As someone who writes meditative essays that help people get in touch with their inner wildness, I know that flow is essential. I mix all sorts of ideas and references together, exploring inner psyche, outer landscape, as well as offering up stories and examples. The trick is to pull all the pieces together into one seamless stream of writing.

Let me confess, it isn’t easy. And I often fall short. But over the years, I’ve learned a few things that make it easier.

1) I write first in my journal. Writing by hand allows me to free associate more easily. I make connections that aren’t as readily available to me via the keyboard.
2) I read my work out loud. That way, I can tell almost immediately where and when paragraphs don’t fit together.
3) I title each paragraph for meaning. I then consider whether I’ve created a structure that has an arc and end point.
4) If it doesn’t fit, I let it go. Used to be that I’d work for hours trying to make room for a misfit paragraph or favorite phrase. I’ve become more ruthless with experience.

Weaving threads of meaning together is an art that takes practice. I find the process endlessly fascinating and wonderfully absorbing. And at times it drives me quite mad. But such is the writing life.

So please let me know how you find your flow.

And join me, if you live in the Bay Area, as I teach “Wild Landscapes Lost and Found” this Saturday, May 5, at Book Passage in Corte Madera.

Do you know people who let perfectionism run their lives? Are you one of them?

If you’re like many a creative soul, you’re probably all too aware of the fear and anxiety that courses through the perfectionist’s veins, the self doubt that paralyzes her creativity and the critical inner “judge” that finds fault in the smallest of transgressions––real or imaginary.

Perfectionism kills. It kills happiness and it kills imagination. It will certainly kill your chances of completing your book or sending out your article, if you allow it to.

But you don’t have to be held hostage to your inner perfectionist. Instead, outwit it by writing every day and for short spurts of time. Regardless of how busy you are or how much else you have going on, keep to your writing schedule. Perfectionism cannot outwit or outlast a daily habit.

Over time, as you make writing a natural part of your daily life, your perfectionist will calm down. Soon, it will fall asleep as soon as you approach your writing desk.

So here’s the thing: only by writing regularly will you lose your fear of writing.

Let me know how it goes with you.

It happens to all of us. We hit the wall–the dreaded thing called writer’s block. All of a sudden, we can’t write. Not a phrase, not a sentence, not one word worth a darn thing.

Frustrated, we work harder. We’ll break the wall down, we’ll keep writing, even if it kills us. We fuel up on coffee, or other stimulants, stare at our computer screen as if into the eyes of a bull, and power through. Write we will. Unfortunately, write we don’t. So what can we do?

According to Jonah Lehrer, in his new book Imagine:How Creativity Works, the best thing we can do is step away from the task at hand and find some way to relax. Take a walk, a bath, put on some music and daydream. Of course, this is easier said than done–because we writers can prove just a little obsessive at times. But what if we truly trusted that the answer would come once we stopped looking for it?

Lehrer, who specializes in writing about neuroscience, says that creative breakthroughs are more likely to happen when we’re relaxed. Stress is the enemy of imagination. Even taking a few deep breaths can help unknot our tension.

So next time you meet the wall, what will you do? I always head out into nature. I’d love to hear what works for you.

Fiction or non-fiction, your writing has to provoke a curiosity to know more.

Readers ask questions from the moment they enter a book: Where and when does the story take place? Who is the main character? What is the conflict? What is the goal of the piece? The idea is to tease out the questions without giving all the answers.

Take, for example, this very short opening paragraph from Knut Hamsun’s novel, Hunger:
All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiania–-that strange city no one escapes from until it has left its mark on him….
Who is the “I”?
Why is he starving?
Why is Christiania a strange city?
What mark will be left on him?

See what I mean? Who could put that book down?

Now take a look your first paragraph or chapter. What questions are you planting in the readers’ minds? If there are no questions, they won’t have a reason to keep reading.

Annie Dillard is one of my love-to-hate authors. Her writing’s so good it makes the hair on my head rise–really! It’s as if I get caught in an electrical storm of sheer linguistic power. Wham, bam, sizzle.

Take the following,from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Today a gibbous moon marked the eastern sky like a smudge of chalk. The shadow of its features had the same blue tone and light value as the sky itself, so it looked transparent at its depths, or softly frayed, like the heel of a sock. Not too long ago, according to Edwin Way Teale, the people of Europe believed that geese and swans wintered there, on the moon’s pale seas. Now it is the sunset. The mountains warm in tone as the day chills, and a hot blush deepens over the land. “Observe,” said da Vinci, “observe in the streets at twilight, when the day is cloudy, the loveliness and tenderness spread on the faces of men and women.” I have seen those faces, when the day is cloudy, and I have seen at sunset on a clear winter day houses, ordinary houses, whose bricks were coals and window flames.

Having typed out this paragraph, I now really hate Ms. Dillard. Whoever heard of a moon being frayed like the heel of a sock? It’s so original. And what about her erudition? She quotes Edwin Teal and da Vinci without missing a beat or sounding, even, as if she’s mouthing others words. And look at where she carries you in one paragraph–from a gibbous moon (oh, the choice of the word gibbous) to the sun’s glow flaming the window panes. Moon to sun, da Vinci to self, fraying socks to ordinary houses whose bricks were coals.

So are you ready to take the Dillard challenge? Think of two striking images, one to begin the paragraph and another to end it with. Work in a couple of striking images and similes. Add a quote and a reference. Then see how much ground you can cover in a few short lines.

Onward!

Tuesday night is my writing group night. It’s my time to get feedback and support for my work. Last night, my reading was followed by a pause. More accurately, a very long pause. Then Lee spoke up, “I didn’t get interested until here.” I watched her finger slide down the page, then another page, until it pointed to the final paragraph. “Oh,” I said, “not until quite far in.”

I have learned not to talk when this happens. My instinct is to defend myself. Even, at times, to cry. Instead, I shut up and listen.

I should explain that I absolutely trust these women. They have my back. So if they say it stinks–it more than likely does. By listening to what they have to say, I often learn exactly how to fix my piece. I agree with about 90% of the comments they make, and yet feel free to disregard those that don’t make sense to me. Bottom line, though––they make me a better writer.

Having read many an article and biography about famous writers, I realize most of them worked closely with editors and friends who helped to shape their work. Raymond Carver’s work, before and after editing, is barely recognizable as one and the same. And even remarkably talented writers have bad days. We need wise and discerning readers to tell us when it just isn’t working.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a writer’s group that believes in you enough to tell you the truth.

After all, sometimes we’re hot and sometimes we’re not!

This wild and playful writing prompt comes from Ellery Akers, a fabulous poet I took a class from a few years ago. Here’s what she suggests:

Think of a major event in your life. Now think of an animal you’re attracted to or repelled by and write about the event, including the animal. Make the animal, instead of you, the main character or have the animal appear in the piece. For instance, relive your childhood as if you were a falcon and your mother a falconress; imagine a lion comes to tea.

What does your animal smell or hear or touch or understand or know? It could be — “During my divorce a pig came to live in the bedroom. I turned to my husband and said, “is this your pig?” Or: “As an owl I floated out of that courtroom; as an owl, I stabbed the divorce papers with my beak.”

Have fun. Write wild. See what happens. At the very least, you’ll wake up your writing and have fun. You might also gain a whole new perspective on the piece you’re working on.

Can you relate to this? I know I can.

“…sometimes we find ourselves shifting from one idea to the next in an endless series of discoveries. These discoveries change the piece in significant ways. Unfortunately, they don’t lead to progressive development. They lead to our starting over in an endless chain of new beginnings.” Jeff Heffron

I share this because I often think it’s easier to start something than to finish it. The focus and fearlessness it takes to revise and produce a final draft is tremendous.

All kinds of decisions need to be made. Decisions of commitment and ruthlessness and intention. We have to say, “This is as good as I can make it.” We have to let go of what doesn’t work and polish what is working. It’s not easy. I often think that starting on a new tack, when you should be following through on an old one, is like doing a geographic. You’re just running. But if you want to complete a book, you have to stop starting and commit to crossing the finishing line.

So try this: Take an unfinished short story, essay, or chapter out of the drawer and complete it. Work through whatever problems and issues arise of plot, structure, and language, until you have a polished piece. Then write me and let me know of your success!

Onward!

One of the great joys of being a writer came to me when I read an essay of mine called, “Meltdown” at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. Famous for the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and the Beat Poets, City Lights looks and feels like a punk rocker at a prom–a little dangerous and anarchic–but dead sexy, too. It’s the bad boy of bookstores you want to give yourself to.

Writing, it seems to me, involves some danger. A willingness to write wild, to go off trail.

The poet Allen Ginsberg who first performed his famous work “Howl” at City Lights wrote, “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” When we write from a place of intense imagination we cease to be conventional– our words are illuminated, luminescent, aglow with moonlight and madness.

How do we follow that inner moonlight? We write fast, we write furious. We stalk an idea into the deep, dark forest, trusting only to our intuition. We learn to howl our truth on to the page, however strange. We don’t give a damn for being liked, and everything for truth. When I wrote “Meltdown” I broke with all conventions. I mixed memoir with nature writing, I used science and poetry. I was consumed by a need to get the words on the page.

So put on a feather hat, dance beneath the stars, put aside every thought of how you will be regarded–and don’t hide your beautiful madness. Just write!

“...With the approach of evening long, blue, spiky-edged shadows creep out over the snowfields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepens, suffusing every peak and flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This is the alpenglow, the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light the mountains seems to kindles to a rapt religious consciousness and stand hushed like worshippers waiting to be blessed. Then suddenly comes darkness and the stars.”

The above piece is by John Muir. He reminds me that word play can be sacred play. A way of using original language to describe a scene and imbue it with loveliness. His words also remind me of the power of looking long and deep at something, never resorting to stale observations or old ways of seeing.

Ready to give it try? Start by taking a look at some of Muir’s images “irised spray…. spiky-edged shadows…stand hushed like worshippers…” Now describe the scene outside your window with the same rapt attention.

Onward!