Building a Writing Practice

“Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Everyone I know is writing a book, including me.  There's something highly satisfying about telling people, "Oh, yes, I'm writing a book about blah blah blah..." Sometimes I even explain what I'm writing and try to make the process of book writing seem exciting.  It makes the otherwise tedious process sound glamorous, like I'm a real author.  Being an author and recording a story and new things about the world understanding new things about the world is powerful and seductive.  People want to tell their stories.

On the other hand, I know very few people who are actually writing these books that everyone claims to be writing. Everyone says that they'll start writing when they're "less busy."  That day never seems to come. Writing takes time, effort, and persistence. Being an author sounds glamorous.  Being a writer, however, sounds lonely and difficult. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Writing isn't an instantly gratifying process.  Writing is not something that occupies the space of an afternoon.  Its not even a weekend project.  Depending on the size of the piece, it might not even be a year long project.  Or a two year long project.  Its hard to feel enthusiastic about something that doesn't carry with it the promise of immediate gratification.

So what's the trick to persevering though a writing project?  Building a writing practice.

Natalie Goldberg writes about this in Writing Down the Bones.  She likens creating a writing practice to having a spiritual practice and emphasizes the importance of writing consistently. 

Sounds great and exciting and very grown up! A writing practice! But how does one build a writing practice? 

I believe that a writing practice is as unique and as individual as the writer. [Some people even advocate not writing every day.  Whatever works!] I've finally developed a practice that works for me.  

A writing practice has to become a habit.  Not just something that you do every now and then when you remember the book you're supposed to be writing, but something that you do every single day.  Day in and day out.  

I put writing on my schedule.

I begin with gratitude.  I give thanks to the universe every morning that I wake up.  I'm particularly grateful for being given yet another day in which I get to write.  Consistently giving gratitude reminds me that having time to write is a blessing.

After giving thanks for the opportunity to write, I meditate.  Meditation is a practice I've developed much in the same way that I've developed a writing practice and often times, they are indistinguishable from each other.  I'm not one of those people who has the time and patience to meditate for an hour a day.  I shoot for twenty minutes of deeply focused mindful meditation.  I will never be any kind of zen master, but meditation has become the place where I can quietly listen to my heart.  Meditating regularly also significantly increased my focus for actual writing.  One writer I know practices yoga daily for this same reason.

When I'm done meditating, I sit to write.  lts starting to feel much like a meditation practice. Like my meditation practice, it does me no good to do it every once in a while when I remember to do it.  I don't always want to write.  Sometimes I positively do not want to write.  There are plenty of days that I feel too sad to write. As I've learned in meditation, I notice my resistance to writing and let it go. But I sit down and give more thanks for the outcome of my daily writing. I'll often start with my journal and just write anything that comes to mind.  It doesn't seem to matter so much what I say, but rather that I say something.

And then I start.  I write for a few hours every day and stop at the time that I've scheduled. Sometimes it seems like enough, sometimes like too much, and sometimes like too little. The important thing, as always, is to just do it.  When I'm done writing, I give more thanks for another day of writing.

Here's the hard part: doing the whole thing again the next day.  Its like exercise or eating vegetables--I do it because I know that the long term outcome is good for me.

If my writing practice seems heavy vague notions of spirituality on the gratitude, this is by design.  Giving thanks and gratitude for writing turn it into less of a chore and more of a privilege.

I'd like to keep modifying an improving my writing practice and making writing more personal, more meaningful, and more spiritual every time I do it. What else could be included in a writing practice?