Writing, Fear, and Yoga

 

Though it may look like the writer isn't doing much, sitting for hours in front of a laptop, the brain is heavily engaged.  The work is often emotionally demanding, taking us places that we're afraid of but need to go, and forcing us to look into the black heart of our deepest fears to uncover truth in our characters and situation.

  It takes great courage to walk the difficult path of the artist, and often the effort is physically exhausting.  Fear is always tracking you, and the closer you are to reaching your writing goals, the more intense and insidious that fear can become.  Fear is a great shapeshifter, looking like block, like the need to research, like being too busy to write.  It can stop your story in its tracks just when you're about to make a breakthrough.  My latest work in progress is particularly challenging, taking me to dark recesses of the past, exploring notions just beyond my intellectual capabilities, and forcing me to rethink what I know about fiction.  Every writing session is hard.  That's how I know I'm on the right path - because it it were easy, I wouldn't be pushing myself, growing, or moving my skills to a higher bar.  So how does one cope with this fear in all of its incarnations?  How do you push through it towards completion? 

My biggest ally against fear is to move my body.  Exercise of all kind helps, but for me, there's nothing quite like either swimming, or doing yoga - two forms of exercise that have a mental impact on me.  Both swimming and yoga are what I call breath practices, because they rely on regular and focused breathing. It's often too cold for me to swim.  I don't much like heated indoor pools (the chlorine doesn't agree with me), so I tend to do a lot of yoga.  Yoga is amazing for writers.  Here are three reasons why yoga is a natural ally for the writer:

• It helps teach us to see writing as a practice, rather than an end point.  We keep moving along the writing path, growing, changing, and pushing towards wisdom and expression.  It's not possible to fail, no matter how hard it is, when you have this perception.  Showing up for practice is all that's needed.

• It teaches you to breathe.  Ah, breath.  How simple and yet how powerful. Breathing is the perfect antedote to fear.  I first found out how powerful it was when I was in labour with my first child, screaming in pain.  An angel of a midwife came to me and taught me to breath slowly, deeply, with my full body and I calmed down and got to work.  I've turned to breath again and again in times of stress, strife, and fear, and it never fails to remind me of the transience of each moment and the need to work, calmly, through panic. 

•  It teaches patience.  Sometimes the right words take time to come.  You have to keep showing up, doing the exercises, stretching, breathing and working towards the vision.

Yoga teaches me to see my writing as work that has to be done - a responsibility and positive impetus rather than a vanity (another manifestation of fear).  So next time you're struggling with the dragons of fear -- call it what you will: block, self-doubt, other priorities, "no-time" -- try taking a 30 minute yoga break and see if that doesn't help.  Breath through it.  Even when it hurts.  Then back to work.  The world is waiting for you to change it. 

Writing as Nostalgia

It starts small, as something inchoate.  You don't know why you're drawn to a topic, a setting, a subject.  There's just something compelling--a magnetic field that pulls at you as you begin to type.  Much of my work starts with this kind of magnetism.  As the subject begins to come together, the streets turn into New York City in the 1980s, or a small hamlet in Tasmania, or The Grossinger's hotel in the 1940s Borscht Belt.  The themes, the plots, the characters are all driven by instinct and nostalgia.  Something in me wants to explore the correspondences, the connections.  The whole process of writing, fiction and poetry at least, for me has an undercurrent of nostalgia that is becoming clearer as I move deeper into my third novel, an exploration of the creative urge, love, loss and time travel through the DNA wormhole that links the 1940s and 2011.  

The more I think about it, the more I realise that this is a motivating force for many authors, not just myself.  We need to find a spot that we've somehow missed, to explore a notion that bugs us, and then, like a grain of sand in an oyster, to pearlise it and create something that is no longer personal and lost, but universal and found.  I've been exploring this notion, not only in my own work as I aim my fingers into the past, but in the work of others as I traverse literary landscapes that work best when they invoke a similar nostalgia in me.  The sense of loss that motivates the characters is familiar and relevant to the modern reader regardless of whether the book is set in Victorian England or a mythical planet in the constellation of Kasterborous.  Reflecting on the past by exploring its meaning to the present and that disassociative, uncomfortable sensation of not being able to ever get back to that point creates a visceral sensation that is empathetic and powerful.  There's something there that you have to pick at.  Something Proustian in the taste of those madelines, or the smell of that long forgotten perfume.  

It's suprisingly painful, both as reader and as writer, to go to that place, and explore the sensations, knowing that this is all we have left of the past.  Bringing it back to life, at the same time as we distance ourselves from it through irony, creates a very post-modern type of novel that I'm finding to be increasingly relevant to the modern sensibility.  

Walking Through Walls Virtual Tour Stop: Successful Writing Strategy: Know Your Intent by Karen Cioffi

Intent is a crucial factor in success. But, what exactly does this mean?

To succeed in anything you need to know what you want, what you’re striving for. And, that knowledge has to be clearly defined.

An unclear destination or goal is similar to being on a path that has very low hanging branches, an assortment of rocks that may hinder your forward movement, uneven and rugged terrain, branches and even logs strewn across the road; you get the idea. You kind of step over the debris, look around or through the branches, you don’t have a clear view of where you’re going.

A clear cut goal is akin to walking on a smooth and clear path. No goal related obstacles to hinder your forward momentum or vision.

But, let me add to the sentence above, while intent is crucial, it’s an active and passionate pursuit of your intent that will actually allow you to achieve success. It reminds me of a passage in the Bible at James 24:26, “Faith without works is dead.” While the intent is there, if you don’t actively take the needed steps to get from A to B, walk-the-walk, rather than just talk-the-talk, you’ll never reach your goal.

To realize your intent, it would be beneficial for you to create a list of questions and statements outlining the specifics to that intent.

A few of questions you might include are:

What is your ultimate success goal?

What does the obtainment of your goal mean?

After picturing it, what does success look like to you?

How will you reach your goal?

So, how would you answer these questions?

As a writer, perhaps your goal is to write for one or two major magazines. Maybe you’d prefer to be published in a number of smaller magazines. Possibly you want to author a book a year and have them published by traditional publishing houses. Or, maybe you want to self-publish your own books at a faster or slower pace.

Maybe success to you is to make a comfortable living, or you may be very happy with simply supplementing your income. Maybe you want to be a professional, sought after ghostwriter or copywriter. Maybe you want to be a coach, a speaker, offer workshops, or present teleseminars. These are some of the potential goals for a writer.

Whatever your vision of success is, you need to see it clearly, write it down (it’d be a good idea to also create a vision board), and take the necessary steps to get you where you want to be.

If you find you have a realistic success vision, and are taking the necessary steps to achieve your envisioned intent, at least you think you are, but you still can’t seem to reach the goal, then perhaps your efforts aren’t narrowly focused enough. Maybe your success vision is too broad. Wanting to be a writer is a noble endeavor, but it’s a very broad target and kind of like shooting a shotgun compared to shooting a rifle or gun. With a shotgun you may hit a broader target, but it won’t be with the effectiveness and direct force of a single shot aimed at a one focused target.

Try narrowing down, fine tuning your goal. Remember, it’s essential to be specific and focused.

It might be to your advantage to create success steps that continually move you forward on the path to reaching your ultimate goal.

For someone new to writing, the first step on a writing career would be to learn the craft of writing. You might give yourself a year or two to join writing groups, take advantage of writing workshops or classes, write for article directories, or create stories. You should also be part of at least one critique group. This would be your first step to achieving your success vision.

Instead of trying to go directly from A to B, it might be more effective to go from A to A1 to A2 to A3 . . . to B. But, again, for each step, the intent, a clear-cut vision, and the driving passion all need to be front and center.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Karen Cioffi is an author and ghostwriter. Her new MG/YA fantasy book, Walking Through Walls, is based on an ancient Chinese tale.

Longing to be rich and powerful, twelve-year-old Wang studies the legend of the mystical Eternals. Certain they are real, he journeys to their temple and begins an apprenticeship with the Eternal Master. There he enters a world of magic where not everything is as it seems, and where he learns the magic formula to ‘walking through walls.’

Walking Through Walls should now be available through online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and book stores. If it’s not yet listed, it will be very soon!

 

You can also order the book today at:

 http://4rvpublishingcatalog.yolasite.com/mg-ya-page-2.php

To learn more about Walking Through Walls, its touring schedule and contest, and purchasing information visit: http://walkingthroughwalls-kcioffi.blogspot.com

To learn more about Karen and her books, visit:

http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/p/karens-books.html

Please be sure to stop by Susanne Drazic’s site (http://susannedrazic.blogspot.com/) on July 27th for the next stop on the Walking Through Walls Tour.

Poetry Partners Hold Artwork Contest for Fifth Chapbook

It's been said (quite a few times) that a picture is worth a thousand words. Even though Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I are poets, we think the original author may have underestimated, and we'd like you--if you're a painter or a photographer--to prove us wrong.

We are the coauthors of the Celebration Series of chapbooks of poetry.

They include Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love), She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list), Imagining the Future (for Fathers), and Blooming Red, a Christmas chapbook. Chapbooks have been a tradition in the poetry world since Elizabethan times. The Celebration Series goes beyond the cliched sentiments in most greeting cards - and does it for about the same price.

All four of our chapbooks are illustrated by artists making each a triple effort.

Cherished Pulse and Blooming Red feature artwork from California artist Vicki Thomas. She Wore Emerald Then features photographs by May Lattanzio (see the cover in the Amazon buy-link at the left)  and Imagining the Future a photo by one of America's most celebrated composers of opera, music theatre and songs Ricky Ian Gordon (he's also my uncle).  We are planning a fifth chapbook lauding women's issues and feminist themes. We are looking for submissions to be used on its cover. Yes, it's a contest.

The winner's work will be featured on Deeper Into the Pond: A Celebration of Femininity to be published later in 2011. There is no pay but since I run The Compulsive Reader, and Howard-Johnson is the author of a multi award-winning series of books for writers including The Frugal Book Promoter, we can promise a wide distribution of the cover image, credit, and a biography of the cover artist in the book, and tons of marketing exposure.

See the other chapbooks' covers at http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm.

Here is a poem from that chapbook to give you an idea of its contents:


Cetacean Dreaming

Last night I dreamt
I swam with dolphins
under the angry chaos above
boiling, bubbling wave crash
we moved slowly
sharing mammalian wisdom
in clicks and whistles.

My cetacean body slate blue
thick and fluid
moved easily through the pod
belying the great heft of me
swimming , like flying
the glide and slide as I forgot everything but smooth flow
velocity.

Sonar guided me forward
echolocation to a destiny
nothing like domination
consumerism and desire
the triple bang crack of light
that woke me
to my frail, flawed humanity.

If you have something you'd like us to see, please e-mail your creative work to me at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with SUBMISSION: DEEPER INTO THE POND in the subject line. We hope to have a decision by June 1, 2011 and we reserve the right to select no winner. If a winner is selected, we may also choose runners-up so those acknowledgments may be used by the winners for purposes of marketing. There is no fee for entering, and only the honor and publication of the artwork for being selected. Oh, yes. And two copies of the finished chapbook. We hope to hear from you.

Character Auction

  

Authors for Autistica are running a fantastic character auction on ebay, featuring over 20 best-selling authors.

People can bid to have their name in the upcoming novels of  Ken Follett,  Roopa Farooki,  Glenn Cooper, Hari Kunzru, Darren Shan, David Mitchell and more.  In a second auction, authors including  R J Ellory, James Sallis and L C Tyler will give unpublished writers feedback on their work.  

The link is:  http://members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=autistica_charity and the auction ends this Sunday.

All funds raised will go to autism research.   It's a good cause and an interesting opportunity - some are even offering you the option to determine whether your character is good, bad, or neutral.