One Could Say It Was a Failure

lizshine74by lizshine74

In Inspiration, On writing, Persist.

crumpled paper

One of my writer besties has often warned me of what can happen when you put too much intention into a certain chunk of time to get your creative work done. When you do this, when you so boldly declare your position, you invite all the demons and distractions in too. I for sure felt that as I spent the last 18 days trying to fit in a bit more time than usual. If you look at my form, you’ll see I did not even come close to writing every day or filling all the boxes in. My mind is quick to rush in and make excuses. I don’t need to make excuses. And when I look at the arc of the time I did sit down to write, I discover an important truth: I tripled the word count on my current book, and more importantly, I walked through some pretty major mud and found the right path forward for this book. I’m all set for what March has to bring. 

I don’t know if Rick Rubens’s book opened the way for more books on creativity or if I’m just tuned into them more when I am browsing bookstores, but I’m seeing more of them right now as I did when I spent a few hours browsing Elliot Bay Books in Seattle yesterday. These books that want to remind us that we have the right (some say duty) to make our art have been knots on the rope along my path to becoming a writer (sometimes uphill). Remember SARK? Last week, I was here in Olympia at Browser’s Books browsing and I found a card deck of prompts for the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. That book taught me how to start as a writer, how to get under the surface to the juicy parts, the real story, the “truth”. 

Maybe I’ve been noticing these books because I needed to be reminded that they were out there, should I need them. Writing has been slow. I’m discovering the path I want to take in my new book, but I’ve come across parts that were too hard for me to reach or that hit a dead-end. I turned fifty on Monday, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the looming of the turn of another decade led to some deep wonderings and restless wanderings these past many weeks. In the rearview now, I can see that I was simply finding my path forward, packing my bag for the decade ahead. 

One could say that my virtual retreat was a failure, that unless I win the elusive lottery, I may as well just give in and start watching all those TV shows I never make time for. I could take more naps, and get into jigsaw puzzles. But that’s not how I see it, and as chance may have it, Joy Harjo got to have the last say. I listened to her speak at SAL (Seattle Arts and Lectures) last night. She spoke a poem speech of such breadth and beauty that I lost track of myself for a time. She spoke poem-snippets on many subjects, but at the heart of it the power of stories to heal and connect us pulsed. A lady next to me kept vocalizing her awe, like Harjo was the preacher and she needed saving. She kept opening her notebook and using the light of her phone to jot down phrases she wanted to take home with her and have for leftovers. I am often that note-taker. I didn’t want to break the spell by writing anything down. I’d lost myself in the flow of words and wanted to stay there to the end. She spoke of the aliveness of the creative space, the aliveness of everything. I sit this morning and try to sum up a speech and a talk that is difficult to sum up because it was a poem that sat with my soul a while to remind it not to be so separate and selfish. There is so much more at stake than your little self. 

At the beginning of this month, I invited you to write with me, and I shared this form. Reuse it anytime. Remember that success is measured many ways. If you didn’t fill all the boxes or make your word count goal–no matter. Writing is also the hard parts. It is often the hard parts. LitHub published a piece by Harjo on the craft of writing in which she writes, “With each new poem, story, or song, I need to be challenged, opened to the impossible, then restored. This happens with a call-and-response between my spirit and the light of knowing. I ask questions, listen, then find the musical waves upon which to write. I never know where I am going or how I will get there, and that’s the thrill of it.” She said pretty much the same thing last night. It was one of the nuggets of truth it turned out I was there for. 

I also work as a writing coach and love helping writers gain confidence, set goals, and develop their work. For more information on coaching, email me at eatyourwords.lizshine@gmail.com.

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.