Scratching

“The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight. There is nothing yet to research. For me, these moments are not pretty. I look like a desperate woman, tortured by the simple message, thumping away in my head: “You need an idea.””

— Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

Writer, tell me if you can relate:

You're in a writing funk.

The problem isn't so much snatching away a few minutes here and there to write--or maybe even a few hours--the real problem is that you just aren't feeling it. Sure there might be reasons (pandemics, an unfilled creative well, writing life trauma), but really you

Just. Aren't. Feeling. It.

You're reading craft books, you've covered the pages of multiple notebooks with reams of notes on possible projects. Nearly all of your sentences to anyone who will listen start with, "What if..."

What if I wrote a story like, um, like Romeo and Juliet, but in Mars?! Or, no wait--Romeo and Juliet ON A SUBMARINE.

Story ideas come and go, and maybe for a minute there you're really digging something. But then suddenly you're...not. They all sound stupid and pointless and you feel like maybe you should write something really IMPORTANT because, you know, pandemics.

The whole part of the process where you're between projects and you haven't committed to the idea for your next one (or even HAD it yet) is DEEPLY uncomfortable.

Just check out the quote at the top there by choreographer Twyla Tharp.

Up until quite recently, I've been in this place—and it’s not the first time I’ve been here. In fact, this is the first stop I make in my writing journey when I want to write a new story.

It’s not an issue of lacking creative wellness. I meditate and walk nearly every day. I have a writer's sabbath once a week. I mean, I literally created something called the Flow Lab. I had scores of ideas because the well was filled and yet...nothing. I felt like a daemon in His Dark Materials that hadn't settled on its form yet. One day, I'm positive I'm writing that WWII novel I literally went to Germany to do research for. The next? Tired of Nazis. I am FOR SURE writing a book about star-crossed lovers. A week later. UGH, this book is crap. Etc.

Scratching

In her book The Creative Habit, Tharp talks about this process better than anyone I've ever read. She calls it "scratching." Seriously buy this book and read the whole thing, but ESPECIALLY read the whole chapter on scratching. (While you’re at it, get the book Art and Fear.) I turned to Tharp again recently--as I turn to this book often over the years--for some comfort. It reminded me this is all very normal and necessary and I'm not alone.

This whole phase where you're searching for an idea is part of the process and one that you can bring a lot of intentionality to. Rather than turning to desperation or moping, you can actively show up for this stage.


A friend passed this Nick Cave quote along to me at just the right time, when I was feeling pretty alone in my writing funk and I reposted it a few days ago on Instagram:

Below is what happens during this stage for me, and it always happens this way because it's my process, but the thing is that I FORGET it's my process until my husband tells me I do this every time.

I share it in the hopes that if you're going through this, you can get some ideas for how to scratch on your own.

A Study In Scratching

1. I finish a book and either it's been accepted or rejected by my agent / editor. Now I have to write something new. Because I'm often juggling multiple projects, I usually have a WIP to fall back on while I'm searching for my next idea. This makes the whole process less uncomfortable because I get to be writing and working on something while looking for the next thing. Except this spring I DIDN'T HAVE ANOTHER PROJECT TO FALL BACK ON. Suddenly, I was in the No Man's Land of story ideas.

1. At first, this was exciting. Yay! I can play in my creativity sandbox and see what I come up with! I do writing exercises, I read poetry, I work on craft. I commit to an hour a day instead of 3 hours for writing because I know that 3 hours of scratching will just make me anxious.

2. I latch on to the first good idea and I'm FULLY COMMITTED. Until...I'm not. Then I start rapidly cycling through ideas. I bring out my trusty cigar box of index cards, filled with story ideas, that I bought at a voodoo shop in NOLA. Oh YES! I forgot all about that great story idea I'd thrown in there! I start working on it, but....no. It's not "the one."

3. I decide that the reason I can't focus on an idea is because of the chaos in my outer life. I begin rearranging furniture, throwing things out, organizing, cleaning. I make a lot of soup. I believe FIRMLY in the Gospel of Soup and that all crises can be weathered with a pot of soup. (We currently have A LOT of soup set aside in the freezer).

4. Throughout this time, my mind is whirling and whirring and I'm trying not to think about the market or that I promised a specific book to my agent by a specific time and now I hate that book idea and that time is getting closer. I start saying, "Merde" under my breath. A lot.

5. Despair settles in, but because I've been here before and I also have a healthy writer wellness system in place, I keep meditating and doing mindfulness work through all this discomfort, and keeping my weekly writer sabbath. I also am sure to be gentle with myself. I don't usually watch much TV, but during this time, I allow more of that. More down time. More binge reading. More gentleness in general.

6. I remind myself, again and again, that this is the season I'm in, that seasons change, that I just need to lean in and let this be uncomfortable. It's going to be okay. I have proof in this pudding: It's always okay in the end. An idea always comes. A story always tugs my sleeve. It's just taking its goddamn TIME about it, is all.

7. So I'm showing up and being mindful and filling the well and sitting with this uncomfortable uncertainty. I'm feeling kind of enlightened about the whole thing. I just REALLY MISS WRITING. I miss it! I miss writing a book! Telling a story! Living in new worlds with characters I love.

8. This is all made worse when triggered by comparison (someone I know gets a book deal etc.) or some sort of rejection in the industry (a book I have out doesn't do well etc). The only thing that saves me here is my mindfulness practice, which is why I harp on all the writers I work with to practice. We don't practice for the good times, we practice for these tough moments, so we can be ready when they come and not lose our shit. 

9. Throughout this time, I'm working hard to be intentional (which is my number one rule for all writing, whether you're in this stage or drafting or revising). Show up. As Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." An hour a day of scratching. More reading throughout the day. More walks. More permission in general. I try to clear my schedule more than usual.

10. And then: EUREKA! The story comes. Out of nowhere or maybe it's been there all along and I just needed to see it in a certain light. Something clicks. I can see why this is not only the right story for me, but the right story for me RIGHT NOW. Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean you have to write it. I have to feel really jazzed and jazzed for a while. I have to want to WRITE the story, not just think about it.*

    
    *As of press time, so to speak, I think I HAVE found my next project. Ask me in a month if that's still true.

“A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off. It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another. A bad idea closes doors instead of opening them...Scratching is what you do when you can’t wait for the thunderbolt to hit you.”

— Twyla Tharp

Me, meditating in the Word Garden at Highlights Foundation during the Secret Garden retreat I led in 2019.

One of the things I tell the writers I work with is that we have to think about writing as seasons.

Sometimes, you're in a really prolific, working season. Other times, you're a fallow field, taking a rest and waiting for ideas to plant themselves in you. All of that is good. All of that is the path.


Getting the book deal isn't the path. Those are ephemeral and they aren't writing. They're selling - two different things entirely. So the PATH of the writer is writing and creating and dreaming up stories. The PATH is the goal. So you can chill out because you've already achieved your goal, so long as you're still scratching and, eventually, writing in earnest.

We don't look at a fallow field and think it's a lazy piece of shit or that it's uninspired or that it's never going to amount to anything. We see it for what it is: earth, resting and regenerating.

During these scratching periods, I often begin questioning my place in the writing world and the world in general. This is all healthy. It's a time for reassessment.

Each new project is an invitation to challenge yourself, to create something new and to integrate who you are right now into your art. It's normal. It's part of the process. I literally do this every time.

So the first step is recognizing that this is your season: the season where you are waiting for something to bloom. Once you name it, you can work with it.

“As Pema Chödrön, the meditation teacher, says, “When we realize the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability.””

A Few Scratching Ideas To Get You Going That Work For Me

Be intentional. See below to download my Writing Cave Sign In Sheet. When you're in scratching mode, sign in to your cave for an hour and do any of the below, or your own scratching activities.

• Meditate every day for at least 10 minutes. Meditation works the same muscles you use when you're in flow. It calms you the fuck down when you're in a creative panic. There are answers in the silence. You just have to listen.

• Take a writer's sabbath once a week. A whole day with no writing or scratching. You need to keep that well filled and you need to give yourself a break otherwise you'll go into a creative tailspin. Speaking from experience here.

• Read Poetry. One, it will help you improve your craft. Two, it will get you in the mood. Go through an anthology or pick a poet and read one of their collections. This is an excellent way to begin scratching.

• Do tarot spreads. Ask questions about yourself, your life, stories, etc.

• Go down the rabbit hole and get curiouser and curiouser. If you're thinking about textiles, just go down that hole. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote what she felt was her greatest novel by simply indulging in her interest in gardening when she was scratching for an idea. Just stay off social. Stick to Wikipedia.

• If you have a hobby that really helps nourish you, do that too. I make soup and do tarot and play with my cat and nerd out about whisky and Scotland.

• Take walks. I wrote this post on how walking is a game changer for loads of writers and thinkers, including yours truly.

• Read. Pick up whatever is striking your fancy. Read outside your genre. Read omnivorously. Read, read, freaking read. Seriously. It's literally your job.

• Use this time to grow in your craft and lean in to your writing community. Get some mentorship. Take a class to grow in a particular area of craft.
  
  
  Here's to your scratching!

Tonglen For Writers

One of the tools that has been supporting me most as my creativity and desire to write waxes and wanes amidst the current global crisis is a Buddhist mindfulness practice called tonglen.

Tonglen is something you can do on the spot, in the moment or as a longer, more intentional form of meditation. It’s so great because it’s there for you whenever you need it.

It’s a counter-intuitive process where you actually invite and breathe in all the bad stuff you or others are feeling—you really take it in. But that’s just the first step. Once you breathe in this negative, gnarly stuff, you breathe out something wonderful: relief, security, health, freshness.

What this does is both offer you some release of inner tension and emotional turmoil while reminding you that you're not alone. That writers all over the planet are feeling just as muddled as you. And this realization can, eventually, ease you out of that moment or even your season of creative doldrums.

In practice, it looks something like this:

You’re sitting at your desk or in your kitchen or your cramped apartment filled to bursting with your family, sheltering in place or trying to stay alive out there in the wild. You’re going a bit nuts. A feeling of despair spreads over you. You’ll never have creative flow again. You’ll never be published now that the economy has tanked. Everyone else is being productive while you’re sitting here in creative sludge.

Step One

As soon as you are mindful of this feeling, take a pause. Think about all the other writers around the world who almost certainly are feeling the same way you are right now. Thousands, millions, of writers who are desperate and scared and haven’t written in months and they are tearing their hair out and dying to write, but more afraid of dying from COVID-19.

Step Two

As crazy as it sounds, breathe all of that in. Your suffering and that of all the writers who feel just this way. You’re not alone! This suffering that feels so big and heavy, you can handle it because all these writers around the world are carrying this same suffering with you. So you do your part, you shoulder this collective burden alongside all your fellow writers and you breathe in the tightness in your chest and the coldness in your belly and the panic crawling up your throat. You invite it in and you let it fill you.

Step Three: (This is the yummy part)

When you’re full to bursting: plot twist! You breathe out what you wish for yourself and all these writers. On a long, delicious exhale, you breathe out flow, freshness, enchantment, lightness, health, book deals. You send this out to yourself and all these writers, your wishes on a breath of goodwill. GOOD particles, far enough away that they’re safe for all the writers everywhere to breathe in.

Step Four

You get back on with your life. Maybe you write that day. Maybe you don’t. Maybe the panic returns later (okay, so now you do tonglen again - this isn’t a one and done).

The thing about tonglen I love is that it reminds me that whatever I’m feeling, no matter how heavy it is, I’m not the only person feeling this way.

So often we get to thinking our pain is singular. That no one else feels as we do. We feel ashamed of our pain or confused by it. We don’t know how to work with it, so it just gets bigger and bigger.

This is what leads to seasons of feeling creatively stuck. And that sense of being trapped between wanting to write and actually writing lingers—we can’t seem to find our way out—because we don’t have the tools to get free.

Tonglen is a tool to get free when you’re creatively stuck and your flow is a trickle at best, a dry well at worse.

“Meditation and tonglen are well-tested methods for training in adaptability.”

— Pema Chödrön, Buddhist writer and teacher

The more you engage in practices like tonglen, the better able you are to go with the flow. To adapt to whatever challenging circumstances are keeping you from your ideal writing life, whether those circumstances are internal (Inner Critic and such) or external (pandemics, divorce, day job woes).

As writers, being fleet of foot is a make-or-break skill. When we get good at rolling with the punches—and there are many in the writing life—we’re better able to stay on our feet the next time a rejection or dry spell or terrible review comes in.

I don’t believe that all the writers in the world necessarily feel my goodwill as I’m doing tonglen. But I believe many of them feel after I do this practice. Case in point: you feel it now, as you’re reading this post, right? And you’ll be inspired if I can get through my own stuckness and back to the page during dry seasons to do some tonglen on your own too. Hey, you’ll take anything. And then you’ll get unstuck or less stuck, and this will inspire another writer and so on and so forth to get unstuck too. Maybe with tonglen or with some other tool.

But how does this practice get us unstuck? How can breathing in and out actually shift us out of creative dry spots?

We get unstuck because tonglen invites us to become a friend to what’s troubling us. To curiously and compassionately engage with it, instead of pushing it away, or self-medicating. With the latter, you know that stuff just rears its ugly head later. Maybe as a massive creative disappointment or an inability to stay aligned with your dreams. Resentment, fear, the Inner Critic having a heyday. With tonglen, we deal with what we’re feeling head on, but in a way that’s nourishing and gentle. It’s not time consuming or overwhelming as a practice. We don’t need to “learn” or “win” a new thing. It’s free. It’s as easy as, well, breathing.

The most beautiful part of tonglen, though, is that it reminds us that we are not alone. No matter how big your pain is, knowing you’re not the only person experiencing it is immeasurably comforting. And that comfort, it loosens some of those bands of panic and fear and self-doubt that are wrapped so tightly around us. We can breathe a bit easier. Sitting down to the page is a little less difficult. We take our fear less seriously. Silly fear. Tricks are for kids.

Eventually, we write.

Our collective suffering as writers can also be our collective liberation.

“Rather than beating ourselves up, we can use our personal stuckness as a stepping stone to understanding what people are up against all over the world.”

— Pema Chödrön

Watch me blow your mind: Isn’t that what our job is as writers? To be able to understand what people are up against and then write about it?

This means that tonglen doesn’t just help you get to the page—it helps you while you’re on it. It works the writing muscles you need to tell emotionally resonant stories.

Tonglen As Sanctuary

I always encourage the writers I work with to find ways for their writing to be the harbor, not the storm.

If you’re having trouble getting to the page right now, tonglen can be that harbor where you can safely dock your creativity until you’re ready to take it out on the open seas.

When feelings of panic, despair, overwhelm, etc. arise within you (whether you're writing or not), you're invited to breathe it all in. You breathe it in for you, for the writer in Japan and in Italy and in Russia and Kenya and Mexico and Australia. All writers everywhere. All the writers who are feeling exactly as you are. Because they are.

Then, you breathe out RELIEF. Freshness. Flow. Sanctuary. Not just for you, but for ALL writers who are in your same boat.

Sounds great, right?

There’s more where that came from:

To go deeper into this practice, you can read this short article by the queen of tonglen, Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön. She writes wonderfully about tonglen, so if this practice really resonates with you, I highly recommend getting her book When Things Fall Apart. It’s a must-have for all writers, anyway.

A similar practice and one more widely known is that of lovingkindness, or mētta. I created a Lovingkindness For Writers meditation in Insight Timer that you can check out too, if that’s of use.

Wherever you are right now, I’m breathing out sanctuary, flow, enchantment, rest, and love.

For all of us.

Walk This Way

This post originally appeared in my Mindfulness Monday column on the Vermont College of Fine Arts blog

One of my favorite practices as a writer is walking. I’m not at all alone in this.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.

 ”

— Henry David Thoreau

“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.”

— Hemingway

It’s been calculated that William Wordsworth, whose poetry is rich with natural imagery and public spaces, walked as much as 180,000 miles in his life (six and a half miles a day beginning at the age of five – what?!).

Walking has been a part of my writing process for years and years. Somehow, it always does the trick when I need to shake out the cobwebs, reboot my system, or find some inspiration. Without fail, a walk will help me sort out a tricky plot problem, give me a cool new story idea, or provide a line or scene that I’ve just got to get down on the page as soon as I’m home. There’s a reason walking works, and it’s worth making an effort to bring more of it into your process.

In this post, I’ll be getting into WHY walking is so helpful for writers (this great New Yorker article outlines some of what I’ll be sharing below) and then I’ll be getting into some practical things you can do to bring walking meditation into your writing process to increase flow and focus—and maybe get some of those Eurekas! you’re hoping for on your WIP. I even have a handy video tutorial!

Why Walking Is A Magic Potion For Writers

What is it about walking that is so helpful to us as writers?

• Chemical stuff in the body. Namely, your brain gets more oxygen. Think improving focus and memory.

• Ever had an Aha! moment while walking? That’s because the act of walking promotes new connections between brain cells.

A fairly recent study has shown that walking actually helps us have innovative ideas and strokes of insight. This is because the mind is allowed to wander freely and things can naturally bubble up (more on this later, because this is somewhat counter to what I’m going to tell you about traditional walking meditation practice). Maria Popova has some great insights about walking as creative fuel on Brain Pickings that’s worth a read.

Where we walk is important too—think green. Think nature. Think expansive. This is because nature gives rise to tuning in more to the senses. To paying attention. And this is what meditation is all about.

Walking Meditation For Writers

In his New Yorker review of Frédéric Gros’ book, “A Philosophy of Walking,” Adam Gopnik asserts that walking “is the Western equivalent of what Asians accomplish by sitting. Walking is the Western form of meditation.”

Gros seems to agree. In Philosophy he says: “You’re doing nothing when you walk, nothing but walking. But having nothing to do but walk makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of being, to rediscover the simple joy of existing, the joy that permeates the whole of childhood.”

Walking is actually one of the four postures of meditation suggested by the Buddha. It’s as legitimate as sitting. So it’s a great option for those of you who aren’t ready to hit the cushion or chair just yet. (Although, if my mile-a-minute monkey mind can do it, so can yours.).

What I love about walking meditation is that it’s a great head-clearer. Sometimes, I’ll just set my meditation timer and do five minutes of walking meditation between hour sessions of writing, just to get my body moving. It really helps. It doesn’t have to be this big deal. Get up and do the practice for a few minutes. You’ve got to start somewhere. Longer walking meditation sessions—twenty minutes or so in a backyard, if I’ve access to one, or in a living room if the weather isn’t playing nice or I don’t have a yard to use—is great for going deep. It’s a proper meditation session and very often yields enormous results. Some of my biggest life choices have come as a direct result of walking meditation.

How Walking Meditation Is Different Than Taking A Stroll

When I go for a walk outside, that’s a walk—not walking meditation. The meditation practice is very intentional, along a short, set path. You go back and forth, focusing entirely on the feel of your feet moving across the earth. The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says to, “Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”

Your object of meditation is the feel of your feet moving. So when your mind wanders, you actually want to bring it back to your object of meditation. Now, this is counter to what that study earlier in this post said is so great about walking and creativity: it allows your mind to wander freely. True, we do bring the mind back to its focus for the meditation, but I haven’t found this to be a creative hindrance because it’s working my flow muscle (That’s because what’s happening in your brain when you meditate is the same thing that happens when it’s in flow. I talk more about that here).

I’ve found that walking meditation gives me laser focus and calm. In fact, this same study I mentioned earlier about the connection between the free-floating mind while walking and creativity says that if you want laser focus, an ambling walk isn’t actually ideal for that, so walking meditation is PERFECT for you procrastinators or very distracted writers out there.

So, if you’re looking to clear your head, regain your focus, re-align yourself: a traditional walking meditation session could be just the thing.

If you really want to have your mind wander freely or play jazz with walking meditation, you can still do the traditional set up, but then allow your object of meditation to be what we call in the Insight Meditation tradition “Choiceless Awareness.” This means that you allow your mind to notice the different things around you: sound, like, a thought, a feeling. You stay with that thing until the next thing comes, and so on. In this way, you allow yourself the openness and expansiveness of a stroll, but you’re more intentional about the process.

How To Do Walking Meditation

 

Thich Nhat Hanh Technique

In a profoundly moving interview that Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh did with Oprah a while back in which they discussed many things, he spoke quite a bit about walking meditation as a means toward self-realization. I really love his technique, and I share it here with you. (I can’t recommend watching the interview enough. It just might change your life).

• He says that when you walk, you should take a few steps and think to yourself, I have arrived, arrived, arrived in the here and the now. Then in your next few steps think, I am home, I am home. This is to instill a deep knowing in yourself that your home is in the here and now. I tried it and really enjoyed practicing this way.

I always do walking meditation with my writers when we’re on retreat together, and the writers really dig getting to learn more about this practice. Slowing down is really, really good for us writers. And getting out of a chair is good too.

Walking meditation can open up a lot for you, and create space in the clutter that comes into our minds in such a chaotic and busy world. I hope this practice brings you all the Ahas! and focus and flow you long for.

Hold Your Seat

Note: This post was originally published on October 14, 2017 on an old blog of mine. I'm posting it below in its original form (I no longer live in NYC, there's a global pandemic currently on, etc.)

 

A couple days ago I had an experience that happens all too often as a meditator (and writer who enjoys silence while ruminating) in NYC. I sit down on my cushion all ready to get my calm on when the jackhammers start right outside my window. Oh to live in Brooklyn in 2017 when everyone and their mother is gut renovating buildings or tearing them down to build overpriced condos. I’ve lived here for over four years and – I shit you not – there has been construction in close proximity to my building pretty much every single day. As a writer who works from home, I’ve had to make relative peace with this.

I am now an expert in white noise sound mixing and, when that fails, I push in the earplugs. Construction symphonies are an annoying soundtrack when you’re writing, to be sure, but they’re really REALLY crazy making when you’re trying to meditate. There’s a reason (most) monasteries are way up in the mountains, accessible only via dirt paths wide enough to let a yak through, and why writers fantasize about cottages at the end of the world to finish their novels in.

So here I am on my cushion and I have two choices: give up on sitting until much later or roll with it and hold my seat. Keep in mind that after sitting, I’ll have to start writing and, so, unless I’m going to pack up and go to a coffeehouse, there’s not a whole lot I can do to control this situation.

If there’s one thing being a meditator has taught me, it’s learning to be in the present, to accept what is happening without allowing events to control my emotions or hijack what little chill I have.

When we’re on the cushion, we practice this in various ways: instead of railing against my neighbor’s loud music or the jackhammers or the roar of loud trucks going up 20th, I try to just acknowledge what’s happening and return to focusing on my breath. If I feel annoyed, I sit with that feeling. I let the emotion be there, locating where it rests in my body (usually my chest and throat) and just ride it out–instead of letting the emotion ride me. In meditation, we call this “holding our seat.” It means that we don’t throw in the towel if a meditation session is uncomfortable. We stay even if the jackhammers start or we have an uncontrollable itch between our shoulder blades or we’re suddenly experiencing strong emotion.

We stay on the cushion. We stay in the present. We don’t bail. We hold our seat.

On this particular day, I held my seat. I accepted the situation as it was and by the time the gong rang on my meditation timer, it was all good. Sure, it would have been nice if the only sound was a bubbling brook and bees buzzing in warm sunshine, but I bet even then I would have found * something * to take issue with. And there’s this, too: we don’t judge our meditation sessions. If our minds were racing the whole time, okay. If we experienced enlightenment, okay. As long as we held our seat, it’s a win. The same goes for writing.

As long as you hold your seat and don’t let distractions or not feeling it pull you away from your writer’s seat, the writing session is a win.

As it was, I opened my eyes more relaxed, centered, and grounded than when I sat on the cushion thirty minutes before, and I call that a win.  I stood, stretched, then sat at my desk, opened Scrivener, and started writing from that place of relative balance. The jackhammers eventually stopped, but I didn’t. I wrote for hours.

Before I started meditating, I would have let my anger and frustration over that noise build. I would have abandoned my plans for meditation and gone into a whole inner rant about fuck this city and why can’t these rich assholes stop building condos and it’s impossible to live here as an artist, I can’t handle this noise and my apartment is too small and now I’ll never write another book and so I won’t be able to pay rent and I’ll be evicted…and…and…The incident might have ruined my whole day and certainly would have made it damn near impossible to focus on my book once I sat down to write. I would have worked myself into an emotional tizzy, allowing one jackhammer to instigate an existential crisis.

But because I’m committed to my practice and because meditation is training for life, I was able to simply see those jackhammers as part of the landscape of Now. And, like it or not, I was in that landscape, too.

As so often happens, what I experience on the cushion has a ripple effect in my writing life. I’m working on a couple of books right now, both of which I love and both of which are complicated for very different reasons. In those moments when I’m staring at the screen and feeling that familiar tension and frustration arise (why can’t I figure this character / plot out?!), I have my training on the cushion to fall back on.

I allow myself to feel that inner turmoil, locating it in my body and accepting it as part of the landscape. I don’t let it run me or turn into the spark for a wildfire of shame, anger, fear, comparison and the million other frustrations that can happen when we’re sitting in front of our screens. Just like when the jackhammers started when I was on the cushion, I accept what’s happening now–and what’s happening now is I have no idea what to write next. But because of my training on the cushion, I know that this snag is temporary because everything is impermanent: the good and the bad. I know this frustration won’t last because nothing lasts. I know, as when I sat on the cushion, that if I hold my seat and accept what’s happening, I will be the better for it.

And so will my writing.

Writer In Quarantine: How To Access Your Creative Well

Below is a recap of our discussions and meditations for the first live “Dandywood Circles” Zoom calls for writers in the first few weeks of massive social distancing. For four Sundays, I’m inviting writers to my home, affectionately called Dandywood, where we’re gathering together to share thoughts, advice, and support during quarantine. The goal is to work on staying connected to our writing practice during this time of massive social upheaval.

Both sessions are recorded and you can download the audio below, or just check out the highlights in this post.

To get in on the next calls, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get the links.

Dandywood Circle #1: March 22, 2020

Q: Is it time that I stop making myself into the writer I’m supposed to be and make room for the real type of writer I am, who knows words are her playmates?

My resounding answer to this excellent question from one of the writers on the call was YES! 

One of the things that comes up in quarantine is a re-assesment of who you are as a writer and where you’re at. The “shoulds” also come out to play a lot. Instead, just play. Explore. Allow this to be a time of getting in touch with what got you writing in the first place (hint: it might have been processing stress or escaping it!).

Right now we’re in transition, and transitions are delicious opportunities for growth. It’s a liminal space where a lot of clarity can come through.

We talked on the call about how to move toward YES and JOY and whatever feels jazzy and yummy and expansive. That may or may not be writing. We gave each other permission to not write if writing felt like a drag.

I spoke about how curiosity is key. Now is a great time to fill the well and go down rabbit holes. All of my best books have come from being curious about something.

The funny thing about curiosity is that it’s a bit like falling in love: you can’t look for your next story idea. Rather, you show up and it finds you. The way you show up is through curiosity. My lifelong curiosity of spies led me to a visit to the International Spy Museum, which led me to discovering Virginia Hall, which led me to writing my biography about her, CODE NAME BADASS, which comes out in Fall 2021.

So while you’re in quarantine, following what sparks your curiosity may very well gift you with a new story, solutions to a current one, or simply fill your well so you have more flow.

Q: “How do we know when something that seems like a block is really a blessing in disguise - something that’s saying No, this isn’t for you…?

This question from someone on the call was a great one because it generated a discussion about how to be in touch with our bodies, which know a lot more about what’s really going on than our minds.

In my experience, the best way to get in touch with out bodies is to meditate. Ever since I got serious about meditation, I was able to listen to my gut more…and trust it. This allowed for enormous creative dividends.

To work with Jennifer’s question, I led our group in a meditation I created for this session to explore what our inner creative wells actually feel like. You can check it out in the recording below, but here here is the gist:

Creative Well Meditation: Part One / Submersion

To get some inner quiet and access your inner Knowing. Your gut. The part of you that will let you know when to ditch a writing project, and when to stay (among many other things):

• Close your eyes and envision a wide, endless sea. You’re bobbing in it, gazing out at the water. See the sunlight flickering across the surface. The waves. The horizon.

• Now, pull yourself beneath the surface. Feel the heaviness of the water. The immediate, comforting weight.

• Observe how quiet it is here below the surface.

• The water is clear and warm. You are absolutely safe. You’re breathing gently through your nose only - inhale and exhale.

• As thoughts come, or outer distractions, notice that those are just waves on the surface of the ocean. You are below those waves. In the deep. In the quiet. In the inner sanctuary.

• Notice the shafts of light cutting into the water.

• Allow yourself a few minutes to just be there beneath the surface. Your object of meditation is your breath or whatever visuals are coming through here under the surface.

• This is where creative flow lives. In the quiet. In the deep.

• You can stay here, enjoying this, or move onto the next portion:

Accessing Your Creative Well

• You’re still here, under the surface of the water.

• Think back to a time when you felt really in flow. It could be when you were writing, but it could also be other times, when the ideas are coming to you, a moment of deep inspiration that sparked something for you.

• Go deep into that memory. How did it feel in your BODY? Don’t put words to this but, rather, feel into the actual sensation. For me, I feel an expansive loosening in my chest. My fingers tingle. My temperature rises.

• Feel that feeling. Amplify it. Home in on exactly where it is in your body. Notice all the shifts that happen inside you.

• Where you feel flow in your body is where your creative well lives.

• Sit there for a bit and enjoy the feeling. When you’re ready, push up, up, up to the surface of that ocean, take three nice deep breaths, and slowly open your eyes.

The takeaway: After the first time you do this, I recommend journaling a bit to get some concrete ideas of where the well is and what this experience in the meditation was like. Then, I recommend doing this meditation every day for the next week, or as long and often as you wish, to keep reconnecting to the feeling of flow.

Work like this is how writers train in flow. It’s the equivalent of a ballet dancer going to class, doing work at the barre.

Q: Is there a hack for writing essays? Right now, I don’t have the bandwidth for creative work.

My big piece of advice here was to consider what you’re adding to the conversation when you write essays or blogs.

There’s a lot of content out there, a lot of half-assed stuff. A lot of lists or rants. So when you do put something out there, consider who your audience is and how they’ll benefit from what you have to say.

There’s also just a lot of value in processing for yourself right now. Writing essays or journaling as a way to cope. As writer self-care. Check out the Inspiration Portal for some good journaling prompts.

In addition to these big questions, we also talked about ways to bring more mindfulness and intentionality into our writing practices. What works for one writer might not work for you. I talked baout the helpful tools in the Flow Lab Sneak Peak, which you can download here (the full 30-Day Flow Lab will land in my newsletter subscriber’s boxes in April). The sneak peek includes a Do Not Disturb doorknob sign, a writing cave sign-in sheet, and some helpful mindful hacks to get your work done.

We dug into how to set healthy boundaries around your creativity, especially with people at home or constantly calling and texting, and how to guard your solitude.

It was wonderful to see each other’s faces, to connect with writers around the country, and to remember that as isolating as writing can be—and social distancing—it really does take a village to sustain a flourishing writing practice. This is how we have each other’s backs.

Keep calm and carry on, camerados.

Here's How To Write During Plague Season

Whatever your circumstances during the COVID-19 scare, I have a hunch you really want to write during this period of social distancing and global uncertainty.

Of course you do. Words have always been your harbor in the storm, the thing you turned to when you were hurting or confused or wanted escape. Your writing gets you. But, like any relationship, you'll have to figure out how much time you can spend together when the world is more topsy turvy than ever. Imagine writing during the Blitz. (Keep Calm and Carry On).

Some of the writers I work with are despairing - how to concentrate when this is all going on?! They can't put their phones down. Stop texting. Stop worrying. Or they're challenged by people who are home that don't respect writing and privacy. They are kinda sort of a lot losing their minds...already. Does writing even matter now? Or they're on the other end of the spectrum, pressuring themselves to use this time wisely, not waste it, write the great American novel - and quickly learn one's Inner Critic doesn't give two figs about social distancing.

I...have a plan for that. 

Below are a few offerings I've put together so that your writing can be a good friend to you during this crisis.

• I'll be offering free weekly Zoom Q & A drop-ins every Sunday at 2:00PM EST. Come with questions and frustrations and wins and losses. I'll email the links each Saturday to my newsletter list, so if you’re not on the list, do pop on. (A little extra email this month, usually just a couple a month...can't be helped.)

• I've created a sneak peek to the Flow Lab, which you can download below right now. This includes a Do Not Disturb door sign, a writing sign-in sheet (you'll see), and my best practices for building and sustaining your daily writing practice NO MATTER WHAT. The full 30-Day Flow Lab is available on March 28, 2020 for newsletter subscribers.

• My site now has a Homebound Resources page - lots there for you.
  
  

  The best writing comes out of the tough stuff. I firmly believe that.

  Click below to get your PDF download of the Flow Lab sneak peek.