Thoughts on the Mindful Writing Life

Finding truth in fiction

Susan Barr-Toman3 Comments

Thoughts are real, but not true

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Thoughts are real, but not true

I’m taking the Power of Awareness online course with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield – two of my favorite mindfulness teachers. In her talk “Thoughts are real, but not true,” Brach explains that thoughts are real in the sense that we are  having them and in that our bodies and minds are reacting as if they are happening. For instance, if you are thinking of an argument you had in the past, a messy break up, or a scary walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood, your body will tense up and emotions will arise in you as if you are in that place and time.

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Writing and competition

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As writers we can feel we are in competition with other writers. At times, it feels like everyone we know fancies themselves a writer. Then there are the writers we do know, who are getting published annually, monthly, weekly. There are great writers we read who make us want to throw up our hands and say, “Forget about it. I’ll never write anything that good.” And then, there are those writers we see and think, “What the hell? That piece of crap got published? That piece of crap is selling millions?! I give up.”

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How to be a writer

Susan Barr-Toman3 Comments

Write.

If only it was that simple. If only we would let it be that simple.

There are those beautiful, yet elusive, times when both the ideas and the words to convey them come pouring forth. But then there are those times our creativity is balled up in a fist, holding its treasures tightly. As much as we struggle to pry it open one finger at a time, it won’t budge.

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Elizabeth Strout, writing without judgment

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Usually I’m thinking of mindfulness and I bring it to writing. Today, I’m thinking of writing and bringing it to mindfulness.

AIPRecently, I saw Elizabeth Strout at the Free Library of Philadelphia. She’s on tour for her latest novel Anything Is Possible. Instead of giving a reading – the book had just come out – Strout was in conversation with the library’s events Assistant Director, Laura Kovacs. Listening to her talk about how she approaches writing and how she feels about her characters, I completely fell in love with her. She is smart, funny and wise.

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Some pretty deep shit

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True Refuge

This winter I took a course based on Tara Brach’s book True Refuge with Penn Mindfulness Director Michael Baime. Over the course of eight weeks, he guided us through its complex ideas and intense exercises. This was hard work, but very rewarding.

As I’ve written before, when you first start practicing mindfulness, the focus is often on the breath. The goal is to become acquainted with our minds, since we spend much of our time on autopilot. When you actually sit and watch what your mind does, you can feel overwhelmed. Your mind is all over the place and you have little control over whether it dives into a dreadful memory or is already planning a romantic interlude with the person behind you in the checkout line. You learn to let go of each of these thoughts as they arise and return to your breath as an anchor.

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