Writing as a Dialogue with Creation
The fundamental, foundational dialogue in any story is the relational exchange of creation.
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Creativity
Unpublished But Powerful
Annie Dillard once said that an unpublished, unread manuscript gathering dust under an attic bed still exerts its influence on the world. Is this true? Can we pin our faith and our work’s worth on this hidden, immeasurable impact?
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The Small, Accessible World of Publishing
Writers who long to communicate need readers, and readers have particular needs that writers can fill. The small ways we find to close this circle are beautiful works of art in their own right.
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Holy First Person Singular, Batman!
Call me a spiritually obsessed literary geek, but the little spiritual wisdom I can claim I’ve gleaned from grammar.
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Repaint! Repent! Revise!
You’ve got to deconstruct the old to make room for the new, whether it’s a hallway or a soul. Or, in the case of writers, a rough draft. Or, in the case of climate change, old energy dependencies. Or, in the case of a broken democracy, old complacencies.
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The Gifts of Being Curious
Isn’t curiosity marvelous? Something sparks your interest, and you’re off—questioning, learning, exploring, pondering. Say you meet someone new, share a bit about yourself, and they’re genuinely curious; suddenly you’re deep in conversation, sharing details about yourself or your work that you rarely otherwise disclose, and you begin to wonder whether this person might become a
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Freedom in Constriction
The spiritual path requires letting go of what doesn’t give us life and giving ourselves wholly to what does. From the outside this can look dire, but from the inside the story’s quite different.
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How does creation happen?
The story itself—the emergent life inside the inspiration—is a dynamic participant in the creative process.
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Developing the Inner Witness
Just as language can never fully represent me on the page, I, in all my thinking, breathing, creating glory, can never fully represent my ultimate Self. And so I let the little me go.
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The Journal: The Writer’s Compost
The journal is a writer’s compost bin. It’s tucked out back, behind the fence or along the alley where the smell won’t waft into the kitchen and the fruit flies won’t irritate the gardeners. You add to it daily, or at least whenever you’ve got a heaping bucket of scraps (read: baggage) to unload.
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