Once you’ve established or re-established some momentum with your writing practice, it’s best to do everything you can to stay on track and keep building on your forward motion. In a sense, you’re working to develop a writing habit so that writing naturally becomes an integral part of your daily [...]
Archive for the ‘Writing as a Practice’ Category
On Becoming A Writer — Step Three: Keep Your Momentum Going
Posted in Writing as a Practice, tagged Creative Writing, Writing on May 28, 2009 | 4 Comments »
On Becoming a Writer — Step Two: Getting Up On A Plane
Posted in Writing as a Practice, tagged Creative Writing, Writing on May 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Anyone who’s been around powerboats knows that if you really want to get anywhere, you have to get your boat “up on a plane” and that to do so takes an initial expenditure of extra power and acceleration. When a boat begins forward motion through water, the hull is essentially plowing the [...]
On Becoming a Writer — Step One: Entering the Stream
Posted in Writing as a Practice, tagged Books, Creative Writing, Writing, Writing Retreats on May 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
To become a writer, to be a writer, is deceptively simple: All you have to do is write. As soon as you begin writing, you are a writer. Plain and simple. Whenever I facilitate writing retreats and workshops, we always start with a short free-writing period. The purpose of [...]
Invoke Your Writing Benefactors
Posted in Creative Writing, Writing as a Practice, tagged Creative Writing, Writing on April 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Writing is essentially a solitary pursuit. Sure, there are exceptions, like when one works collaboratively on a screenplay, say, or does writing exercises in a group setting. But basically, we write alone, whether we’re secluded in a room or sitting elbow-to-elbow in a crowded Starbuck’s. We write alone, but [...]
Listen to the silence . . . then write.
Posted in Creative Writing, Writing as a Practice, tagged Creative Writing, meditation, Writing on March 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Listening is one of the qualities that lies at the confluence of writing and meditation. In the practice of open awareness and mindfulness—the type of meditation where you’re not relying on a specific technique—part of the process is allowing the mind to quietly settle and be with whatever arises; to simply listen. [...]
