Trust the writing process. Audio version included.

lizshine74by lizshine74

In Affirmations.

Trust the writing process. Audio version included.

Read this or put this on repeat if you want to break through resistance and trust the writing process. Better yet, write and record your own version.

*Deep inhale, long exhale

As in life, there will be uncertainty in your creative work. You may write a million words and never publish one. Your writing will be stilted, contrived, and full of writerly exposition, revealing that you don’t yet trust your reader. 

Practice trust. 

Let go of fear so you can stay in the flow. Let your characters guide you. Stay in the moment. 

Let go of worry. Don’t follow the compulsion to explain. Follow the compulsion to show. 

Let go of future-tripping about what your writing says about you as a WRITER. Let go of those existential questions. 

Are you writing? 

Then, you’re a writer. Trust the writing process.

The more important question is–Does it feel good to write? 

In my experience, it doesn’t feel good when you let fear take the wheel. Remember why you started writing anyway. If you’re like me, you started writing so you could feel better, understand more, tell the story you’d been aching to tell. 

Is this easier said than done? 

For sure. Practice makes perfect, my friends. 

Let’s do this thing together. 

Trust the process. Let go your need to control the outcome. Let it flow.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?

 Find free resources and information here.

Some past posts to keep you making time: 

Adjust your pace accordingly.

It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine

There are things you will have to give up

See it to achieve it

Washing the dishes

Write slowly

A celebration of the pause

Monday, a run through the driving rain

Zen accident

Get out of your comfort zone

Additional Inspiration: The One You Feed Interview with George Saunders

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 in the USA. 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 has published in Shark Reef, Dual Coast, and Blue Crow Magazine. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.