There is no question that these are turbulent and daunting times.
Writing is one of the ways we can ground ourselves, process what we’re feeling and thinking, and make a positive impact on others.
A few years ago, I wrote and shared 10 of My Convictions About Writing. Here they are, with some updates.
1. What defines us as writers is simply that we write – frequently or rarely. We are writers in that we endeavor to put our experiences, questions, sentiments, into words on the page.
2. Creativity exists naturally in all of us – but in most of us, it gets blocked. We often need support unblocking and unlocking our words.
That’s why creative recovery is a thing. I’ve been through my own, and am always reaching for more of that recovery. Creative recovery can happen for us.
3. Writing heals. As we translate our lived experience into words, we metabolize and integrate it. We put what’s past more firmly in the past, and discover what’s arising in the present. We become the authors of our experience, the creators of it in some sense, in its second life on the page.
4. For women, every act of articulation is an act of empowerment, because we are in the midst of many generations of being silenced.
5. To unleash the flow of words, we have to write for ourselves and ourselves alone. Impact on the world or accolades may come, but only if we’ve learned to write for ourselves first.
6. The writing work that lands most strongly in the world is born of authenticity and courage – not from polishing, perfecting, or trying to guess what readers want. That’s one of the many reasons that most of what we learned about writing in school does not give rise to the kind of writing that changes hearts and minds – others’ or our own.
7. The age of AI is demonstrating that an artificial intelligence can generate near infinite amounts of relatively logical words on a page – and, for a very long time, our own mental chattering minds have been doing that too. This is a time to discover and reground in the very different thing that makes words important, moving, and transformational – for both writer and reader.
8. Editing and craft are merely good assistants to the more important qualities of authenticity and courage. And, they are damn good assistants!
9. If writing feels stilted, clunky, frustrating, futile, that’s okay. We just need to dip beneath the surface in you to the place where the words are ever flowing. The flow of words is always tappable, and community, prompts, and structure can help us tap the spring.
10. Most importantly: your story and life experience, your ideas and inquiries are enough to make for plenty to say. That’s so hard to see in ourselves sometimes, but I can promise you, it’s true.
If these ideas about writing, creativity, and sharing our voices resonate with you, please use them, post them, pass them on!
And, if these ideas resonate with you, I hope you will join me for my upcoming online Writing Retreat this summer.
