How to write your way home
by Fiona Robyn
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“What’s writing really about? It’s about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life.”
~Ted Hughes
“……writing is a true spiritual path, an authentic Zen way. Writing is an immediate mirror: it reports back to you. You can’t fool anyone, especially yourself. Here you are the doer and the done, the worldly person and the monk. It’s an opportunity to unite the inner and the outer, both being the same anyway, only in illusion two. A great challenge, a great practice.”
~Natalie Goldberg
Lorrie’s story: Part 1
Once upon a time, there was a woman with pea-green eyes and mousey hair called Lorrie. She lived in a narrow grey house in a narrow grey street. Every morning she put on her grey suit and walked for twenty three minutes along the narrow grey pavements to her office: a hulking building with a skin of grey glass.
From 9am until 6pm, Lorrie sat at her desk on the 14th floor and spoke to customers through her head-set about their financial investments. She told them how much money they had in their accounts. She changed their addresses. She explained how they could transfer ownership of their bond to their daughter. As she spoke, she typed what she said onto her computer screen – tippety-tippety-tap.
When she got home from work she slipped off her work shoes in the hall-way (which pinched her toes terribly) and slid her bare feet into her fluffy pink slippers. She fed her fat ginger cat, Marmaduke. She put a ready-meal into the microwave for herself and then ate it in front of the television. When the stars came out, she fell asleep on her sofa with the sounds of her neighbour’s arguments seeping through the walls.
If you asked Lorrie whether she was happy, she wouldn’t know how to answer you. She wasn’t unhappy. Lorrie’s sister was unhappy, and cried bitterly and wiped her eyes on her sleeve whenever Lorrie went to see her. Lorrie wasn’t angry, or dissatisfied. Things were just… grey. She couldn’t expect any more from life, could she?
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Introductions
Hello, I’m Fiona. Good to meet you.
You felt curious enough about my approach to writing to download this e-book. Thank you. I wonder where you’re sitting as you read these words. Is there a fat ginger cat like Marmaduke on your lap? Can you feel the rattle of his purr? Can you see the sky? What colour are the clouds? Can you notice a faint whiff of bleach, or do you have a lemon cake baking in the oven?
Noticing and enjoying these small details is what this e-book is all about. My experience is that, through noticing and writing these ordinary details down, you will pay more attention to the world. Once you start paying more attention to the world, you will get to know it more intimately. And when we know something more intimately, it is more possible to love it. It’s more possible to love ALL of it - the good and the bad, the new and the old, the beautiful and the ugly.
As you become more connected with yourself, you’ll feel more comfortable in your own skin. As you become more connected with the world you live in, it will feel more like home.
Connecting with the world is easier said than done. If, like me, you find it impossibly difficult to pay attention, then read on.
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All you need to know
If you want to use writing as a way of connecting with the world, then the following three sentences include all the information you’ll need. If you remember anything from this e-book, allow these instructions to plant a seed inside you. Once the seed is planted, it will grow.
Keep your eyes, nose, mouth, fingers, ears and mind open.
Notice what happens around you and inside you.
Write it down.
It’s that simple. You don’t need to know anything more. All the rest (slowly getting more skilled at paying attention, learning to praise, improving your writing skills etc.) will naturally flow from these three practices.
If you’ve heard all you need to hear, then put this e-book down and go and get started. If you’d like to learn more about practising perseverance, finding and polishing small stones, building a creative network, and much more, then do read on.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 2
One morning, when Lorrie arrived at work, she found a new boy sitting at the desk next to hers. Joshua had luminous skin, tiny round glasses and wispy blond hair like a dandelion in seed. He was being shown how to use the computer and his eyes were squinting in concentration. They chatted later in the coffee room, and he was full of questions. Where could he get the best cake? What was the best thing about working here? Did her mother have pea-green eyes? Had she noticed the berries on the tree outside?
She hadn’t noticed the berries. When Lorrie found herself slotting the key into her front door that evening, she realised that she’d walked home on automatic pilot as usual. She knew the narrow grey route to and from work so well, she hardly needed to pay attention to where she was stepping. It was only on the walk to work the next morning that she made a conscious effort to look for the tree that Joshua had spoken about. There! It was clotted with scarlet berries – they dripped from the tree in long garlands, bright against the vivid green leaves. How had she not noticed it before?
That day, Joshua returned from his lunch-break out of breath, with red spots on his cheeks. He told Lorrie he’d been looking at a painting in the local museum. A painting? she asked. One? All lunch-break? He nodded as he put on his head-set and got ready to answer the phone. Later, she noticed him jotting something down in a notebook between calls. As she was packing away her things at the end of the day, she told him she’d noticed the berries. He glowed, as if she’d given him a gift.
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Why is it so difficult to pay attention?
Most of us travel through our days with a monkey-brain, swinging from branch to branch without a pause. When will I get time to tidy the study? Did I make a fool of myself at the dinner party last night? As Rainer Maria Rilke noted, “One lives so badly because one always comes into the present unfinished, unable, distracted.”
We allow our brain to carry on monkeying around because there are many things that we would rather not experience or acknowledge.
Some of these objects are trivial, like the pile of ironing which reminds us of our laziness. Some are more deeply unsettling, like the friend whose dog is dying. We stop calling her, because we don’t want to think about our own dog getting older.
As human beings, we are also supremely protective of our egos. We like to think that we know who we are, and that our personalities are something we can pin down and be certain about. Acknowledging that we don’t always know who we are (or what we’re capable of) reminds us of our ultimate transience. Everything is impermanent, including our own selves.
The writer and Zen practitioner Natalie Goldberg says this very well: “To have an intimate connection with the world …[is]… to know about its passing.”
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Why should we acknowledge the world’s passing?
If acknowledging our impermanence makes us feel insecure, then can’t we just live in a happy state of denial instead?
If we have a towering pile of paperwork waiting for our attention on our desk, we simply avert our eyes when we come into the room. It bugs us. As time passes, we decide to move it into a drawer. Out of sight, out of mind? What happens when we need something else from the drawer? Or when we dream of drowning in a sea of shredded paper? Maybe some of the unfinished paperwork results in us needing to pay a fine.
The truth has a habit of leaking out. However water-tight we think we’ve made our ‘permanent’ self-structure, the world points out the truth to us over and over again.
Many spiritual teachers talk about the wisdom of walking towards what is difficult in our lives, rather than away from it. Feel the fear and do it anyway. We peek at the monsters under the bed, and they’re not as terrifying as we thought they would be. If we can get closer to the parts of ourselves that feel ugly and hateful, we can begin to understand them and feel empathy towards them. Once we can start to sit with the knowledge of impermanence, we can stop expending all our energy on running away.
Our eyes and arms open up. We approach everything with calm equanimity. We can welcome it all in.
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How can writing help us to pay attention?
Before we choose our words and write something down, we need to know what we are going to write about. We need to identify an ‘other’.
Sometimes this ‘other’ will be our own selves. In our imagination we see a little girl sitting on a motionless roundabout, her head bowed. We listen to the crunching noise when we bend our right knee. We notice the way our stomach tenses up when our brother talks about his important job.
Sometimes the ‘other’ will be outside our selves. We hear the blackbird’s song as counterpoint to the whoosh of cars on the road. We trace the patterns sunlight makes on the side of the office building. We overhear two women on the next table in a café, talking about loss.
By identifying and being curious in the ‘other’, we make a connection with something outside ourselves. We begin to get to know it more thoroughly – to really notice what colour it is, or how it smells. We attempt to see all of it - both the parts we feel attracted towards, and the parts we feel repelled by.
Our words tether us to the world. Or rather, we are tethered by
what comes just before our words.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 3
As Lorrie pierced holes in her evening microwave meal with a fork, she remembered the scarlet berries. She looked more closely at what she was about to eat. Macaroni cheese. It looked pale and insipid. Instead of blasting it in the microwave, she peeled off the film layer and sprinkled on fresh cheese and breadcrumbs before putting it into the oven.
As she ate, she savoured the delicious topping – crunchy, rich, in contrast with the creamy macaroni. She remembered her grandmother’s home-made macaroni, and how it made a wonderful squelching noise when her grandmother dipped into it with a silver serving spoon. Maybe Lorrie could get the recipe from her mother.
One of Lorrie’s friends, Charlotte, called her that evening. Lorrie was fond of Charlotte, but she tended to go on and on about her job and how terrible it was. To begin with, Lorrie listened as she always did, interjecting with an occasional sympathetic noise. And then from nowhere, Lorrie remembered the berries again. She paid attention to a feeling she had in her stomach. It was tense and uncomfortable. She found herself saying, “Charlotte, we have this conversation every time you call. Why don’t you just leave?” They talked about different things then – Charlotte’s fear of not being good enough to get another job, and whether she should speak to her manager about how she was feeling.
That night, Lorrie clicked off her bed-side lamp and lay there in the dark, listening to Marmaduke’s deep purr and thinking about her day. She felt she’d really helped Charlotte. Maybe she did have some different choices…
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How do we write?
We’ve looked at how writing can help us to pay attention. But if you’ve never written creatively before, then where do you begin?
We begin small – with small stones. A small stone is a short piece of writing which describes something you’ve observed carefully. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in sentences or verse. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about a roast potato or a sunset or the mud on the bottom of your boots. Follow the three instructions I gave you earlier. Keep your senses open. Observe one thing. Describe it in words. I’ll be saying more about small stones later.
Another option is to write Morning Pages, as suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. Spend twenty minutes filling three A4 pieces of paper with free-flow writing, first thing every morning. Don’t judge what comes out – just write it down – even if you find yourself writing the same thing over and over again. Eventually something will shift.
You could also write a journal, making observations about yourself and others, or you could write a novel, a collection of poetry, or a factual book about wellington boots. It doesn’t matter what you write. Just write. If you can, write something every day.
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Why is writing so difficult?
‘Just write’ makes it sound simple. It certainly isn’t that simple for me! Writing is the most important thing I do. And it is also the thing I have the most resistance towards. There are several reasons for this.
Every time we arrange words into a sentence, we are exposing ourselves. It is there in black and white for other people to read and judge. “I see the world like this. Is that OK? Is that OK?”
Writing takes us out onto the edge of what we know, and then asks us to make a leap. Whether we are writing fiction or small stones, we never quite know what we are going to write next. In a space of not-knowing, anything could happen. We’re not in control, and we like to be in control.
Writing will also take us into territory that feels risky or threatening. In our Morning Pages we describe something our mother did (and how much it annoyed us), and as we write on the annoyance morphs into anger and finally into an unspeakable fury. Our fictional characters start having thoughts so dark that they scare us.
Writing will take us towards what is difficult, and, if we persevere, it will also take us through to the other side.
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Practising perseverance
If we are serious about using writing (or anything else) as a tool to help us engage with the world, we need to practice perseverance.
One way is to put a firm container around our writing. If we say we’ll, “Write when we feel like it”, then we might get some done and we might not. If we commit to writing 500 words of our novel or one small stone a day, then we know what we’re aiming for, and we can make sure we sit down and do our writing whether we’re in the mood for it or not. I write first thing in the morning, just after breakfast. I give it the central place it needs, and deserves.
Another is to patiently listen to all the excuses we come up with, and then to write anyway. “Thank you, brain, for reminding me that I should be cleaning the kitchen, that I’m behind on my essay, and that I’m a rubbish writer anyway. I’m going to get on with my writing now.”
If we are curious about our particular patterns when persevering (or not persevering!), we will learn more about how we can strengthen our staying power. If we’re easily distracted by the internet, we could turn it off at the wall.
It is also crucial for all writers to develop a support network. I’ll say more about this later.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 3
The next morning Lorrie chose a different route to work, following the river that snaked through the centre of town. She noticed a clump of soft blue flowers with yellow centres. She guessed that Joshua would know what they were called - he knew about the berries. They took a riverside stroll whilst they ate their sandwiches, and he told Lorrie that they were forget-me-nots. He even knew the latin name – Myosotis sylvatica. How could she have reached twenty seven and not known what a forget-me-not looked like?
Lorrie’s days gradually took on colour. On her way to work she would pause at a sunny riverside bench, and she grew to recognise the local swans – this one had a discoloured feather on its wing, this one had a dark blodge on her beak. She planted a rose-bush in her tiny back garden. She had more interesting conversations with her friend Charlotte. At work, she began to see her customer as real people, and when they started telling her about their grand-children she was less worried about her call statistics and found herself laughing with them instead. When she laughed, Joshua would glance over at her and grin.
Her life continued to blossom, until three things happened in the same week. Lorrie’s manager gave her a verbal warning about spending too long on the phone to some of her customers. She had an ugly argument with her father after standing up for herself, and her mother (as always) took her father’s side. Worst of all, and for no reason she could fathom, he started waking up every morning with a heavy sadness squatting on her chest.
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Hunting down small stones
Small stones are everywhere, all of the time. All you have to do is pause, become quiet, open your senses, and allow them to appear.
You’ll know when you’ve found one. You’ll experience it as if for the first time. You’ll step aside and allow it to come towards you, and you’ll notice every detail of its presence.
You might be hearing something you hear every day, like the water whooshing from the tap, or noticing the cloud of lavender scent as you brush past on your way to the garden shed. If you can open up your ears, the sounds will appear fresh. Open your nose, and the smells will hit you very directly. The objects you are experiencing might be attractive or unattractive, sweet or bitter, but they’ll be very PRESENT. It’s difficult to put this ‘aha’ feeling into words, but with practice you’ll come to recognise it.
The best way to catch small stones is in the wild. Always carry a pen and paper with you, and when you notice something, jot down some notes straight away. If you don’t have a pen, play around with some words in your head and hold onto them until you can catch them on paper. You can also write your small stones from memory.
Small stones can be elusive creatures. Sometimes we manage to capture them accurately in words, and sometimes they slide away from us. Practice, and polishing, will help.
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Polishing your small stones
Once you’ve found your small stones, you can have some fun shining them up. This will get you closer to describing exactly what you experienced, and also to pay attention to the language you’ve used. Here are my tips:
Have you used precise words? Was the cloudy sky in turmoil or in tumult?
Is every single word necessary? If it doesn’t add anything, take it out!
Have you shown us something or told us something? Be descriptive and let the reader draw their own conclusions. Don’t write ‘the sky was beautiful’ - show us the sky. What colour is it exactly? What do the clouds remind you of?
How does the small stone look on the page? How do you want to order the words, or use punctuation or line breaks? Play around with the words until they look right.
What does it sound like when you read it out loud? Do the rhythms please you? How do the words sound next to each other? Play around with the words until they sound right.
How original is it? Have you looked at something ordinary in a fresh way? Try to let go of your preconceptions and engage with what is actually there.
How much of ‘you’ is in it? How does your small stone look if you take out your opinions? Can you write about yourself as if you are as an ‘other’?
There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. As a writer, you will discover your own unique voice over time. What’s important is to take some time to consider these questions, and to play with language.
Developing the small stone habit
The best way to practice writing small stones, especially when you’re beginning, is to commit to writing one every day. This daily prompt will encourage you to pause and open your senses up at least once every 24 hours. You are fighting a life-long habit of not paying attention. New habits require lots of initial nurturing and endless repetition, but once they’re established, you’ll need much less energy to keep them going.
To help with your resolve, you could join forces with a friend and send your small stones to each other at the end of each week. You could also commit to posting one onto your blog each day, or onto the Writing Our Way Home community forum. There are many other small stone writers out there – enlist their support.
As you continue to practice, you should find yourself paying a similar kind of attention to ordinary grey morning skies as you do spectacular sunsets. You will build more natural pauses into your day. And you will also be able to appreciate the smell of the compost bin as much as you do the smell of your deep pink peonies. You won’t necessarily feel attracted to the smell of the compost bin, but it will be alive to you, and you will know it to be an essential part of the rich tapestry of life. Like Lorrie, your life will begin to blossom.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 4
Lorrie’s sadness grew and grew. Once or twice, she couldn’t even bring herself to get out of bed and called into work and lied about having a migraine. The sadness was like having a migraine – her eyes shrunk from the light, and she spent the day under her duvet, trying to hide from what was inside her. She longed to return to her grey, predictable life.
One Saturday morning, she dragged herself out of bed to find Joshua on her doorstep. She told him she didn’t feel like talking, ready to shut the front door on him. He said that was OK, and he pushed past her. She hadn’t even brushed her hair.
She made him a coffee and they sat in the conservatory together. They listened to the rain on the roof. Joshua looked at Lorrie, and there was something in his eyes that broke something inside her.
She cried, just like her sister, wiping her nose with her sleeve. They listened to the sound of the rain on the roof. She cried some more, her head bent forwards into her hands. Dissolved in the tears was the teenage boyfriend she loved and lost, the family dog who died when she was five, the failures of her career, the loneliness of a little girl, a million unspeakable disappointments and sadnesses. Joshua sat with her, quietly. They listened to the rain.
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Getting through the difficult bits
As Lorrie demonstrates, ‘waking up’ isn’t always easy. When we become more intimate with ourselves and with others, whether through writing small stones or Morning Pages or creative writing, we will also come face to face with the things we’ve been trying to avoid.
As a therapist, with many years experience of working with clients in distress, I don’t have any magic answers, but these common sense suggestions will help.
Share how you’re feeling with someone you trust. Find the right person – friend, family, or therapist, and tell them what it’s REALLY like to be you.
Have patience with yourself, and be kind to yourself. We often use a tone with ourselves that we’d never dream of using with our best friends. Be your own best friend. Listen to yourself, and try to understand.
Try to go towards the difficult feelings and sit with them, even if it’s just for three seconds. Get to know them.
Give yourself what you need. Find comfort in nature or in your spiritual practice. Offer yourself the gift of long hot baths or lovingly prepared meals. Seek quiet solitude or nourishing company. You will know what you need in order to heal. Give yourself permission to ask for it.
Remember that being a human being can be horribly difficult. We all make mistakes, and we all let ourselves and others down. Some days, we just need to take one day (or one minute) at a time, and hang on by our fingertips. Things will change.
And, if you can, keep writing.
Protecting our writing
You will need to deal with occasional rejection if you want to show other people your writing. Here are some suggestions to keep you going when the world seems against you.
Create a ‘hurray for me’ file to remind you of your successes when you feel discouraged. Include any positive feedback you get from friends or readers.
Turn off your internal critic and allow yourself to enjoy what you’ve created. We need our critical eye in order to revise our writing, but it’s also important to enjoy what we’ve created too.
Learn more about your own creative process. What kind of feedback or rejection is particularly likely to floor you? What might be behind this? How could you lessen the impact of receiving this kind of feedback and support yourself through it?
Manage the feedback you do receive. Think carefully about who you ask, and what kind of feedback you ask for (e.g. please can you tell me three things you liked and one that could be improved).
Read books about writing and copy out any quotes that feel helpful. As a part of my writing process, I return to certain passages or certain books again and again.
Remember how much you enjoy writing. Sustain your writing practice with reasons and beliefs that aren’t dependent on other people.
Acknowledge that you’re human. Sometimes, you will receive feedback that wounds you. It’s more helpful to feel the ‘ouch’ and to give yourself time to recover than to pretend you don’t care.
Finally, it is vital to develop and maintain a good network of supportive colleagues.
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Building a creative network
Nobody understands the trials and tribulations of this journey better than our fellow travellers. My own creative network is a mixture of authors (Anne Lamott, Brenda Ueland, Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg) and friends and family, poets and novelists, lawyers and Buddhist ministers, all on their own journeys and all willing to support me and be supported in return. I couldn’t do what I do without them. Here’s how you can grow and nourish your own creative network:
When you’re meeting new people, think about how you could help them. This might be a book recommendation, or the offer to give feedback on their writing. People will remember you as being helpful, and you will feel good about having helped.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Most people feel flattered when they’re asked for help, and pleased to be able to offer it. If they don’t have the time or the energy to give you what you’ve asked for, then it’s up to them to say no.
Be yourself. Creative networking is about building authentic connections with people. There’s no point in pretending to be someone you’re not.
Find new opportunities to meet people. Join a networking group for people in creative professions, go on a course, or attend a local writing group.
Use the internet. There are many opportunities to get to know other writers in the blogosphere, and these relationships can be very productive and satisfying.
Building a creative support network will take time. It will feel risky to put energy into new relationships, or to become more authentic in established ones. Take it one step at a time. Be kind to yourself.
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Our mixed motivations for writing
My own motivations for writing are a mixture of healthy and compulsive, altruistic and ego-driven.
On bad days, writing is all about a need to be heard, and a need to be ‘a good writer’. This need is ‘clingy’ – it’s about me me me. I feel tortured by how terrible my writing is. I wonder how I could possibly have the audacity to call myself a writer. Alternatively (sometimes in the next minute), I might think that I am the greatest writer who has ever lived.
On good days, the writing flows through me and I am just a humble siphon. I take great pleasure in the words as they line up on the page in a satisfying order. I feel grateful for what they help me to notice about myself and about the world. I sincerely hope that others will glean something from what I write – that they will notice something of their own, or learn something, or enjoy a particular image. The process of writing and the finished product is everything I need – any praise or financial benefit is just gravy.
You will recognise some of these feelings in your writing life, or in the rest of your life. You will have honourable or shameful motivations of your own. We all have a mix of reasons for writing, and that’s OK. Allow them to be present, and keep writing.
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How to improve our writing
If we’re writing in order to connect with the world, then why does it matter if the writing is any good or not?
Good writing is carefully observed, and honest. If we can work on improving the quality of our writing, we are also working on improving the honesty of our interactions with the world.
There are many excellent how-to-write books, and lots of support on-line. Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Read a lot. Reading helps us to learn what we like, and to develop an instinct for handling language. I see the hundreds of books I consume as going into my head and becoming a kind of compost. My own writing grows from this compost.
Write a lot. Write regularly. Make a proper space for writing in your life, even if it’s three minutes every day to write a small stone.
Develop your critical facility. Read other people’s writing and notice what you like and what you don’t, what works and what doesn’t.
Seek feedback. Join a local writing group or an online forum. Listen to what others say about your writing (with an open mind!) Learn over time to discriminate between feedback that resonates with you and improves your writing, and feedback that you don’t agree with. This isn’t always easy!
Seek pleasure from words. Find poems that set you on fire and read them out loud. Share novel recommendations with friends. Read other people’s small stones. Copy out your favourite quotes. Wallow in the deliciousness of language.
One of the joys of writing is that we can always get better at it. It’s an ongoing journey, just like life.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 5
After that day in the conservatory when they listened to the rain and Lorrie cried, the sadness lost its power. Or rather, Lorrie surrendered her to it. Sometimes she would still wake with it squatting on her chest. She would sit and cry, or she would call Charlotte or Joshua, or she would make a cup of tea and go and feed the birds in the park. She knew she could let herself float on its currents and that she’d always find her way back home.
She started thinking about training to be a gardener. The world needed gardeners. She dyed her hair bright red, and then back to mousey again. She took up salsa dancing. She grew tomatoes in her garden, and they were sweet and tasty.
When Lorrie came into work one morning and found someone else sitting in Joshua’s place, she didn’t feel surprised. She somehow knew that she couldn’t keep him forever. She found a folded note from him on her keyboard.
It’s time for me to move on. I’ll come back and see you sometime – I’m sure I’ll pass through. Keep noticing the berries, Lorrie. You’re going to be OK now, even when you’re not OK. I promise. Give Marmaduke a cuddle from me, and maybe one of those posh sachets of chicken in gravy. Love, your friend Joshua.
Lorrie closed the letter and smiled. A rush of sweet sadness filled her body, and she blinked a tear onto her cheek. Joshua was right. She’d carry on noticing the berries. And she was going to be just fine.
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Sharing your writing with the world
One of the many wonderful things about writing is that if we can write from our hearts, others will instinctively recognise what we’ve written about. It will resonate with them at a very deep level. At its best, your writing will help your readers to understand themselves and others, and to connect them to their own worlds. Like Joshua, you can show others the way.
There are many simple ways of sharing your writing with others. You could include one of your poems in your Christmas cards, or write a short story for your brother. You could share your work at your local writers group or at our online community. You could meet for coffee once a month with your three best friends and swap your small stones.
Writing a blog is a marvellous way of putting your work ‘out there’ whilst finding a supportive community of fellow writers. The trick is to write about what you love, write as well as you can, and to write little and often. Find other blogs you like, comment on posts you enjoy, and eventually you will find a readership for your own writing.
You could also pursue traditional publication, or as one poet I know puts it, ‘the dirty business of publishing’…
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The dirty business of publishing
The journey to publication is outside the remit of this e-book. There are many good specific resources for writers seeking publication. Instead I will share something of my
own (ongoing) experience of being published.
My own journey so far has been full of ups and downs. Before I was published, one of my first agents advised me to make the most of my time before getting a book deal. She said that publication would simply bring a different set of problems and frustrations. She said that at the moment I could write exactly what I wanted, and that I’d never be so free again. At the time I listened politely whilst thinking, “Yes, yes, but everything will be wonderful when I’m published!”
It has been unspeakably wonderful to see my books in bookshops and libraries, and to hear from people across the world who have gained something from my words.
However, my old agent was right. Publication does bring its own difficulties. And, contrary to my wild hopes, it hasn’t solved all my problems, financial or otherwise.
I try to see being published (and read) as the gravy to the vegetarian sausages and mash of my writing life. If I never made another penny from writing again, I would continue to write. I write because it connects me to myself, to others, and to the world. I write because it helps me to make sense of this funny old life. I write because I love to play with words. This is sufficient. The rest is gravy.
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Lorrie’s story: Part 6
How would you like Lorrie’s story to end?
Would you like her to meet a nice man, and settle down, and have babies? Would you like her to find a well-paid job, doing good things for other people? Would you like her to win the lottery and live happily ever after?
However carefully Lorrie pays attention, there is no guarantee that any of these things will happen. There is no happily ever after, for any of us. She might lose her job and struggle to find another one. Marmaduke will get old and die, sooner or later. She may meet and marry a wonderful man who turns out to have a gambling problem.
Nothing can protect Lorrie from suffering. But noticing the berries will bring her many other gifts. She will feel more connected, even in the midst of her occasional loneliness. She will acknowledge the uglier parts of herself (the parts we all have), and in getting to know these parts she will feel more empathy towards herself, even at her worst. She will care more about herself, about other people and about the world. A desire to help others will naturally arise. She will develop wisdom, and equanimity, and faith.
Whatever she does, as long as she notices the berries, Lorrie will be engaged with the world. She will taste life fully. With all its bitterness. And with all its sweetness.
A writing life
“When you're hanging on by a thread, identify that thread and do all you can to strengthen it. Gardening is my thread, consistently providing therapy through years of ups and downs. If this blink in time seems a bit crazier, well, perhaps it is. Gardening serves as a gentle reminder that the wheel turns and seasons come and go, each filled with its own impossibly tender beauty. So maybe it's time to go outside and look for tulip noses poking through the damp earth and reaching into the winter mist.”
~Sally Basile
This is one of my favourite quotes, because it speaks a truth. Life does get crazy. There are ups and downs, for all of us. Sometimes we’re all hanging on (to happiness, to meaning, to sanity) by our fingertips.
Writing a small stone every day will give you a thread. The more you practice paying attention, the more beauty it will bring you. Just like the noses of those tulips.
Writing is my thread. It brings me knowledge, stability and meaning. It helps me to see ‘the other’ with clearer eyes. It helps me to love, and to feel at home. It stitches me, word by word, to this crazy, incorrigible, unutterably marvellous world.
"Writing is a hard way to make a living, but a good way to make a life."
~Doris Bett
Let’s re-cap…
In this little e-book I’ve suggested that to connect with the world, and to find yourself more at home in the world, you need to follow three instructions.
Keep your eyes, nose, mouth, fingers, ears and mind open.
Notice what happens around you and inside you.
Write it down.
We’ve looked at how difficult it is to pay attention and why (and how) you should persevere. I’ve given you some help with hunting and polishing your small stones. We’ve acknowledged the consequences of living a more engaged life, and I’ve given you some advice on how to get through the difficult bits. We’ve looked at where we can share our writing, and at the benefits of living a writing life. What next?
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How to connect
The Writing Our Way Home community is a free forum for people interested in using writing as a way of connecting with the world. To sign up, simply visit the site and fill in a few profile questions so I know you’re a real person.
I write a weekly inspirational newsletter on topics related to writing, mindfulness and spirituality. Click ‘sign up here’ at www.fionarobyn.com/connect.html.
My main site is at www.writingourwayhome.com. From here you can find my Writing Our Way Home blog and information about my books. I offer email or telephone creativity coaching and e-courses – read more in the ‘coaching’ and ‘e-courses’ sections. You can also find links to the small stone family of blogs – ‘a small stone’ where I write my own, ‘a handful of stones’ where I publish other people’s, and ‘a river of stones’ where we co-ordinate the monthly challenges and more.
It’s always good to hear from people. Let me know what you’ve thought of this e-book, and let me know how you get on writing small stones and paying attention. Email me at fiona@fionarobyn.com.
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Thank you (and how you can help me)
I’m very grateful that you’ve taken the time to read my words. There are trillions of words out there, and today you’ve given your attention to mine.
I do hope I’ve been able to re-pay you by showing you a new path home. If you’re already on the path, maybe my words will help you to find your way again when you stray into the dark woods. At the very least, I hope you feel a little less alone. It can be a twisting, perilous path. We’re all on it together, even when we lose sight of each other along the way.
If you’ve enjoyed this free e-book, you can help me out by letting other people know about it. Write about it on your blog, tweet about it, or post the link on Facebook. Forward this e-book to a few of your friends. Think about the people you know who could benefit from paying more attention, and offer them this gift. Be Lorrie. And then be Joshua.
Go forth! Write small stones!
About the author
Fiona Robyn is on a mission to help people connect with the world through writing.
She has three novels published by Snowbooks (‘The Letters’, ‘The Blue Handbag’, and ‘Thaw’). Her other books include ‘A Year of Questions: How to slow down and fall in love with life’. She is currently editing ‘Pay Attention: a river of stones’ with her fiancé Kaspalita.
As well as writing, she works as a therapist in private practice and as a creativity coach. She runs regular e-courses on the Writing Our Way Home forum. She is a practising Pureland Buddhist.
She lives near the beautiful Malvern hills in the UK with her fiancé Kaspa, her cats Fatty and Silver, and her shiny red Fiat 500, Rosie. She enjoys growing garlic, baking white chocolate cookies, and watching long-tailed tits.
Acknowledgements
Gratitude to Kaspalita, my soon-to-be-husband, for being there, for encouraging my muse, for his excellent cooking, and for designing this e-book.
Gratitude to Bodhi Hill for the wonderful illustrations. Find out more about Bodhi’s wonderful work at www.bodhihill.com.
Gratitude to all the members of ‘a river of stones’, and the contributors and readers of ‘a handful of stones’.
Gratitude to David and Caroline Brazier, for introducing me to Pureland Buddhism and other-centred ways of thinking.
Gratitude to the pioneering members of the Writing Our Way Home community, who make it such an inspiring and heartening place to be.
Gratitude to you, for reading.
Namo Amida Bu.