Entering the Sanctuary of the Writer

As a writer I know beginnings are very important. This week thanks to some beautiful direction from my Life Mission III manual , I have been contemplating the sacredness of beginnings, beginning to write, coming back to a character whose story is expanding and evolving and entering back into the world of my book after an absence.

Beginnings.

I asked myself how would I like to enter my writer’s sanctuary.

I found this process very comforting, as my writing this week has been more technical than storytelling.

Entering back into the story tellers realm was helped by some questions that came to me:

What do I want to connect with when I sit down to write?

What do I want to bring to this moment?

Who am I in this moment?

These have been my inspiring companions this week.

What did I hear?

Begin with a longing and an intention to write with body, mind, heart and soul.

Allow the writing I have already done to inform me, to create a place for this character, this situation in the grand story.

Find the place in my heart and mind where the characters, the evolving world lives, “Ah there you are do you have more to say?Engage with the character, the paragraph, the situation I am writing.Begin to write, allow the words to pour out of my pen.

I have found that the more time I spend with the characters in my story and the story themselves, they begin the process of internalizing, the story starts to live in me.

Where does this inspiration come from?

I believe in these moments when the story starts to come alive in me that there is a relationship of three, the writer, the story and the Divine Creator.

This coming together begins a dialogue, one that comes from my body, mind, heart and soul interacting with the Divine moving through my writing.

What a dance, what an incredible dance.

When I enter the sanctuary of the writer all of that is there, all the resonance, every moment that I have put into my writing, and every moment every writer has put into their writing is present for me to attuned to.

I close my eyes, breathe into my heart and in my mind’s eye I see words, paragraphs and pages, all of the elements of my stories floating around the room , around my sanctuary just waiting for me. Every time I sit down, I arrive in this moment to begin and they are there waiting for me and my pen.

Let the dance begin.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” 

 ― William Wordsworth

My Week: Integrating my intention to write the stories that will become my book has really helped me keep the book alive in a week of commitments. My actions have been centred around creating an Entering Practice for when I sit down to write. I loved doing this. I created a prayer to read and be with before I start writing. Something that inspires and reminds me why I write. 

One action I have pending for this coming week is to sit with one of my characters and have tea. Let that character speak to me and tell me about life from their point of view. I am finding the antagonist the most challenging character and circumstance to write about. Maybe it will be him.

Thanks so much for sharing my journey with me.

May your writing be blessed with inspiration and dedication.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. 

The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

– Ursula K. Le Guin