The Zen of Writing Redux

I've written before about the zen of writing.

How writing is, for me, a spiritual practice.

Yes, discipline is crucial. The AIC principal-- Ass in Chair--followed daily--or at least three times per week-- will pretty much guarantee you grow as a writer.

But how you approach your writing is just as important.

I often find myself counseling writing students on their schedules. Make writing a priority in your life. Writing comes before Home Depot, reality television shows, Facebook, jobs and dinner parties. Schedule it, and you plan your loyalty.

Easier said than done, I know. But here comes the Zen part.


You sit down to write without expectations. You may find a goal helpful--two hours or 500 words-- but in the end it's your attitude that will open the portal, and welcome the flow.

That means reserving judgement and editing for revision, not drafting.

That means your work can--and often will-- surprise you.

You just walk the path.

I can't say it better than Richard Bausch, in his interview, which I have photocopied and posted near my desk:

When I sit down to write, I'm not thinking about pulling stuff out of myself. I'm thinking about going somewhere, walking around, and seeing what I find. And there's never a time when I sit down and it isn't there. You just walk the path . . . I never worry about whether or not it's good. I don't care, right then. I'm walking the path. I know that if I can bring enough attention to it, and be honest and open to it and not cheat it, it'll be fine. I love William Stafford's advice. Someone asked, 'What do you do about writer's block?' Stafford said, 'Lower my standards and keep on going.' --Richard Bausch, Interviewed in Writer

Happy 2011 and Why I'm Eating Beans and Greens

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year!

I did my part by cooking and eating "a mess of greens and beans." Black-eyed peas and collard greens, which you eat on New Year's Day to bring you good luck and prosperity.  The greens represent cash, and the peas are coins. The cornbread--corn pone-- must represent Debit cards...my cornbread was pretty flat and crusty.

But, surrounded by Yankees at one point, I couldn't explain to them why beans & greens bring prosperity.

So I did a little armchair research--via Google.

From Suite 101: One idea is that, "American slaves stayed up on December 31, 1862 waiting for the bill that President Abraham Lincoln signed - the Emancipation Proclamation – to go into effect. They celebrated with what they had – black eyed peas ad greens."

And the not so exciting theory: " Black eyed pea and greens tradition is shared across cultural and ethnic boundaries, so it seems more likely that black eyed peas which keep well when dried and collards which are seasonal in the South in December/January made sense for a New Year meal."

I've also heard that after the civil war and Sherman's march, there wasn't much left but greens and beans.

Never mind. It's a good meal..beans & greens.

I don't throw in a ham hock, though. I'm vegetarian, so I use olive oil and jalapenos.

From Suite101: New Years Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens: Why Do Southerners Eat Peas and Greens on Jan 1? http://www.suite101.com/content/new-years-black-eyed-peas-and-collard-greens-a183025#ixzz19ua6zVtj

Attention Must Be Paid

Apparently, scientists needed evidence that Living in the Now is beneficial. Hence, this article from the NYT science section Wandering Mind is a Sign of Unhappiness:

Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing. 

...it’s in keeping with the religious and philosophical admonitions to “Be Here Now,” as the yogi Ram Dass titled his 1971 book. The phrase later became the title of a George Harrison song warning that “a mind that likes to wander ’round the corner is an unwise mind.”

Or, to put it in the positive, a focused mind is wise and happy.
“Flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity— is key.

Writing, for example.

Which leads me to a clumsy but apt transition...a favorite quote:

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work. --Russell Banks

Tomorrow: Community Writing Workshop

I'm leading tomorrow's Writing Room Workshop: "Out of Your Head and Onto the Pages."

For the price of a Cappuccino,
you can write in class,
and share your in-class creations.

Sunday, Nov. 14, 2-4 pm. Bobby Pearse Community Center, N. Main Park.

These second Sunday $5 workshops, sponsored by the Emrys Foundation and Greenville Parks & Rec, are designed to stimulate creativity and generate ideas. We’ll use a some in-class writing exercises to inspire new work. 

The focus for tomorrow's workshop are beautiful sentences. Great first lines*.

Smart gripping scene starters. Openings-- those shiny cut jewels! 


The stuff's too good not to share. A virtual workshop, maybe? 

*As noted in my previous post on great first lines:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
-- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
--Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. - Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Grandmother didn't want to go to Florida.-- Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - George Orwell, 1984

They shoot the white girl first. - Toni Morrison, Paradise

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. - Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex


It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar