Monday, April 12, 2010

Writing because you love the world

The title of this post is a paraphrase from writer Natalie Goldberg and one I really resonate with. While I don't always love humanity, I do so love the world. I love the trees, the animals, the birds, the air, the storms, the landscapes, the buildings, the cleverness of it all, the rightness of nature. I could go on and on.

When we write because we love the world, there is a clarity and a tenderness to our observations about what we see, what we feel, what we think, what we know that resonates deeply with many readers. We bring a mindful attention to the details and the bigger concepts, we go deeper in our explorations, we are more thoughtful about the problems we set for our characters.

When we write because we love the world, we open ourselves to the mystery of coincidence and circumstance and that informs our fiction. When we write because we love the world, we tune into sounds and silence, the spaces in which dreams and thoughts arrive.

When we write because we love the world, we put ourselves into the writing. We want to share what we're up to with the Divine, with the muse, with the world.

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