Flux



Pink Sherbert Photography
 

Our real environment—one of of constant change—works for us as writers, not against us.

One of the main tasks of mindful writing involves accepting changes in your writing experience along the way.

Nothing stays the same. Mindful writing is built upon the premise of groundlessness. Everything is in flux; everything is impermanent: even writing ability, even writing blocks.

Your feelings about your writing are constantly changing in subtle or not so subtle ways.

Instead of becoming locked into a death grip with one type of feeling about your writing—whether it’s a pessimistic or optimisitic view—let that feeling happen without judgment and fear and just watch how the feeling fluctuates.

If we hold on to a particular view of our writing, we will eventually suffer. Suffering in the Buddhist sense is caused by not admitting impermanence. For writers, that suffering takes the form of what we call a "writer's block." (I define "writer's block" as an inattention to the Present moment and specifically a lack of acceptance of the impermanence of the Present moment.)

I find that my perception of my own writing varies tremendously.

On some days, I am filled with bouyancy and confidence that what I am writing is worthwhile. Just the next day, I may find myself thinking, “What right do I have to be writing about this topic? What do I know?” I may really like a piece I've just finished and a week later have doubts. Or I may be excited at the prospect of a long weekend to do more writing but then only find myself distracted by plans with my family once I'm actually sitting at my desk.

Trying to replicate a positive writing experience will only last so long as well. Writers are notorious for their superstitions and repetitive working habits: these are strategies to gain some (false) semblance of control over impermanence.

Throughout my writing career, I have found that any gimic I cling to eventually leaves me high & dry upon a beach of blank thought.

In contrast, if I train myself to return to the Present in those times and watch it with acceptance, I invariably find myself in a better day of writing. It may take a few days or even a week, but the next change (one I welcome or would select) does happen.

Many scholars on writing (Peter Elbow, Linda Flower and John Hayes, Keith Hjortshoj, Don Murray, Sondra Perl, Mike Rose just to name a few) have emphasized the recursivity of the writing experience. That is, they have usefully drawn our attention to the time line of writing, pointing out how people engaged in composing a text regularly "loop" around through the different parts of writing--inventing, drafting, rewriting, editing, etc. Broadly speaking, scholars have argued against a linear view of the writing process.

What I am suggesting is a finer grained notion of the time involved in the act of writing. Micro-beats instead of macro-beats. We should pay attention to changes not just in large phases of the writing process (for instance, how a writer might return to drafting after a stretch of editing) but also look at the moment by moment changes.

Our real environment—one of of constant change—works for us as writers, not against us.

 

The 3 Paradoxes of Mindful Writing

The act of writing is built on several paradoxes.

Paradox #1:  To communicate with others, we often have to forget about or overlook other people.  In other words, to eventually communicate with others, we first communicate with ourselves. 

Carl Rogers said something similar in “Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation” when he said that a person’s problems communicating with others result from her problems communicating with herself.  In mindful writing, this means that as soon as an individual pushes that bar too far to the audience side in an effort to meet others’ expectations or standards, she is less able to have intrapersonal communication (or communication with the self).  Intact intrapersonal communication is required for interpersonal communication (or communication with others).  This means that monkey mind--discursive thinking--is required for writing that is eventually shown to others.  While we might think we are having problems writing to Mr./Ms./Professor Difficult Audience, we are actually having problems communicating with ourselves.

Paradox #2:  Writing is largely known as a cognitive or thinking act when it is actually a physical action in which bodily sensations and the physical attributes of the objects used are crucial to prolific writing.

 While several scholars and popular authors have connected the work of writing to meditation or breathing techniques, largely in an effort to relax or ground the would-be write, only a handful of scholars have correlated one’s physical presence to the invention of written material. 

Sondra Perl’s theory of felt sense, based on the work of Eugene Gendlin, directs attention to noticing how knowledge arises in the body—how ideas are bodily intuitions.  In discussing the writing process, Keith Hjortshoj suggests that the process is not simply a set of cerebral phases (brainstorming, drafting, revising) but that “movements within the writing process” are also physical movements:  “Like almost everything else that we do, writing is both mental and physical.  And if these dimensions of the self in the world are not coordinated, writing will not happen.” 

More often than not, thinking about one’s fingers as they type would probably do a writer far more good than thinking about any made-up reader.

Paradox #3:  In order to optimally succeed with writing, one’s primary allegiance must be to the present moment, not to the text.  One needs to stay mindful, no matter what is happening during one’s session at the computer. 

Everything is transitory and impermanent, and suffering comes from resisting that reality.  Even one’s best ability to write—during a long lucky streak—is in actuality in flux.  If one bends closer to look, that happy ability or inspiration also fluctuates, wavers, and differs in texture and character in each moment, like a flame. 

Groundlessness means staying in full awareness of the fact that everything is constantly changing including matters pertaining to writing.  The good news about impermanence is that a writer’s block, however impervious it may appear, is actually in fluctuation and temporary, part of a moment.  As Suzuki says in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “When the Buddha comes, you will welcome him.  When the devil comes, you will welcome him.” 

Change serves rather than hinders writing. In academic circles, this would mean that the rhetorical canon of invention can be redefined as being observant of that change.