Mindful Writing Mantra and Essay [Excerpt]: Guest Post by Salem State University Student

 

  Writing is.

    Mae Fraser

Macy (Mae) Fraser is an English major and History minor with a Concentration in Creative Writing at Salem State University. Mae serves as Poetry Reader for Soundings East, Social Media Editor for Under the Madness Magazine, Co-Vice President for the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society, and a tutor at the university Writing Center. Mae created her mantra, "Writing is.," as part of her capstone project for ENL 221: Mindful Writing this semester.

Fill in the blank: writing is _____.

Don’t worry about getting it right or wrong; there is no right or wrong answer. Just answer with what feels right to you and only you.

What does it mean to write? What is writing? What is your definition of it? 

Oxford says it’s “The activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text.”

Dictionary.com calls it “the written form”.

Merriam-Webster defines it as “the act or process of one who writes”.

But what do you say about it? What is writing to you?

Writing is…

Writing is…

Writing is…

Writing is…

Writing is something to everyone, yet writing does not have one, true meaning. It has a dictionary definition, but that’s not the extent of the meaning of writing. Writing is what you make it, not what it makes you. Mindfully writing means you control the narrative (literally). Writing is a language we all are fluent in.

Writing is the whisper of the wind as you walk the length of the beach, the beige concrete wall that’s stood a protector, for all your life and beyond, separating you from the cold, foaming seas yards of sand away from solid ground. Writing is the hum of your refrigerator late at night when you’re trying to sleep, but the sounds of the late night and early morning keep you up with it’s symphony of mechanical whirring and electrical currents buzzing.

Writing is the screaming and crying of long past memories that come crawling back into your psyche, but instead of losing yourself to the overwhelming dread, pain, and suffering, you bend it to your will and make it art. Writing is the voyage home after years of being away. Writing is marching, protesting, and fighting for your values.

Writing is your lions cry, your freedom speech, your ode to your ancestors. Writing is your soliloquy: to write or not to write, that is the question. Writing is the ask and the answer. Writing is the thing with feathers. Writing is yours to take and master or to take and shatter. It is up to you what you do with it. Writing is the dragon you must slay. Writing is the world, absolutely filled to the brim with opportunity.

Writing is our experience, our process, our legacy.

Writing is… prewriting, waiting, and creating.

Writing is creation. Our minds are the expansive universe, not an end in sight. We pull from our everyday lives in order to make something out of nothing, a magician pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat. We must leave our bodies behind and become groundless, accept the things that come and use them for our art. Everything changes, everything can become brand new in the eyes of the beholder, so we must watch it, but not interact. Watch for the inevitable change; watch it, and let it grow, a strong rose appearing from the snow atop it. Let the carpet be pulled from beneath our feet; the fall could reveal more than the standing could. A fall from grace holds so much power.

Writing is waiting, whether it is to wait to write, to wait for the bus, or to wait for omens. It takes time to get the writing out—but you should never let that stop you. Writing is waiting to be ready to write. We must wait, and our writing will wait right beside us. Inhales and exhales later will we be truly ready to write. The delay is necessary; if we don’t wait long enough, we will become ensnared by storylines not interconnected to the one we wish to write. Our minds will wander, forever lost to the supposed grandeur of other lands. The essential delay is to ready us for combat, ready us for prophecies that will become unfolded.

Writing is the ebb and flow of our bodies and of time.

Writing is not letting procrastination win. Procrastination is not inherently a bad thing, but it can cause bad things. Subpar papers, half-assed poems, or half-written scripts of some unintelligible garbage. Allow yourself time to be your best self as a writer, but remember to be kind to yourself as well. Writing is allowing yourself time and the good things that come with writing.

Writing is knowing that you are creative even when the ideas aren’t there. It’s part of that delay, that waiting period to write. Despite waiting, you are creative even when you think you are not. Uncertainty always remains inside of us, sometimes making an appearance, but never should you let it affect your writing. Take that uncertainty and create something with it when the time comes to write again. Let it inspire you instead of hindering you. Use your creative intuition, let it build up inside of you until you feel as if you are going to burst. Create without boundaries.

Writing is creating something that is uniquely yours.

Writing is… being imperfect, banishing demons, and getting rid of preconceptions.

Writing is not perfect; it’s not meant to be. Imperfection is not a thing to be scared of. You are under no obligation to be perfect, nor are you under any obligation to be like the ones before you. You admire the writers, the mentors, the teachers, and the ones that inspire you, but you are you, not them. You are made of bits and pieces of people who have circulated through your life; some might remain, some might have gone, but you will always be there.

You are eternal. You are not the authors you read, but you are inspired by their weaving of stories like spider webs and their eloquence that makes metaphors into mountains. You are not your mentors or your teachers, but you are the product of essential learning and creative excellence. You are not the ones you love, but you feel their support and love like a warm embrace after hours of losing your way.

Writing is here when you need it most. When the babble of everyday worries—did I leave the water running? Where are my keys currently or did I drop them in the garage again?—comes in waves and turns into ensnaring weeds when you pay attention to their presence—oh god, did the door blow open again? Are my animals getting hit on High Street or Lafayette Road? Which would be worse and why am I thinking about this when I’m trying to pay attention to a lecture an hour away from home?—your words are there to comfort you.

Writing is your home, a comforting sight in which your greatest ideas flow. No such anxieties can filter through the wall you have created for yourself, but there is always a split, allowing the flow of ideas to infiltrate and inspire. Your haven is your writing, absorbing the blows that come to you, one by one, by the threat of rejection and perfection. Your writing is a churning machine that turns your demons to dust and let ideas run rampant. The ideas flow through your mind, washing over the weeds and the waves like they never existed. Those who try to stand in your way wash away, decimated into nothingness, with the strong force of the raging river your ideas have become. Writing is your sanctuary.

Writing is what you make your worries and your nervous energies into. Your worries become epic tales of warriors who, too, go through the trials and tribulations of the typical person, and must gather the strength to defeat what is hellbent on destroying them. Hellhounds run after you, but your writing is there to protect you. The doubt you feel becomes the scales of a dragon protecting a damsel no longer in distress in your twist on the classic fantasy tale.

Anxiety becomes a contemporary romance where your wildest dreams are lived out in rose-gold silk and poetry serenades at 3 am. Writing is your slam poetry dreams come alive on the stage, or at the smoky coffee shop, or even in front of your friends on the long car ride home from a long journey.

The warmth of the guiding light from your past is supposed to help you as your journey continues, not to hinder you or cause you harm. It scares away the demons and monsters that cause you pain; you can stop the monsters under your bed and in your closet that have always come out to play. Writing is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal.

Writing is the call to action. When you hear your demons arrive to take a hold of your mind, summoned from the boiling pits below the hardwood floors and the concrete base of your sanctuary, may the words you use protect you and be your soldier. They are meant to be attack the demons, slick black with ink, who take your artisanship away. They slice at sentences, rip apart scenes that took you hours to create vivid images of, desecrate the temple you have made for yourself.

The notebooks of unfinished poetry and unfathomed fantasy novels crumble away at the burning touch of the audience you’re embarrassing yourself in front of. You feel as if a trap door will carry you to your doom in a moment, where the demons lie in wait once more to feed off the fear and anguish they themselves have caused you. The demon you hear the most will appear at your shoulder, whisper the worst words a writer can hear, and try to persuade you.

You’re not a writer. You’re just some imposter. Let me fix that for you, since you can’t obviously write that for yourself, let alone write it for an audience.

The words weigh on your shoulders, those troubled thoughts and whispered wisps of falsehood filling up the bag on your shoulders, and you just feel like f a l l i n g …

But with the light of your words and your positive perceptions, those demons will turn to ash. Writing is the words that become your sword, your shield, and your armor. Your words can build cities and tumble armies. You are the master of your own artistry, not those demons who haunt your mind. Your demons don’t stand a chance against your lamentations and cavalier rhymes. They will perish as your radiant luminescence stands up and regards them as nothing more than annoying flies getting in your way.

Disregard the demons as they come, and you and your writing shall come forth and remember when you weren’t strong enough to hold them back. Now, you’re fortified with the knowledge that your writing is yours and no one else’s. You are your writing, and your writing is you.

Writing is the sword and shield at your disposal. May you slay your demons who try to intercept your greatest work.

Writing is… the everchanging present moment, endless writing, and groundlessness.

Writing is everchanging. Writing is the metamorphosis as told by Ovid or the becoming of a butterfly. The present moment is vastly changing minute by minute, second by second, moment by moment. Writing is not one and done; even the tiniest of edits makes it changed. Another reason to why writing perfection is never achievable; our work is never finished. Things change as the seasons do, as the leaves do when fall quickly arrives, leaving no room for the transition of summer into autumn. Writing is never-ending revision, spaced out between minutes, months, millennia, until you deem it to be done.

Writing is a love letter to language, dripping with sweet, succulent words meant for intermingled lovers or loved ones. Our bones and flesh become one with the pen; it becomes an extension of our beings, the ink that flows the embodiment of our souls, of our hearts. With every flick of the wrist and of the pen, our thoughts flow, unobstructed, into permanency. By noticing ourselves, we become our writing and our writing becomes us. We fall into rhythm, a beating of a faraway drum, our writing marching right beside us as we carry on into our writing, our lives, and our process.

Writing is freedom. Writing is taking the parts we don’t like and destroying it, ripping it to shreds so no one—not even ourselves—can read the inner workings of our own psyches. We take the words that don’t work and the fragmented sentences and the poems we wish we could wash the sin out of and light it up, red, orange, and yellow flames engulfing the ink, freeing us from the chains of preconceptions and internal doubt. Doubt in our writing and in ourselves needs to be razed, burned away without any trace. Our freedom from our preconceptions and our demons will allow true transformation and inspiration to begin. Finally.

Writing is typing or writing away the negativities, the endangering energies we encounter when we overthink. Don’t overthink, over-write. Write until the pen runs dry and your hand is in on fire. Write until your computer dies out, a light blinking, blinking, gone. Your light will never be gone; only the threats that haunt you will be released into the ether, always at risk for coming back, but far enough away that their presence cannot be welcomed back in unknowingly. You have the power to banish them forever or keep them around for inspiration; do what you will with the demons that follow you.

Writing is the perception of yourself and those around you.

Writing is… the process.

Writing is letting yourself work. Let the words come, even if they are just fragments or words, the charcoals of a fire not yet lit or the foundation of a skeleton of a house yet to be built. It takes time, the writing process, but you write at your own pace, take the time to run through plans over and over for weeks and weeks, rewrite the same sentence five different times, and finish when you feel like finishing.

Writing is the stages of getting ready, doing the thing, and finishing it. Three stages with multiple substages, a vortex of anxieties just waiting to happen. If we do it right, by waiting for our inspiration to come and preparing ourselves, we will come out unscathed. There is no right way to write, but there are ways to make sure it comes out right for you. Writing is the manipulation of words and ideas to make it truly, uniquely you. Take your time, speed-run your poem, trust the process, exert all of your writing ability. Writing is yours to take a hold of and do what you’d like with it.

Writing is your chance to create, inspire, and learn.

Writing is… revising and editing.

Writing is revising with an open mind. Editing and revising is part of the process, but it all comes later. If you edit and revise while you right, you will find yourself spiraling into your demons’ pit. You’ll spend more time editing than writing. Your misfired aim for perfection comes with a price. Revising is the last step; for now, focus on the writing and give yourself time to focus on the revising later. Revising only gets in your way; it is a dangerous method to give in to the process of editing too early. You’ll spiral until fear and worry is all that’s left.

Writing is not getting caught up in the weeds of editing. If we let go of the revising, forget what comes later and get everything down on the page right now, then we will grow. Our skills will flourish and our minds will be at ease because we took our time, paced our writing. There is no such thing as tidying up your writing as you go. Release all of the words onto the page and pick up the things that need to be discarded later. Your writing will thank you.

Writing is letting the ideas come and go as you develop your writing more and more. Stuff will come and go, but do not tangle yourself up in the web of deleting, deleting, deleting. Your progress is made by letting your writing expand until it can’t anymore. Only then can you cut back the weeds and the other things that grow from your writing. It’s a long process that is worth the wait.

Writing is… giving feedback and being kind to yourself and others.

Writing is allowing yourself to give and receiving feedback. You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings; it’s just human nature, but you have to give good feedback in order for others to succeed as much as you do. Writing is taking the feedback and actively using it, combining your observations with others in order to get the full picture. You stare hard at your writing, day after day, week after week, and your eyes grow so heavy from staring that you forget the extra comma here or the messed-up sentence over there. New perspectives enhance your writing and enhance your world view of language and all of its intricacies.

Writing is not falling into old habits. Once you learn how to do something, keep at it. Don’t let yourself fall back into the old ‘truths’ that you once knew. Refresh your writing with something new, and don’t rely on the dangerous methods you are trying to shake. They might feel like a comfort, but something sinister lies underneath. With each passing moment, there is more to learn and expand from; evaluate, make it a habit, and stick with it.

Writing is being kind to yourself. You are not a failure for not being published yet or writing differently than others. Your writing is a beautiful landscape, unique to you and only you. Writing is remembering that we are not machines programmed to pumping out papers and poems and journals every few months. We are human; a combination of flesh, blood, and words. Do not beat yourself up over the smallest things in your writing. Your writing will only grow when you do.

Writing is not discouraging others. While we want to work on ourselves, we also have to help others when they ask for it. Give them the same kindness—while being constructively critical—that you would expect from them. Kindness pushes out the demons—for you and other writers. Keeping the demons out and letting the words take their place is the main goal for all. Love and kindness go far in the world of writing.

Writing is reminding yourself you are not less of a writer for receiving constructive feedback. Some things don’t vibe well, and that’s okay. Fix that stanza or rewrite that scene with the confidence that people love what you do, but remember that everything needs a little bit of fixing up once in a while. Progress is what we should aim for, not perfection. Writing is embracing that ideal and taking or leaving the feedback as we please. We write for us, but it doesn’t hurt to know what goes on in others’ minds.

Writing is the perception of yourself and those around you.

Writing is… avoiding mindlessness and embracing mindfulness.

Writing is not being mindless. Writing is the constant reminder that you are here and now and not anywhere else. You are in the present moment which ticks by second by second, yet you still remain in it. You aren’t your worries and you are going to be worrying. Embrace the moment and write. Don’t overthink the words, or the demons may make their return, but do not forget to consider the impact of your words. Each word weighs something as soon as it is written or typed; consider your words as they come.

If you are mindless when writing, you will forget the importance of writing. You are forgetting the very thing you are doing if you are not present with your writing. The act of writing itself is in the present moment. Write from your heart and remember to be mindful of your writing. Write until you need to wait to write again. Everything about writing is on your terms, so write fearlessly and write unconditionally.

Writing is yours to control.

Writing is…

Writing has not one true definition. Writing is the ebb and flow of time, noticing the things around you more vividly, and seeing the world in a new light. Your perspective may or may not change, but be mindful of the things around you and see what kind of difference it may make in your world view. Remember to see, learn, and grow with every passing mindful moment. Remember, too, that writing is what you make it.

Writing is personalized. It is yours to take and use to your wildest imaginations. We all have writing, and we all have our personal definitions of what writing is. Writing is yours, mine, ours. Writing is what we believe it to be. Writing is waiting; writing is the process; writing is imperfection; writing is finishing or never finishing; writing is knowing that your writing is everchanging and that you are, too.

Writing is… writing.

 

*calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindful Writing Mantra and Essay [Excerpt]: Guest Post by Salem State University Student

 

Do Not Worry as You Wait

Rachel Pullino

Rachel Pullino is studying English with a focus in creative writing at Salem State University. Writing has always been her greatest passion. This is her first time publicly sharing her work outside of a classroom. This excerpt is from a longer piece for Mindful Writing, in which she created a writing mantra to aid in preventing mindless delay.

"'Waiting is checking both ways before you cross the street. Standing in line at your favorite ice cream shop because it is hot and sweaty, and you deserve a treat. Staring into the beams of the microwave as you heat up last night's leftovers and loathing the green numbers ticking down at an inhumanly slow pace. Waiting is knowing that it is okay to give yourself a break and let what may, come.

Waiting is the worst nightmare of many neurotic writers. We all want to be the best we can be at this very moment and no more or less. Success needs to bleed out of us like life does with each passing moment and if we run out of blood along the way, hook us up on an IV. However, it is okay to not worry while you wait. It is okay to acknowledge that time is necessary for greatness, and we are not mechanical. Do not worry as you wait. Greatness will come as it must and you will be you now and forevermore.'

-- Rachel Pullino, December 2, 2021, halfway through this project.

<3

This particular thought process is what led me to the development of my mantra: Do not worry as you wait. Alongside the masterful work of Don Murray in “The Essential Delay,” my personal writing troubles were essential in the development of this mantra. Waiting has always felt torturous to me. It was not until I read “The Essential Delay” that I saw the pleasure in waiting for things. I am notoriously impatient and like everything to come immediately, yet something about Don Murray’s words spoke to me in a life-changing way. 

As a writer, like the majority of them, I have been plagued by the idea of writer’s block. There has always been an internal pressure on me to continually write great things of even greater quality, and I have drowned in it for the past 6 years. In these past 3 to 4 months, I have written more and written better than I ever have in my life. 

What I believe the cause of that is, is the fact that I have let myself take space in between projects now. Knowing I can and allowing myself to breathe in between poems, short stories, and essays, has shortened my waiting period by a ridiculous amount. In a way, prior to even creating this mantra, I have been telling it to myself for weeks. Now feels like the perfect time to finally share it.

It should not be difficult for writers to be aware of the fact that they are composed of flesh and ideas. 

However, in the writing process, especially with deadlines present, it can feel overwhelming to not be an endless writing machine. The periods between essays and stories and poems can feel lonely, overbearing, and unproductive, but the waiting period is far more beneficial than it seems. 

I have created the mantra, “do not worry as you wait,” to bring some ease to this space in between projects during the pre-writing stage. As writers, sometimes we forget that we are human and need space to take care of our minds as to not over-extend them. Ideas and concepts and full-fledged stories come to us in due time, and it is okay to let them find their way to you instead of seeking them out. 

In Don Murray’s, “The Essential Delay,” he writes in-depth about the waiting period and why it is not only necessary but beneficial. His work in this piece inspired my mantra, which in the short time of its official creation has already been heavily beneficial to me as not only a creative writer but a student during finals.

*calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindful Writing Mantra and Essay [Excerpt]: Guest Post by Salem State University Student

 

Some Ideas are Fertilizers for Other Ideas

Billy Reddy

Billy Reddy is a senior at Salem State University in the Geography Department, graduating this semester. He'd call himself a lifelong learner and hopes to continue the pursuit of knowledge in his post-college life. 

...Seeing the impermanence and the constant flow from one state to another that I experienced when we practiced moment tracking in this course helped me to realize that some ideas or more, so their half-baked form are part of the process. 

I started to see that these disjointed fragments are like steppingstones in a river and can be used to get from one place to the next. I began to see the writing process as a lot like hiking: for both it is about the journey and the destination. Each small step is important to reach the peak of the mountain, just as all words, even the ones that don't make it to the published draft, are important and make up a greater whole. But for some reason we agonize over the words in front of us. 

Imagine, especially if you have ever been on a long hike, if we stopped every step on our way up the mountain, agonizing if it was the exact right step on the path. We would never get to the top if we hiked that way. So, what is it about writing that makes this method seem like a good idea?  

I'm not sure what it is that causes this problem: maybe it's audience or the monkey mind? Where do we get the idea that first and final form are one in the same? Where does this deep feeling of attachment come from? Why does it feel like the words typed out in from of me define who I am? Is each fumble at a word or first pass of a phrase an indicator of my intelligence?  

Why does it feel that this rough draft is a representation of who I am?  

When we write, it's like Michelangelo releasing David from the colossal slab. The difference here is that with writing comes an extra step in the process. The writer must first create the slab out of their words. For this end, a mindful writing mantra can be extremely helpful. 

A writing mantra can be used to guide the mind. We can use it to follow the flow of the never-ending storylines created by the monkey mind. the monkey mind once tamed becomes a raging and powerful river of content and ideas. 

You will notice this any time you try to quiet your mind. The moment you attempt to silence your thoughts many pour in, and most of the time these thoughts are quite random and seem to come from nowhere. These new and often random thoughts are great for producing new content. One idea builds off the next, and soon you are down the rabbit hole of a new storyline. It is important to not be too critical of this content or the power of the monkey mind's creation of ideas will be lost. 

Much of my writing struggles occur at the innovation and production of content phase. I criticize every word, and it is a struggle to put any idea on the page. When I am in this headspace, it's not that I don’t have anything to say, but that I don’t think my ideas are good enough or they are not worded beautifully. I spend a lot of time second-guessing and looking for the perfect wording. Other times I may have an idea, but I have a challenging time cultivating it to maturity. 

In these times writing can feel like being lost in a labyrinth. Typically, when I start to feel the walls of the maze rise up around me, I freeze not knowing where to turn feeling overwhelmed. I may turn down one corridor and follow it for some time, but then inevitably I run into a dead end. 

Eventually, I become discouraged, stop, and give up on the idea. Now I have learned that writing takes time and often wandering around the maze trying to get an idea of where you are and where to go is part of the process. 

Exploration within the twist and turns of the mind can bring us back to the same place from an unfamiliar perspective: we just need to keep our patience and see where the labyrinth or our thoughts may lead us. We have to stay open to what arises in front of us. 

It is important to be open and accept what comes to us on this journey. Often when people have writer's block it is because they feel like the ideas that they have are not good enough to work with. To have brilliant and amazing ideas, you need to entertain some less-than-amazing ones along the way. 

 

 * calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindful Writing Mantra Assignment

 

Design a Mindful Writing Mantra 

[Below is the capstone assignment I give to undergraduate and--with modification--graduate students enrolled in Mindful Writing or Mindful Writing: Theory and Practice. In a subsequent post, I'll be sharing, with students' permission, excerpts from this semester's mantra essays. For background, I'd like to suggest my article, "Mantra of Intention," published in New Writing: International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing]

Overview:

The etymology of “mindfulness” is to “remember to remember.” Meditators use a variety of techniques to remember-to-remember, including meditation bells and mantra, or a verbal saying that is repeated or becomes the object of reflection. Ideally, a mantra should be paired with breath-watching, with mindful breathing encoded in the mantra, for example, “Breathing in, I know I am here; breathing out, I know I am here now.” Here’s one of my mantras: “Your Ability to Write is Already Present.” Here’s another, “Present moment, breathing moment, writing moment.”

A mindful writing mantra draws our attention back to the present moment. Resultant changes in our outlook and emotional state can happen within seconds of repeating a mantra, in part because the mantra steers our internal talk, which probably up until that moment had been free-ranging, widely discursive, its self-pathos rhetoric goading us into all sorts of additional mental formations and storylines about our writing.

This project involves designing your own mindful writing mantra in the context of an extended exploration of mindful writing theory and practice. The intent is to make your mantra something you would actually display on your desk or wherever you tend to write—as an object, as a sign, possibly as jewelry—and build that mantra on sound mindful writing concepts.

Stages:

Prewriting: done in class on Thursday 11/18/2021.

Very Rough Draft (minimum 1,000 words) due on Tuesday, 11/30/2021, emailed to apeary@salemstate.edu by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit to discourage procrastination (manage that through mindful writing!).

First Draft (minimum 2,000 words) due on Thursday, 12/2/2021. emailed to apeary@salemstate.edu by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit.

Second Draft (minimum 3,000 words) due on Tuesday, 12/17/2021 or Thursday, 12/7/2021, depending when your piece is slated for feedback. emailed to apeary@salemstate.edu by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit.

Writing Mantra Project (minimum 3,500 words) due by 9 AM on Monday, 12/13/2021. Send as Word attachment.  Doublecheck that I received your project: if you don’t see an email from me on the evening of December 13 indicating that the document was received, it’s your responsibility to contact me immediately to prevent grade point deduction. No projects will be accepted after Tuesday, December 14. Look for emailed feedback and a grade by Friday, December 17.

Steps:

1. Design of a mindful writing mantra:

§ Design the rhetoric of your mantra.

§  Design a visual appearance for your mantra. The examples of mindful calligraphy (from Thich Nhat Hanh) at the top of this exercise sheet are each inside an almost-closed circle. It’s called an ensō. Take a picture of the drawing (or visual elements) or describe how you would design its visual appearance; if the former, email me the picture along with the project.

2. Create a 3,500+ word exploration of mindful writing, connecting your mantra to concepts from the course. Write this in any style that you wish (need not be conventionally academic in tone). Do connect your mantra to course concepts, citing readings, and cover a significant portion of the following:

intrapersonal rhetoric (role in invention or coming up with new material; self-pathos: preconceptions, storylines, mind waves and mind weeds; role in audience proximity—audience demons and ghosts);

verbal emptiness (nonverbal and prewriting);

impermanence (role in invention; groundlessness; interbeing; role in revision);

embodiment (role in invention; verbal emptiness)

mindlessness (non-productive and productive states in your writing experience).

Additionally, address how you plan to use your writing mantra to chip away at writing-related mindlessness. Mention specific phases in a writing process (prewriting, invention, drafting, revising, feedback, editing, etc.) during which the mantra might be useful and how that application might unfold.

Helpful Hints:

·         Use multiple examples from your writing life (brief or extended);

·         Use multiple examples from assigned readings;

·         Talk about your process of creating your mantra;

·         Possibly talk about using the mantra to complete this final project or another writing assignment at the end of this semester: show your mantra in action, whether literally or hypothetically (or both).

Stages:

Prewriting: done in class on Thursday 11/18/2021.

Very Rough Draft (minimum 1,000 words) due on Tuesday, 11/30/2021, emailed by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit to discourage procrastination (manage that through mindful writing!).

First Draft (minimum 2,000 words) due on Thursday, 12/2/2021. emailed by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit.

Second Draft (minimum 3,000 words) due on Tuesday, 12/17/2021 or Thursday, 12/7/2021, depending when your piece is slated for feedback. emailed by class time to receive credit (graded as Complete/Incomplete). No late drafts will be accepted for credit.

Writing Mantra Project (minimum 3,500 words) due by 9 AM on Monday, 12/13/2021. Send as Word attachment. Double check that I received your project: if you don’t see an email from me on the evening of December 13 indicating that the document was received, it’s your responsibility to contact me immediately to prevent grade point deduction. No projects will be accepted after Tuesday, December 14. Look for emailed feedback and a grade by Friday, December 17.

Steps:

1. Design a mindful writing mantra:

§  Design the rhetoric of your mantra.

§  Design a visual appearance for your mantra. The examples of mindful calligraphy (from Thich Nhat Hanh) at the top of this exercise sheet are each inside an almost-closed circle. It’s called an ensō: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D Take a picture of the drawing (or visual elements) or describe how you would design its visual appearance; if the former, email me the picture along with the project.

2. Create a 3,500+ word exploration of mindful writing, connecting your mantra to concepts from the course. Write this in any style that you wish (need not be conventionally academic in tone). Do connect your mantra to course concepts, citing readings, and cover a significant portion of the following:

intrapersonal rhetoric (role in invention or coming up with new material; self-pathos: preconceptions, storylines, mind waves and mind weeds; role in audience proximity—audience demons and ghosts);

verbal emptiness (nonverbal and prewriting);

impermanence (role in invention; groundlessness; interbeing; role in revision);

embodiment (role in invention; verbal emptiness)

mindlessness (non-productive and productive states in your writing experience).

Additionally, address how you plan to use your writing mantra to chip away at writing-related mindlessness. Mention specific phases in a writing process (prewriting, invention, drafting, revising, feedback, editing, etc.) during which the mantra might be useful and how that application might unfold.

Helpful Hints:

·         Use multiple examples from your writing life (brief or extended);

·         Use multiple examples from assigned readings;

·         Talk about your process of creating your mantra;

·         Possibly talk about using the mantra to complete this final project or another writing assignment at the end of this semester: show your mantra in action, whether literally or hypothetically (or both).

* Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Guest Appearance on What a Word is Worth Podcast

Mindful Writing: A Conversation with Alexandria Peary 

Host: Dr. Marianela Medrano

What a Word is Worth Podcast: Conversations with Creative People on Collective Healing Using Innovative Means  

Link: What a Word is Worth, Dec 5 2021

This episode is a lively conversation with poet and professor Dr. Alexandria Peary. Here is more about our guest:  Alexandria Peary (MFA, MFA, PhD) serves as New Hampshire Poet Laureate. She is the author of nine books, including Control Bird Alt Delete, Prolific Moment: Theory and Practice of Mindfulness for Writing, and Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak. The recipient of a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, her work has received the Iowa Poetry Prize; Best of NH (for inspiring artist); several Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations; and Notable Essay in Best American Nonfiction. She specializes in mindful writing and gives talks and workshops on the topic, including a webcast for National Novel Writing Month; a TEDx talk, “How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write”; and the 2021 keynote for the Secondary School Writing Centers Association. Alexandria is the architect and host of the popular webinar on mindful writing for the National Council of Teachers of English.

"Happy Martin Luther King Day: Holding a Jewel of meditation looking into one's own mind, Buddha statue in the lotus mudra, snow, Broadview, Seattle, Washington, USA, Saha Planet Earth, 'Tolerable' (Sanskrit Saha, 'Tolerable' as in 'barely tolerable')" by Wonderlane is marked with CC0 1.0