Finding the writer you are
Working out your why
Hello and welcome to my new subscribers. There’s been lots this month and it’s great to have you here and see so many people want to live and write more slowly and mindfully. Check out this post for more info on what you can expect from me 😊
This month’s lovely thing is a writing craft book. I’ve read many! But there are a handful that I return to over and over. That’s because not only did they teach me about the craft of writing, they taught me to remember that the act of writing is more than just telling a story to try and get it published.
They helped me be a more thoughtful writer, to dig deeper into what I was writing, and sowed the seeds for the slow writing movement I’m bringing to you through The Mindful Writer. They also helped me be a more peaceful, thoughtful and accepting version of me.
The first book that did this for me is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. It is the craft book that has had the most profound effect on me as a writer, and as a human.
This book first came to me in spring 2015. In 2014, my first novel had been out on submission to six literary agents who I thought I’d like to work with, and I had full manuscript requests from them all, and subsequent declines from them all. None of the reasons they gave for not taking the book on had anything to do with the story or my writing. They all said it was beautifully written, compelling and I had great insights into human relationships and emotions. They read it all and enjoyed it.
But, there wasn’t a market for that kind of book at the time and, even more importantly, my idea for my next book was too different to the first. I should think about writing another more like that one. Even though they’d just said nobody wanted to read that kind of book! So I’d sent it to a few indie publishers instead and heard nothing at all from them.
I can laugh about it now but at the time I was distraught. My writing had become all wrapped up in goals and external validation of it, and my self-worth was entangled in that too. Work on my second novel had stalled as my belief in my ability to write novels was at its lowest ebb. I turned my focus to flash fictions instead as I loved writing them and I could get them out in the world pretty quickly. I had lots of success with them too, which boosted my bruised writer ego.
Then I read an article about writing as meditation, which was something else that was just starting to come into my life, and the author mentioned the Natalie Goldberg book. So I bought it and it changed everything for me. This statement in particular pulled me up and made me think about how my ideas about writing had moved very far away from a practice and the actual doing of it.
So I stepped back, sat with my thoughts and feelings about myself and my writing, and then wrote about all the reasons I’d started writing in the first place. Getting an agent and a publishing deal didn’t appear anywhere.
Making sense of this human experience; processing the things I’ve witnessed; connecting with readers in the way the stories I’ve loved resonated with me; and passing on the messages the characters that appear in my mind want to share through me. Those are the reasons I started writing, and why I continue to write. What about you? I’d love to know your reasons.
Remembering this freed me to play and enjoy the writing for its own sake again. I experimented and wrote many words and stories just for me. Around the same time, I discovered
’s small stones writing exercise and I started writing them regularly. I started to live another element that had really stood out to me when reading Writing Down the Bones.
Now almost a decade later it’s all about the craft for me. About blurring the edges between me and the characters who come to me. My practice has developed in a way that I now feel like I’m channeling something when I write and tell their stories.
I’ve stopped sending my novels to publishers and am finding my own way of bringing them to the world. As that direct connection with how my work goes out to readers is also more important to me. I think that’s because I put so much into it now, that handing it over to others for them to shape into something else that fits their marketing strategy feels very wrong.
So although that first novel did get accepted by one of those indie publishers, when my second was ready I published it myself through Retreat West Books, the indie publishing press I founded and ran from 2017-23. My novella-in-flash will publish later this year and I’m launching it through a Kickstarter campaign. I’ve just started writing my third novel and I’ve not given any thought yet to how that might go out to readers. As I’m at that exciting stage of blurring the edges to write down the bones and let the characters tell me what they want me to know.
Have you read this book? I’d love to know what you think of it.
Please let other writers you think might be interested know about The Mindful Writer.
Amanda, Sometimes it feels like words are boiling inside and want to come out. Sometimes it is the belief that someone needs to read these words today. Because I write almost exclusively short form, I know that each piece will not resonate with everyone. It is the body of work that holds most dear. Good luck on your ventures in writing. You are very good. D
I listened to Natalie narrating her book and adding some extra thoughts as she went along. It is an inspirational way to approach the page and leads to all sorts of unexpected things!