Creating and Maintaining Momentum in Writing
Writing is an inside job.
It took me a long time to understand this. I thought that if I read enough craft books, if I watched enough tutorials, if I met and listened to enough folks in the “biz,” it would all come together. I’d be well-equipped, armed with the knowledge and skillset to not only write a book, but to navigate the world of publishing. I was so wrong.
(7 Things I Learned While Writing Across Genres.)
Inevitably, I came up against wall after wall and in that process, I met a writing coach who told me, “You need to unlearn writing.”
I was bewildered. I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but I eventually realized that this was about more than words on the page; this was about the artistic process. It was time to step back from all the well-meaning advice, the shoulds and musts. And when I did, I finally landed on this single truth: Story is a process of excavation. I was never going to find what I was looking for “out there.”
But that’s where I was raised and nourished, I wanted to argue. Still, some wiser part of me knew that I had a choice. I could plod along, consuming whatever the external world had on the menu that day, or I could go within. Sounds simple enough, but it required more than I wanted to give. It’s no easy thing to be still in our chaotic world, to learn to connect to the deeper part of yourself, to surrender to the magic. Yes, magic. The nuanced creation of worlds when the imagination plays, and the heart expands is never without it.
And yet, we throw up barriers, trying to contain and control it, but of course, this never works. Believe me, I’ve tried.
“This is our fate,” Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “to stand in our own way. Forever in the way.”
But what if we could live and create differently? What if we could let go and face the fears and doubts that linger at the edge of every page? I realized a long time ago that they are not the enemy. Both fear and doubt have so much to teach us which is why I no longer try to exile them.
Check out J.C. Cervantes’ Always Isn’t Forever here:
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This brings to mind the generous spirit and profound words of Martha Graham who once said, “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy that is translated through you in action and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist. The world will not have it.”
Therein lies the choice for all of us. Block or bring forth.
My best ideas come to me only when I keep the channel open. It’s the only time true inspiration sparks. Usually as a first scene that intrigues me enough that I need to know more. I follow that spark for days, waiting patiently until the story unfolds and reveals itself to me.
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In that space, there are no readers, no outside voices—there is only what is within. So, when I’m asked how I write across multiple age categories, I simply say what I know to be true: I am a storyteller. When I sit down to the page, I’m not an author trying to pen a book. I’m a human trying to channel a story that demands to be told.
Oftentimes, new writers reach out to me, asking one question or another, all leading back to the same desire to author a book, but there is no formula I can give them. Sure, I can point them to useful materials, conferences, classes, books. But ultimately, only they can mine what no book or conference or class can teach: their unique voice.
It takes practice. It takes effort and diligence and trust. And it takes a bit of magic. I don’t tell them to get still or quiet. I don’t tell them that writing is an inside job. They’ll discover their own life force. Every artist does. Or at least that is my hope.
Check out J.C. Cervantes’ The Enchanted Hacienda here: