenda Miller and Holly J. Hughes
• The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft by Kim Stafford
• The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharpe
• Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn