Pouring words onto the page
When your writing mojo returns
I love this image and the message it gives us about our writing. Pouring words onto the page with no inhibitions, no care for who you’re supposed to be writing for, and what people might think, is one of the best things about a mindful writing practice.
It’s about being fully present in the world of the story you’re building, whether that’s in a fictional story or an essay or an article. Whatever we write, we should do it without fear. After a really difficult year in 2023, I had written hardly any new stories - just three new drafts found their way to the page last year as I had no headspace and no urge to create. But this year, I’m really happy to say, the words are pouring onto the page!
Since starting a Flash Immersion Month with
on the 1st February, I have written 12 new drafts so far. I launched the Mindful Writing Hours last month, which are free for all to attend, and have held two so far and in each I have written over a thousand words of character development work for the two protagonists in my new novel.It feels like my fallow period for fiction is over. But I have been writing for almost 15 years now and I have come to recognise that another one will come again. I think it relates to many different aspects in my life why I don’t feel the urge to write sometimes and I used to feel really angsty about it. But now, I embrace it as it gives me more time to do other things I enjoy when the writing isn’t at the forefront. So if you are having a fallow period and feel worried that the words won’t return, my experience says they will when the time is right for them to do so. How do you feel when these fallow times come along? I’d love to hear from you in the comments or by replying to the email, to let me know.
Now my writing urge has returned I am enjoying pouring the words onto the page. I am loving the act of fearlessly creating and when the time comes, I will edit without mercy. I used to feel really married to the words that came at first draft and feel like most of them needed to stay. But I have learned that sometimes there is just a kernel in there that can be developed.
Writing so many new drafts so quickly like I am doing this month means that many of the words and ideas that have appeared on the page probably won’t develop into anything as they are. But an image, a sentence, a character may well be all that I was supposed to find from that piece of writing. Understanding this has been one of the most fundamental shifts in my writing practice. It has freed me to write without fear, with a whole lot of joy, and to appreciate that it’s the doing of it that really matters. And that the times of not doing it matter just as much. We don’t have writers’ block, we just need some time of not writing.
By accepting my fallow periods, I am filled with new ideas, my time out from the page has seen me learn and experience new things, meet new people, go new places. All of which appear in my stories when the urge to write returns. I have been watching a lot of documentaries and reading a lot of books in the past couple of years (actually in the last decade!) about the nature of reality, both from a spiritual viewpoint and a scientific one, and in many of the flash fiction drafts I have written this months so far, these elements are appearing.
Not consciously, as I have challenged myself to just start writing from the prompt and see what appears and that’s exactly what I have been doing. I haven’t had so much writing fun in ages! What about you? What new elements appear in your writing after some time out from it?
So if the words are flowing for you right now, let them do so without fear. If they’re not, know that you’re being filled up again for the time when they return.
With love,
My current offerings
The Heart of Your Story
Start date: 2nd March
Cost: £100
A 4-week Zoom course to help you discover the real meaning behind your story by getting inside your protagonist’s heart and mind. Stories are containers for change, a shift in heart and mindset for your protagonist is where the resonance lies. So for us to write about the time of change, we have to know what they're transforming from and how they got like that, why they need to make the change now, and what's at stake if they don't. We will dive deep into the protagonist at the heart of your story in order to find the story's heart.
Zoom sessions: 10.30 - 12.30 GMT on Sat 2nd March, Sat 9th March, Sat 16th March and Sat 23rd March.
Spaces are limited to 8 writers.
Finding New Angles for Common Themes
Sun 10 Mar 2024 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM GMT
Zoom
There are only so many themes our stories can explore so finding new and surprising ways to tell them will help keep your readers interested. As writers, there are also themes that recur over and over in our writing but we don't need to stop writing about them - we just need to do it in ways we've not tried before.
In this workshop we'll be looking at the ways you can find new angles to tell stories from. Join me to get ideas, inspiration and new drafts of stories that come from angles you've never tried before!
Thank you for this, Amanda. It's comforting to read as I am definitely in a fallow period right now. I've come to accept that life is taking up so much of my head space for now that there just isn't room for anything else. I think I've written one short story in the last year, which did make it onto the RW Annual prize shortlist and arrived on the page almost fully formed. So, this seems to validate the idea that so much is happening in the subconscious mind, while the conscious mind is either busy elsewhere or just plain exhausted!