Writing and the Art of Self-Trust

Wow, so it's been too long since my last post. It was an incredibly busy summer and fall for me, and I expect for many of you as well. In between celebrations and vacations I've been editing a manuscript, sending it out into the world and trying to coax my brain back into the free and creative head-space necessary to start something new. Sometimes I just stare at a blank page and feel an overwhelming sense of inequity. I can't put a single word down on the page.

One of the phrases I've been mulling over for months now has been one I heard from a dear friend. "Trust the Process." As writers, we've all probably heard this a time or two. I've heard it, thought "brilliant!" but what exactly was so brilliant about it? It sounds really good, but what does it mean?

What is "the process?"

For me, the process is the way I go about relaying a story from my imagination into words and images for others to read. That process in longhand is as follows:

I make a cup of tea. I read some poetry. I listen to some music. I might even take a walk if I'm still not ready to write. Once I'm feeling the itch to sit down and start, I get comfy in my writing space, open my laptop and...
I start to procrastinate, but I call it "just checking in" on the world before starting to write. I do that for about 20 to 30 minutes. Next I pull up a blank document and...
I stare at it for waaaay tooo long...I stare at it so long it starts to swim like water before my eyes.
I stare as though brilliant words will start to pour out any second...wait for it...
And no, no brilliant words...sigh. I guess I'll just have to write something...anything...anything...anything...anything...
Anything you can do I can do better...lalalala....okay so typing the lyrics to a song doesn't count as writing does it?

Eventually I might get something going, a short paragraph or two on what a character looks like or what their bedroom looks like or who their best friend is. Eventually this pre-writing starts to build up and a story emerges. It's slow, for me. Painstakingly slow. Perhaps that is why I don't update my blog all that often? I don't know, but I know that I do have a process, however painstaking and teeth-pulling it may be.
So, what does it mean to trust that process?
Well, if I have a process, I have to own it. It's MY process. Me...I'm the process, sort of. So if I'm the process, what does it mean to trust it? It means I have to trust...
I have to trust myself.
I'm getting dangerously close to therapy territory here and I must quote my dear friend again who says that every MFA degree in creative writing should come with a voucher for therapy.

Writing is like taking a journey into yourself.
In order to write, you must first know your characters, in order to know your characters, you must understand people, in order to understand people you have to start with yourself. Understand yourself, understand others, understand your characters and why they do what they do. Sounds like a stint in therapy doesn't it?

We put ourselves into our writing, and we can't do that without an understanding of who that person is. In order to trust the process, we must first trust the person from whom the process originates. I have to trust myself, trust what I've learned, trust my intuition and instincts, trust my imagination.

We trust whom we are comfortable with. You have to be comfortable with you. I have to be comfortable with myself. Trust me, none of this come easily to most people.
It certainly doesn't come easily to me, but writing does present itself as a sort of therapy, forcing you to dig deeper into your own interior world to understand your characters and their world.

Learning to trust the process = learning to trust myself...
I had to stop beating myself up when I wasn't writing. Time away from writing can be valuable, especially if you are doing things that stimulate your creative soul. I had to start trusting that my process would work if I let it. I had to stop trying to force myself outside of my process to get the words on the page.

What works for you? Do you need to sit down and set a timer? Then do it. Do you need to wander around the house aimlessly for an hour before the words start to flow? Then do it, and don't beat yourself up about it. Sometimes, trusting your process is learning to go gently and to have compassion for the muse that waits. Sometimes it means discipline and turning off the internet, sometimes it means giving yourself a limit on internet time.


I trust that my process will eventually lead me to a story...as long as I continue to follow my process and learn to be gentle on myself... and as long as I don't give up...
which leads me to my topic for next week...

Writing and the Art of Perseverance.