Writing Through the Year
— WINTER —
Special Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 Winslow Eliot.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Cover Designed by: Telemachus Press, LLC
Cover Art :
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Copyright © thinkstockphotos/109185205
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ePublished and Distributed by Smashwords
Designed by: Telemachus Press, LLC
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ISBNs:
978-1-937698-85-0 (Winter)
978-1-937698-86-7 (Spring)
978-1-937698-87-4 (Summer)
978-1-937698-88-1 (Fall)
Version 2012.01
This book wouldn't exist without Claudia Jackson, who gave me the overall concept, production, covers, and ongoing encouragement. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! Samantha Stier and May Paddock were invaluable through the editing process. Thanks most of all to my visitors to the Write Spa over the years: the many readers and subscribers who have given me feedback, commented, supported, appreciated, and were refreshed and rejuvenated by their pause at this oasis.
PREFACE: Why I created WriteSpa – An Oasis for Writers
INTRODUCTION: How you can use this book and make it your own.
January
Week 1 – Hypnopompia: the most important state of being for a writer.
Week 2 – When you read about a new hat, why do you want one too?
Week 3 – The Art of Meditation.
Week 4 – Know thyself: Use these interviewing techniques to find out more about yourself.
February
Week 5 – Don’t let your possessions possess you.
Week 6 – Love Letters: the most important love letter you’ll ever write.
Week 7 – Intelligence of the heart
Week 9 – In the Garden: a dream of a garden is the key to your spirit.
March
Week 10 – The Soul of Color
Week 11 – Great Dialog - Part 1
Week 12 – Great Dialog - Part 2
Week 13 – Great Dialog - Part 3
Week 13 – Simplify
Your life is an adventure. Every morning you wake up and anything at all might happen! You can set off on a journey, speak your mind, buy something, sell something, look at a painting, take a walk and see a wild boar … the possibilities are endless.
As a writer, you know this is true. You create worlds with the soul of an adventurer. You create things – you cast a magic spell and a world is manifested. A person is developed. A story unfolds.
The adventure is thrilling – but it can take its toll. Rest, pleasure, enjoyment in the journey is as important as charging into the fray. You need an oasis.
The oasis I offer you here is designed to rejuvenate and encourage you. It’s supposed to be fun, fulfilling, and to inspire serenity and nourishment for your writer’s soul.
Perhaps you write because you’ve been struck by a thunderbolt of inspiration. Or you’re under deadline. Or you’re trying to make money as a writer. Or you write because you enjoy it. Any of these reasons may create a stormy relationship with Writing. But your decision to write is a commitment as important as marriage. Writing needs nurturing, sustenance, and daily practice. Deadlines and inspiration don’t cut it, just as they don’t in a relationship. A pianist practices every day. A painter sketches every day. A lover pays tender attention to the beloved every day.
When I realized this, I decided I would give Writing all the honor and affection it was due, and see if I could lift it into a daily practice that brought us pleasure and joy.
In the years that followed this decision I’ve discovered that Writing is not something to wrestle with, or long for, or something that makes me giddy with excitement, or throws me into the bleakest despair imaginable. It’s actually something that is always there for me, and I am always there for it. Since I began writing as a daily practice, our bond has become indissoluble.
My hope is that the exercises, insights, and encouragement I offer here will nourish and revitalize your own relationship with Writing.
HOW TO MAKE THIS BOOK YOUR OWN
Your goal in allowing these practices into your life is pleasure and fun. Think of them as a spa – a restful massage, a pedicure that leaves your toenails polished and sparkling, and your writing muscles relaxed and flexible. They are designed to inspire, to relax, and to enjoy.
The book is divided into four parts: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. You’ll find a writing practice for every week of the year so you can focus on each of the restful and rejuvenating practices for at least seven days. I’ve given each month four weeks, and one extra week for each of the four seasons, so that ultimately your writing adventure will cover an entire year. But it’s important for you to keep in mind that you need to decide what works best for you. If you’re working on developing your awareness of color, for example, then by all means continue with that practice for as long as you like.
Keep in mind that the ‘in-between’ moments of writing are as essential as the actual process of putting words together to create sentences. Just as white space is crucial in a design, and the rests between notes of music are as important as the notes themselves, so it is with the process of writing.
Become aware that everything you ‘do’ is writing.
Writing Practices
Each Practice begins with a musing that has some relevance to the practice. This helps get you in the mood, makes you think, or gives you a background to why this particular practice will help.
Set yourself a regular time each day to read the practice. You’ll find that some of them aren’t necessarily physical writing, but napping, taking a walk, or meditating… Every practice, however, feeds your writing soul.
When you’re in any relationship, you experience situations or moments when you’re frustrated or annoyed, there are always ups and downs. If the relationship is strong, eventually you move past those feelings into camaraderie and enjoyment in each other’s company. That’s what falling in love with Writing is like.
You’ll find, if you follow a weekly rhythm as faithfully as possible, that by the end of the year you will have created a relationship with Writing that isn’t anguished, tense, hard-working, or anxious, but instead has evolved into one that’s filled with delight, fun, humor, meaning, and love.
Enjoy the process – the words – the sentences – the emotional rollercoaster – the satisfaction of nourishing your writing soul and heart. Enjoy just being together.
What are Daily Happinesses?
Throughout your WriteSpa you’ll come across “daily happinesses.” These are brief images or feelings that help you to peek into another, more objective, reality.
In a way, they are also writing prompts. Each one of these little phrases conjures a vignette, a mood, a story, a person, a place. For example: “Planning for a garden of rare and wild roses.” “Penguins diving into the sea.” “The silence before applause.”
Let me explain further.
When I was in college back in the seventies, I came across this paragraph, written by Sylvia Plath in Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams:
“How I envy the novelist! I imagine her… pruning a rosebush with a large pair of shears, adjusting her spectacles, shuffling about among teacups, humming, arranging ashtrays or babies, absorbing a slant of light, a fresh edge to the weather, and piercing, with a kind of modest, beautiful x-ray vision, the psychic interiors of her neighbors – her neighbors on trains, in the dentist’s waiting room, in the corner teashop. To her, this fortunate one, what is there that isn’t relevant! Old shoes can be used, doorknobs, air letters, flannel nightgowns, cathedrals, nail varnish, jet planes, rose arbors, and budgerigars; little mannerisms – the sucking at a tooth, the tugging at a hemline – any weird or warty or fine or despicable thing. Not to mention emotions, motivations – those rumbling, thunderous shapes. Her business is Time, the way it shoots forward, shunts back, blooms, decays, and double-exposes itself. Her business is people in Time. And she, it seems to me, has all time in the world. She can take a century if she likes, a generation, a whole summer. I can take about a minute.”
For me, reading this paragraph was a revelation. Writing furiously at the time, both novels and poetry, I knew in an instant what she meant. Every single detail in life – doorknobs, the tugging at a hemline – is relevant to a novelist. This makes daily life even more enticing and appealing.
Daily happinesses are more than just writing prompts to get you started. They each morph into a small awareness that keeps you alive to the subtle qualities of writing fiction. Just as on the stage of a play, every prop is relevant to the action, characters, and dialogue, so every detail in a story is relevant. It matters.
It also inspires.
So come up with your own, as often as possible, but at least once a day. Simply observe the folded sheets, or the curled-up cat, or the sleet at the window, or the quirky smile of a friend, and write it down. You might be amazed at the story that surrounds an everyday image when seen in a different light.
Now… enjoy the writing journey. And remember that rest is as important as movement.
Week 1 – Hypnopompia: your best time to “write.”
Week 2 –When you read about a new hat, why do you want one too?
Week 3 – The art of meditation.
Week 4 – Know thyself: Use the craft of interviewing to find out more about yourself.
WEEK 1
Hypnopompia – your best time to write.
Hypnopompia is that marvelous in-between moment before you’re fully awake. Hypnagogia, which also works, is the state just before you fall asleep. Either way, it’s the time when you’ll find you do your best work. Many scientists and artists used this time to access inspiration, including Aristotle, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Salvador Dali. It’s when, as a writer, you’ll have your greatest insights.
Remember, the act of writing is not just about putting your pen to paper or your fingers to the keyboard. It’s also about daydreaming, making up stories, reading, and thinking about words: their meaning and their sacredness, their value to you as a writer, and their kindness and helpfulness.
Regard this state as a sacred trust. It’s a flame, a fire, a warmth – an amazing way to think outside the box. It helps you to look at something freshly and strangely. This is the time to let an image or a phrase come to you, instead of always being the one to search for it.
A study in the Journal for Neuropathy reports a correlation between hypnogogia and the enhancement of creative ability. In the study, creativity was defined by: “(a) fluency (the ability to generate numerous ideas), (b) flexibility (the ability to see a given problem from multiple perspectives), and (c) originality (the ability to come up with new and unique ideas).” Although fluency did not significantly increase, flexibility in thinking and well-being increased for everyone.
During hypnagogia, the normal activity of the left / logical side of your brain is inhibited, allowing imagery in your right / creative brain freedom to experience whatever it wants to, without trying to analyze itself. Often what you experience may seem surreal or nonsensical: the messages may come in a sudden phrase or an impossible image. There’s no sequence to what happens. Just observe it.
There are physical and psychological explanations for what your alpha-theta brainwaves are doing when you experience flashes of insight, surreal imagery, or vivid imaginings. It’s also possible that spirit guides really are able to connect with you at this mysterious moment between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Writing Practice – Slumber with a Key
Hypnopompia occurs as you’re waking up – but before you’re fully conscious. Become aware of the moment, and try to always write down what you experienced – even if it’s only a feeling or an image from a dream you’ve already forgotten. Take a moment to thoroughly appreciate the transition time between sleeping and waking. The habit enriches your inner creative life – and makes the rest of your day happier.
Hypnogogia, however, is an experience you can create for yourself. Here’s how:
At around two in the afternoon, when your energy level is low because of your brain’s circadian rhythm, get comfortable in an armchair. Your circadian rhythm is your biological clock that regulates sleep, body temperature, production of hormones, and other things. At around two in the afternoon, your energy is at its lowest, no matter what you’ve been doing for the rest of the day. Now, decide on a way to stay awake. For example, Thomas Edison held a steel ball in his hand. As soon as he drifted off, the ball fell and woke him up.
Salvador Dali used a key and he calls this exercise “Slumber with a Key” (it’s one of his 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship). He learned the practice of ‘sleep without sleeping’ from the Capuchin monks of Toledo. Here are his instructions:
“…Seat yourself in a bony armchair, preferably of Spanish style, with your head titled back and resting on the stretched leather back…In this posture, you must hold a heavy key which you keep suspended, delicately pressed between the extremities of the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. Under the key you will previously have placed a plate upside down on the floor. Having made these preparations, you will have merely to let yourself be progressively invaded by a serene afternoon sleep, like the spiritual drop of anisette of your soul rising in the cube of sugar of your body. The moment the key drops from your fingers, you may be sure that the noise of its fall on the upside-down plate will awaken you...”
Whatever way you decide to stay awake, the purpose of this exercise is to calmly observe your thoughts, rather than to think them. As you drift into hypnagogia, try to stay conscious of what’s happening. Perhaps a phrase will come to you, or an image, or you’ll feel flooded by emotion. Be relaxed, but also be alert and aware. According to Dali and the Capuchin monks, your revelation will come to you in less than a second.
Keep a journal on hand so you can write down what happens.
If you don’t have the opportunity to have a siesta, use the time before you go to sleep at night. It’s much harder to get the same results when you’re drifting off to sleep at night because 1) you’re too tired to concentrate and 2) it’s hard to remember what you experienced since you’ll usually fall asleep during the exercise. But if nighttime is your only option, try this: Ask yourself a question just before you go to sleep. You might say something like: “I don’t know how to end my story. Show me the way. Guide me to the conclusion.” You can also ask about something other than writing – something that has made you feel stuck, perhaps.