Link to my September 2019 TEDx Talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write"

My TEDx Talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write," is now available:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yxnFac7CNA

Here's the description of the talk:

A few simple ways to observe the moment can make an immediate difference on how most of us feel about writing and how successful we are at it. Mindfulness gives us new writing tools, including internal talk, impermanence, and detachment. Every moment can become a prolific moment.

More Mindful Approaches to Freewriting

This semester, I've been giving new thought to strategies around freewriting.

In all of my writing courses, it doesn't matter if it's a 100-level, a 400-level, or a graduate course, I emphasize the importance of freewriting as a way to record, on page or screen, our internal rhetoric. This recording of internal talk is crucial in a few regards:

1. Freewriting emphasizes quantity over quality. This is super important because it suggests a more forgiving, self-accepting view of the self as a writer. Maximum quantity only happens if we invite everything in and don't pause to correct ourselves. 

Instead of fixing or editing, while freewriting writers develop a higher tolerance for their inevitable moments of dull or repetitive thinking. Writers operate out of faith that there's a natural abundance of other material in their ongoing inner production of language. Writers trust themselves more.


2. Freewriting allows writers to mindfully perceive the actual first language to appear on the scene: namely, that internal talk. This is important because it honors that first language by making it visible on the page or screen. 

In turn, this honoring means that writers are being more mindful of their present writing moment. Most importantly, writers are remaining aware that their future audience isn't in the room.

It also means that their intrapersonal rhetoric--how writers persuade themselves of certain views about their writing ability in general or their ability to complete the specific task at hand--becomes more visible. So writers become more aware of how they talk themselves into certain moods about writing and certain choices during the writing process (procrastinating, editing too early, etc.). They notice the self-persuasion on the screen. Still, I think there are even more mindful ways to practice freewriting:

I've been encouraging students to incorporate more of their on-the-spot momentary thinking in freewrites. This is in the spirit, again, of how the goal is not a polished, organized freewrite. The goal is to accurately reflect their internal talk.

1. So I want them to include their reactions to being asked to freewrite in the freewrite. I want them to include any feelings of frustration, boredom, excitement, curiosity, physical pain from handwriting, etc. Any emotional reaction is a candidate for inclusion.

I ask them to see how those emotional reactions to freewriting are in flux. They're subject to impermanence even during a three minute freewrite. 

2. I encourage them to incorporate descriptions of their in-breath and out-breath, in phrases, at the commencement of a freewrite, but also during the middle and end of a freewrite. Just as writers can steer their internal talk through freewrites, guiding it toward a particular topic (a concept or a structural issue in a draft, for instance), they can also steer freewrites to help them become more mindful, to remember to pay attention to their breathing.

3. Finally, any emphasis on quantity in itself needs to be mindfully monitored to make sure we're not engaging in a preconception or over-valuation of written production. It's helpful to seek quantity (so we can practice writing self-acceptance and develop ease), but we need to be careful we're not craving written product or that higher word count from a freewrite. To do so means we're engaging in false binary thinking (i.e.: writing is good / not writing is to be avoided) that's actually a craving that can lead to writing suffering. 

Image: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/fd6b7add-5617-4195-b9ad-3b4d3350e8d3
Ms. Neaux Neaux, Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0

30% Discount on Book, Prolific Moment

Dear readers of this blog,

I hope this brief post finds you and your writing well.

Routledge is currently offering a 30% discount on Prolific Moment: Theory and Practice of Mindfulness for Writing.

I'm not sure how long this discount will last, but if you go to https://www.routledge.com/Prolific-Moment-Theory-and-Practice-of-Mindfulness-for-Writing/Peary/p/book/9781138493599  and type in this promotion code at checkout, ADS19, the book is at a discount.

Looking Forward to this Mindfulness Conference Today

Very much looking forward to attending today's talks at the Second Annual Mindfulness in Society Conference:

Ticket Info for TEDx talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Think About Writing"

Dear Mindful Writers:

I wanted to share some event news with you, in case you happen to be in the Massachusetts area. On September 22, I'll be giving a TEDx talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Think About Writing," in Salem, MA. The talk is based off ideas from my book, Prolific Moment: Theory and Practice of Mindfulness for Writing. Here are ticket details: https://www.salemstate.edu/tedxsalemstateuniversity  I'll also try posting the link once the TEDx talk is up on the net (later this fall).

TEDx Talk, "How Mindfulness Can Change the Way You Think About Writing"

If you're in the Massachusetts area, I'd like to invite you to my TEDx talk, "How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Think About Writing." It's happening on Sunday, September 22, at Salem State University as part of TEDxSalemStateUniversity (the theme is mindfulness). Tickets go on sale June 17. Here's where to find information about the event: 

https://www.salemstate.edu/tedxsalemstateuniversity 

Writing, No Writing: Guest Blog Post at North American Review

Here's my second guest blog post, "Writing, No Writing: Cultivating the Emptiness of the Page," at the North American Review: 

https://northamericanreview.org/open-space/writing-no-writing-cultivating-emptiness-page

The blog post opens:

"Normally, not-writing is rejected experience. Most writers value the popcorn sound of typing or other signs of productivity—a paragraph written, a journal page filled, a poem drafted, a noble goal of 3,000 words/day. The entire reason for prompts is to springboard writers out of the preverbal and into the verbal, for instance. We only begin to feel secure once language makes an appearance on the screen and the word count climbs. Each new sentence or line seems to rescue us from a perceived plight of failure, transporting us farther away from this face-off with nothingness..."