Here’s something you may not know about me: I write and craft essays slowly. Like,
drip
drip
drop
kind of slowly.
The essays that I like to write are heartfelt, hopeful, and take a considerable amount of time for me to write. Which is why I don’t publish an essay every week right now, and sometimes fall short of my goal of once a month. I write when I make time and I write slooooowly. I often question, Why write if there’s so much labor involved?
And then I remember: it’s the creative process that’s rewarding. It’s pure. It’s cathartic. It’s magic.
Many people reading may be writers and will know what I’m talking about when I say magic. But I surmise that anyone who allows time for the creative processes in their life—whether it’s in cooking, gardening, tinkering, or simply rearranging furniture in the house—can notice this magic element also if they look for it.
There’s some kind of dance with the universe
that occurs
when we let our creativity take over.
Essay ideas find their way to me. I’ll either get a swell rising from an internal emotion, or an external stimulus will elicit my attention. Sometimes, a phrase will just appear in my mind. Immediately, I’ll know there’s something worth exploring. I have to sketch the prompt out, like an artist, to find what’s meant for me to discover.
This is my writing process.
1. Get out what I have in my head and put pen to paper. This is the “shitty first draft” on the page, often a freewheeling stream of consciousness. Punctuation and grammar do not matter, yet, AT ALL. If I’m honest, my rough drafts often are word vomit on a page. But two things major things happen in writing here: I’ve set up a container for an essay to form. This rough draft is my cauldron. Also, in the action of doing, I’ve put out intention into the universe.
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”
―Anne Lamott
2. Let the piece marinate. Let it bubble in the cauldron and let it sit. Bring the piece offerings when I find them. Let the Universe respond. It’s here that the outer world starts to gift me the ingredients that I need to finish the essay. Just yesterday, for example, I stumbled across the Japanese word ukiyo, which translates into “the floating world” and means “to live in the moment, detached from bothers.” It aligns with an essay that I’ve scribbled out, so I wrote down this word and researched it a bit more. The word ukiyo, as I learned, pertains to the Edo period of Japan, from 1615-1868. A flame lit in my mind and I wondered, What is the Edo period? What does this mean?
See? The universe now takes me down a rabbit hole that may or may not further inform my essay. I’m traveling through time and space. I’m gathering material along the way to bring back. I start to see the essay form. I visit it frequently with the new offerings.
3. Weave and polish. My intuition will tell me when I’m done with the gathering phase, and I’m ready to start weaving it all together. This is the polishing part; this is where I enter a reverie and come out of it with a finished essay. I lose time. I’m in a slipstream of words. I once heard the writer of Grey’s Anatomy, Shonda Rimes, call this part of the creative process the hum and that’s exactly what it feels like I’m doing. I’m humming with the Universe, like voicing OM, low and slow, with an entire yoga class. I’m vibrating in alignment with something greater than myself and the piece is writing me as much as I’m writing it. This space…I’m in ukiyo, the floating world. This feeling…it’s why I keep writing.
And then the ending lands. Whether it comes as a big crashing crescendo or as soft notes that gently fade, when the ending comes, I feel accomplished, worn out, and invigorated.
Of course, there are always exceptions and no hard and fast rules to my writing process. Sometimes, I find an object and the essay forms instantly in my head. Other times, I sit down to write and an essay comes out in one extended breath. Usually, though, it’s a slow unveiling of what is meant to be written.
I write slowly, that’s part of my process.
Some of my Favorite Books on Writing
Writers writing about writing is one of my favorite subjects to read. We’re using our own creative medium to describe the process. What an opportunity! I often think about other artistic disciplines— how do they accomplish this? How do they explain, via their own art form, the magic that happens when making art?
These are a few favorite books on writing:
Still Writing, Dani Shapiro
The Butterfly Hours, Patty Dann
On Writing, Stephen King
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
forthcoming book, Janisse Ray (full disclosure- I haven’t read it yet, but know it will be great and I am looking forward to it.)
I journaled differently in January
Lastly, I wanted to share my journaling process for the month of January. I tore a page out of my artist’s notebook every day and scribbled, doodled, wrote intentions, wrote prayers, wrote down recipe ideas, put down song lyrics, and overheard phrases. I drew lots of spirals. I wrote poems. I taped each day’s entry up on the wall.
Above is a snippet from the wall. I noticed it was more challenging for me to keep up this practice on some days. This was a good mapping of my creative energy throughout the month. Sometimes, I combined days onto one page. I noticed that pages had more white space on some days.
I also noticed certain themes coming up again and again. When I reviewed these pages at the end of the month, I categorized themes for potential future essays.
This exercise felt aligned with Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages,” if you are familiar with that practice and her book The Artist’s Way. I felt accomplished in journaling by posting them on the wall. I took more consideration. I made my journaling practice an art show exhibition for the month of January.
Creating some of the entries allowed me to get in the space of the hum, of ukiyo and reminded me once again that the true joy is in the doing.
Would you share some of your writing/creative processes in the comments? I’d love to hear how it happens for others.
Thank you and Much Love,
Katie
Katie, I devoured this post. Thank you. And I appreciate so much the shout-out. Truly, truly.
I love those pictures of your January journal pages taped on the wall. Inspiring! I also love the metaphor of a cauldron. Thank you for sharing this!