This month's topic is all about Spring Cleaning Your Writing. For those of you who don't think you need to spring clean your writing life, consider how good actual spring cleaning makes you feel. This year I had a very profound experience in getting rid of junk. About two weeks ago, within days of each other, I unloaded two carloads of books I've been hauling around with me over the years since college, made a trip to the electronic recycling center and even rid myself of a working computer, and cut off six-plus inches of hair. It wasn't intentional doing all this stuff at the same time, but the results were dramatic. I felt as if I'd lost fifteen pounds. I felt lighter, newer, and freer. Sound dramatic? I assure you it's not. Spring cleaning is cleansing, which is why every writer needs to incorporate it as a spring ritual.
Spring cleaning, as we're approaching it in our workshop, will be a metaphor, a goal, and an intention. It can be actual spring cleaning, and should be, especially if you're writing in a cluttered office space---or worse, a nook in the corner of one of your bedrooms or living room. It can also be spring cleaning of your creative space, a washing out of old ideas that are weighing you down, or which are simply not serving you. We all hold onto things, but we oftentimes don't understand why. I was growing out my hair, but for what purpose? It was nice in the beginning, when it was still healthy, but after a certain point I was growing out my hair because I was attached to the idea of having long hair. Once I chopped it off, I had to ask myself why I waited as long as I did. The same is true in writing, only finding out the things you're holding onto can require a little more inquiry.
Even if you can't attend the workshop, I urge you to do one spring cleany thing thing this month as it pertains to your writing. Clean your desk or office space. Get rid of books you haven't opened in more than three years (and which don't hold significant sentimental value, of course). Or journal on some or all of the following questions:
1. What do I love about being a writer?
2. Which of these things are about what brings my soul alive?
3. What kinds of risks do I take in my writing?
4. What would it mean to truly risk myself in my writing?
5. What one thing am I unwilling to let go of when it comes to my writing?
6. If I had to let go of this one thing, what would happen?
7. How does that actually make you feel?
These questions could be part of your daily pages or personal journaling. I encourage it as a way of digging deeper into the question of what maybe needs to be cleaned and cleared out versus the places where you know you have a tendency to be cluttered and stuck. Take a chance here and see what reveals itself. Maybe it will be so effective that you'll feel compelled to ritualize the experience for yourself.
---Brooke
April 2, 2008
March 12, 2008
SoulCollage and the writer in you
As Krista and I get prepared for our second SoulCollage workshop, I've been doing a lot of thinking about all the ways in which SoulCollage can help writers tap into their inner creativity. SoulCollage is amazingly intuitive. Sometimes, completely unexpectedly, I'll be thinking about some profound connection I've just made and realize that I've made a card that depicts exactly the emotion or energy I'm feeling in that moment. SoulCollage--or more broadly, allowing space for visual support in your life---can be a gift to writers who are willing to explore the full potential of what images have to offer you when it comes to your writing. They're there if you're open to receiving them.
I often encourage my writers to think about visual imagery as a friend to help them with focus, or intention. If you're writing memoir, for instance, there might be a particular image from your book that grounds you in your work. Or it might be more general. Lots of people identify with the natural world: soil to represent growth and the planting of the seed of creativity; water to represent the fluidity and forward motion of creativity and unfolding; trees to represent the grounding nature of the writing process.
Allow whatever images come up for you to be your friend in your writing process. Give an invitation and see what happens. I suspect that any of you who've never heard of SoulCollage before imagine that you need some sort of workshop or experience in order to do it right. But the reality is you don't. You can cut out or print or save any visual image that appeals to you. It might be something from an old calendar, or a photo you love from a website, or an image you see in a magazine. The point is having an awareness about the power of visual imagery to be a guide and a muse. If you're sitting stuck at your computer, confronted by the power of the blank page, imagine the power of an image that reminds you of your sense of purpose, that puts you directly into a space of ease and mindfulness.
I encourage you to be on the lookout for that image. Give it a try. Next time you're flipping through a magazine, stop when you see something that you're drawn to. Don't ask yourself why. Cut it out and hang it in your workspace.Or if you see something online, save it to your desktop and set it up as your wallpaper or screensaver image. Allow yourself to contemplate why you were drawn to it in the first place. It's amazing the insights that come when we just allow ourselves to meditate on the simple act of being present with something that captures our attention. And if you think about it, that's exactly the discipline you need to be cultivating for your writing: curiosity, presence, unfolding, and the possibility for alternate and additional meanings to reveal themselves over time.
---Brooke
RETURN TO WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
I often encourage my writers to think about visual imagery as a friend to help them with focus, or intention. If you're writing memoir, for instance, there might be a particular image from your book that grounds you in your work. Or it might be more general. Lots of people identify with the natural world: soil to represent growth and the planting of the seed of creativity; water to represent the fluidity and forward motion of creativity and unfolding; trees to represent the grounding nature of the writing process.
Allow whatever images come up for you to be your friend in your writing process. Give an invitation and see what happens. I suspect that any of you who've never heard of SoulCollage before imagine that you need some sort of workshop or experience in order to do it right. But the reality is you don't. You can cut out or print or save any visual image that appeals to you. It might be something from an old calendar, or a photo you love from a website, or an image you see in a magazine. The point is having an awareness about the power of visual imagery to be a guide and a muse. If you're sitting stuck at your computer, confronted by the power of the blank page, imagine the power of an image that reminds you of your sense of purpose, that puts you directly into a space of ease and mindfulness.
I encourage you to be on the lookout for that image. Give it a try. Next time you're flipping through a magazine, stop when you see something that you're drawn to. Don't ask yourself why. Cut it out and hang it in your workspace.Or if you see something online, save it to your desktop and set it up as your wallpaper or screensaver image. Allow yourself to contemplate why you were drawn to it in the first place. It's amazing the insights that come when we just allow ourselves to meditate on the simple act of being present with something that captures our attention. And if you think about it, that's exactly the discipline you need to be cultivating for your writing: curiosity, presence, unfolding, and the possibility for alternate and additional meanings to reveal themselves over time.
---Brooke
RETURN TO WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
February 4, 2008
radical simplification
I've written here before about David Whyte, who's an amazing poet and genius at articulating simple truths of life in ways that you allow you to hear and understand things you already know in a deeper and more full way. What he's able to do is take the small details of our everyday lives and remove them from their contexts, apply them to bigger contexts, and thus simplify them and universalize them.
Though he's wonderful to listen to and is certainly a brilliant man, this ability is not a talent. It's a learned and practiced skill that all writers should learn to pay attention to. The recurring theme of my coaching over the past two or three weeks has been the need to simplify. Certainly this applies to me, too, but I feel like all I'm seeing lately is the ways in which my writers and clients are complicating their writing, making their own creative journeys more difficult and more convoluted, and in that creating all kinds of obstacles to their goals that didn't exist when they set the goal in the first place.
The solution to this? Radical simplicity. David Whyte wrote: "… we understand that though the world will never be simple, a life that honors the soul seems to have a kind of radical simplicity at the center of it." What is radical simplicity and how do you bring that to your writing (or your whole life if you're aiming high)? Certainly it takes practice and slowing down, but there's a real discipline to radical simplicity. It's trusting yourself. Trusting that you know the words that belong on the page and that you know the story that needs to be told. If you feel like you're trying too hard, chances are you are. If you feel like your writing lacks focus, your reader is probably going to feel that way too. If you can't see the forest through the trees, consider taking a giant step away from your current perspective and approaching your work from a fresh one. What ten adjectives would you use to describe the project you're working on right now? If someone asked you what it is, would you be able to describe it in three sentences? Writing---whether it's a short story, a novel, a nonfiction project, a screenplay, or even a speech, must come from what you know. It must be delivered from a humble place, and from a knowing place. As writers you must learn to trust yourselves, and you must learn to honor your writing by allowing it to have a kind of radical simplicity at its core.
Do yourself a favor in February and take a long walk when you feel frustrated with your writing. Explore what it would mean to you to approach your work from a place of radical simplicity. Consider what your attachment is to the complexities that are weighing you down. And then see if you can start shedding unecessary layers, and try to write those three sentences again and see if what you have looks any different. It's not unlike a business plan. The more simply you're able to articulate what you're writing the easier it will be to sit down at your computer with a sense of ownership over your work. You own the work. The work does not own you.
---Brooke
RETURN TO WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
Though he's wonderful to listen to and is certainly a brilliant man, this ability is not a talent. It's a learned and practiced skill that all writers should learn to pay attention to. The recurring theme of my coaching over the past two or three weeks has been the need to simplify. Certainly this applies to me, too, but I feel like all I'm seeing lately is the ways in which my writers and clients are complicating their writing, making their own creative journeys more difficult and more convoluted, and in that creating all kinds of obstacles to their goals that didn't exist when they set the goal in the first place.
The solution to this? Radical simplicity. David Whyte wrote: "… we understand that though the world will never be simple, a life that honors the soul seems to have a kind of radical simplicity at the center of it." What is radical simplicity and how do you bring that to your writing (or your whole life if you're aiming high)? Certainly it takes practice and slowing down, but there's a real discipline to radical simplicity. It's trusting yourself. Trusting that you know the words that belong on the page and that you know the story that needs to be told. If you feel like you're trying too hard, chances are you are. If you feel like your writing lacks focus, your reader is probably going to feel that way too. If you can't see the forest through the trees, consider taking a giant step away from your current perspective and approaching your work from a fresh one. What ten adjectives would you use to describe the project you're working on right now? If someone asked you what it is, would you be able to describe it in three sentences? Writing---whether it's a short story, a novel, a nonfiction project, a screenplay, or even a speech, must come from what you know. It must be delivered from a humble place, and from a knowing place. As writers you must learn to trust yourselves, and you must learn to honor your writing by allowing it to have a kind of radical simplicity at its core.
Do yourself a favor in February and take a long walk when you feel frustrated with your writing. Explore what it would mean to you to approach your work from a place of radical simplicity. Consider what your attachment is to the complexities that are weighing you down. And then see if you can start shedding unecessary layers, and try to write those three sentences again and see if what you have looks any different. It's not unlike a business plan. The more simply you're able to articulate what you're writing the easier it will be to sit down at your computer with a sense of ownership over your work. You own the work. The work does not own you.
---Brooke
RETURN TO WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE
January 21, 2008
setting your intention for 2008
January is a favorite time to set new goals, to create new resolutions, to think about all the things you haven't been doing but should be. Most of us create resolutions that are fairly vague. They're usually about things we want to get done during the year, but more often than not we have zero to little structure around the ways in which we might accomplish these goals. If your goal is weight loss (perennial favorite), for instance, you'd be best to go about it by starting a regular workout schedule, eating better, and all the rest. But how much easier would this be if you hired a personal trainer and chef to keep you on track? A lot. Most of us don't have the money to hire other people to help us see us through our goals, but there are smaller things you can be doing to follow through with the things you want to accomplish this year.
First, I encourage you to go beyond goal-setting. New year's resolutions need to be more than a goal. They need to have some kind of energy attached to them. They require passion. Or they just won't get done. Setting an intention is going a step beyond goal-setting. It's seeing yourself in that next phase. It's visualizing yourself achieving the goal and being in a new place, a step or two beyond where you are now.
One you've done the visualization and figured out where you want to be, consider getting into group settings that encourage you, that help you bring your intention into a more public space. You can do this by joining a group. If you're a writer and you don't already have a writing group, join one. Go to workshops. There are day-long workshops and weekend workshops on every topic under the sun. One of my own personal goals for 2008 is to hold four workshops. Beyond that, I want to attend at least that many. I kicked off this year by attending a David Whyte weekend at Mount Madonna Center last weekend. David's weekend promised to illuminate the invisible. It's important to take time away from your routine, to join others in a space that celebrates getting in touch with your inner intentions and your inner greatness. Sometimes spending a weekend outside of the pressures that you're feeling just to start, to be creative, and to get going with your goals is exactly the thing you need to allow the space for those things to happen.
Lastly, set up accountabilities. I believe that the best accountability system out there is actually having a coach who you're talking to on a regular basis, checking in with about whether you're on track with your own goals. But if you're struggling with the idea of whether you need or want a coach, then consider telling people (someone you trust to hold you to your commitment) your goals or your intentions and asking them to check in with you about it from time to time. It's a baby step toward more intense accountability, but it's a good start. And it might help you realize the value of accountability. There's a reason why lessons work. You have a lesson and the teacher expects you to practice during the week. If you never practice and there's no progress then the teacher will expect answers. You might start questioning why you're taking lessons in the first place. Every goal you're serious about, therefore, should be treated as something you'd be willing to take a lesson in, to have a teacher hold you to your intention to make progress.
If you're serious about tackling a new project or creating an ongoing writing practice, I encourage you to start with step one and move through to step three, or to tackle all of these over the course of this year. It'll change your life. I promise.
Until next month.
---Brooke
First, I encourage you to go beyond goal-setting. New year's resolutions need to be more than a goal. They need to have some kind of energy attached to them. They require passion. Or they just won't get done. Setting an intention is going a step beyond goal-setting. It's seeing yourself in that next phase. It's visualizing yourself achieving the goal and being in a new place, a step or two beyond where you are now.
One you've done the visualization and figured out where you want to be, consider getting into group settings that encourage you, that help you bring your intention into a more public space. You can do this by joining a group. If you're a writer and you don't already have a writing group, join one. Go to workshops. There are day-long workshops and weekend workshops on every topic under the sun. One of my own personal goals for 2008 is to hold four workshops. Beyond that, I want to attend at least that many. I kicked off this year by attending a David Whyte weekend at Mount Madonna Center last weekend. David's weekend promised to illuminate the invisible. It's important to take time away from your routine, to join others in a space that celebrates getting in touch with your inner intentions and your inner greatness. Sometimes spending a weekend outside of the pressures that you're feeling just to start, to be creative, and to get going with your goals is exactly the thing you need to allow the space for those things to happen.
Lastly, set up accountabilities. I believe that the best accountability system out there is actually having a coach who you're talking to on a regular basis, checking in with about whether you're on track with your own goals. But if you're struggling with the idea of whether you need or want a coach, then consider telling people (someone you trust to hold you to your commitment) your goals or your intentions and asking them to check in with you about it from time to time. It's a baby step toward more intense accountability, but it's a good start. And it might help you realize the value of accountability. There's a reason why lessons work. You have a lesson and the teacher expects you to practice during the week. If you never practice and there's no progress then the teacher will expect answers. You might start questioning why you're taking lessons in the first place. Every goal you're serious about, therefore, should be treated as something you'd be willing to take a lesson in, to have a teacher hold you to your intention to make progress.
If you're serious about tackling a new project or creating an ongoing writing practice, I encourage you to start with step one and move through to step three, or to tackle all of these over the course of this year. It'll change your life. I promise.
Until next month.
---Brooke
December 27, 2007
procrastination: the source of so many excuses
Procrastination is the theme of this month's newsletter. Yes, it's the 27th, and yes, I'm just now getting to this. We all do it, but what is it all about and why do we succumb so easily?
There are lots of reasons. Some of us are just plain overwhelmed. Some of us need deadlines and accountability to be able to make progress with our goals. Some of us have amazing ideas and creative juices flowing, but it's just too much going on in our heads all at once and we don't know where to start.
Procrastination is the key reason why many writers aren't making progress on their articles, their novels, their screenplays, their book proposals. And a lot of times the more you procrastinate the more burdened you feel. It's like the friend you were supposed to call last month. With each passing week it gets more and more pressured and more and more awkward until you feel that pressure cooker feeling and just try to squeeze it to some nether region of your brain. But it always has a little hold on you, doesn't it? And when it comes to your passions, the things you're not doing for this reason or that, it's a lot worse, because that shoulding---no matter how far back you try to push it---crops up over and over again.
So December was a month for procrastinating. And we have such good excuses. We're Christmas shopping. There are more family demands than usual. Work feels crazy. I had my own personal excuse: I moved. Or I got sick. And I did, but even I know that that shouldn't mean the whole month has to go down the toilet where my goals and forward-movement is concerned.
So January. Sweet January. We have such high hopes for you. A month predicated on ringing in the new. Out with the bad old habits. In with the resolutions and promises to dedicate more time to the things we love to do for ourselves.
If you're a bad procrastinator, a king or queen of excuses and reasons why you're not getting to all the side projects you have and things you love, do consider getting a coach. Try a free session. It's amazing what accountability can do for you. And by this time next year you'll be reading this post and thinking to yourself, That's not me.
Until next time. Happy New Year.
---Brooke
There are lots of reasons. Some of us are just plain overwhelmed. Some of us need deadlines and accountability to be able to make progress with our goals. Some of us have amazing ideas and creative juices flowing, but it's just too much going on in our heads all at once and we don't know where to start.
Procrastination is the key reason why many writers aren't making progress on their articles, their novels, their screenplays, their book proposals. And a lot of times the more you procrastinate the more burdened you feel. It's like the friend you were supposed to call last month. With each passing week it gets more and more pressured and more and more awkward until you feel that pressure cooker feeling and just try to squeeze it to some nether region of your brain. But it always has a little hold on you, doesn't it? And when it comes to your passions, the things you're not doing for this reason or that, it's a lot worse, because that shoulding---no matter how far back you try to push it---crops up over and over again.
So December was a month for procrastinating. And we have such good excuses. We're Christmas shopping. There are more family demands than usual. Work feels crazy. I had my own personal excuse: I moved. Or I got sick. And I did, but even I know that that shouldn't mean the whole month has to go down the toilet where my goals and forward-movement is concerned.
So January. Sweet January. We have such high hopes for you. A month predicated on ringing in the new. Out with the bad old habits. In with the resolutions and promises to dedicate more time to the things we love to do for ourselves.
If you're a bad procrastinator, a king or queen of excuses and reasons why you're not getting to all the side projects you have and things you love, do consider getting a coach. Try a free session. It's amazing what accountability can do for you. And by this time next year you'll be reading this post and thinking to yourself, That's not me.
Until next time. Happy New Year.
---Brooke
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