Beginning to Practice

Rather than thinking of my writing as a task on my to-do list, a chore to be crossed off, I'm starting to envision it as a practice like yoga or meditation. Writing every day is part of the practice, as is noticing my response to each writing session.

A friend recently gave me a copy of an article, "The Light Spills into Words" by John Tarrant, from The Best Buddhist Writing 2005. Tarrant describes how he first came to writing:

Writing actually began for me as a practice of the night, a hidden vice. As a teenager I worked for a while in a copper smelter, a minor demon in a satisfyingly vivid underworld full of fire and struggle--green flames, blue flames, golden metal, and the ringing of sledge hammers. When we weren't tending the furnace, it was good to be invisible. I used to climb up into the girders to read and write. No one looked up so I had the solitude and privacy I was hungry for. That was for me the quiet pleasant spot, suitable for meditation, that the Buddha recommended.

Later, when I came to practice meditation in a formal way, I kept it secret too, a love affair that would disintigrate if brought out into the day. A practice involves initiation and at first might need to be hidden, sealed in, like wine fermenting, seeds germinating, copper being cooked. In the dark we can operate by different, non-daylight rules, without considering what we gain or lose by our actions.

Now if someone asks me why I meditate, or write, I can give them a reason--health, transformation, the light the orange tree gives off at dawn--but the explanation is after the fact. It's like saying why you love what you love; you just do. I didn't know where this practice was leading and that seemed something important to protect. I didn't want to pretend that I did know or be tempted to explain myself even to myself.

Then last week I got Cynthia Morris's book Create Your Writer's Life, and low and behold, she also talks about writing as practice:

When we practice something, such as our spirituality or our exercise regimen, we devote ourselves to it. We commit to repeating certain acts over and over because we know that the repetition and the regularity of it strengthens our overall commitment. We may have a desired outcome in mind. We may commit to a spiritual practice or an exercise practice because it gives us peace or brings us closer to our essential self. With consistency, devotion, and passion, we experience changes on both the inner and outer levels. A writing practice is like that.

Years ago I learned to consider my writing a practice. In her book, One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers (Penguin Arkana, 1992), Gail Sher says that if writing is a practice, the only way you can fail is if you do not do it. The idea of writing as a practice eliminates notions of good or bad writing. It can help you sidestep the fears that accompany you to the blank page. A practice is something we do over and over, learning and listening as we go.

I'm probably the last writer in the world who hasn't read Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, but I believe she approaches writing in much the same way.

When one comes to writing through academic courses, as I did, there is much less emphasis on the process than on the product. You have assignments, deadlines, evaluations, marks. There's competition and judgment. What matters is what you produce and how good it is, not how you got there.

I'd like to bring in this other element, writing for writing's sake, not for "having written."