Intentionality, acceptance, and coming back to the writing
As writers, we live with many dichotomies. For example, while we must allow our minds to roam freely in order to discover the breadth, depth, and wide variety of characters for our stories, we also need to learn how to wrangle all of that raw source material into a coherent narrative.
Likewise while we must enter fully into the story universe we create, rubbing elbows with our characters, even participating in their emotional experiences, we also need to be able to step outside that universe to appraise it from a distance and give us a writer’s perspective.
Thus I was interested last night in a weekly class I’m currently taking on mindfulness to hear our instructor’s thoughts about intentionality and acceptance. How on the one hand, the practice of becoming more aware and alive in the present, and less controlled by the random stream of our continuous, hectoring thoughts requires intentionality on our part, while on the other hand we must also acknowledge and accept the fact that we will constantly fall back into the pre-condition of our mental maelstrom.
Her words of advice: “With understanding and compassion, acknowledge our thoughts, then come back. Always come back to the body.”
And of course, at the end of the session while I was meditating, my mind went to work — coming up with a blog post!
To write, we need to be intentional. However we do it, whether we set a schedule for our writing sessions or go about it randomly, each time we sit down to write is an expression of our intention to create a story.
And yet, until we have developed that practice to the point where it becomes second nature for us to write, we will fall short of our intentions. Our minds are expert at coming up with excuses not to write, some of which GITS readers have shared here and here.
When we do not write, we have a choice: Get down on ourselves for being such slothful shits. Or accept the fact we are human…
Then come back.
Always come back to the writing.
Writing is hard enough as it is. It’s easy to beat ourselves up.
It’s harder to act with compassion and understanding when we fall short of our intentions…
Accept it.
Then come back.
Always come back to the writing.
How about you? How do you deal with your intention to write… and those times when you fall short of your intentions?