Meditation And The Art of Writing

-->A guest post by Marcela De Vivo

Being a writer is one of the most difficult things to do because it’s not just a career path--it’s also a state of mind. Unlike many other hobbies, passions, and career paths, when you are in the wrong frame of mind for writing, everything gets blocked. You are unable to come up with ideas, find your style, or write with any sort of flow. Being blocked from writing can be incredibly frustrating. Luckily, people who meditate have found a lot of success in fighting writer’s block and becoming a stronger writer.

Put Yourself In The Right State of Mind

If your mind isn’t completely focused on your writing, it will be much tougher to get any words to paper. If you are nervous about deadlines or thinking about fights you had with your best friend, your focus won’t solely be on your words. It will impede your writing abilities completely. With the use of meditation, you can control your thoughts and put yourself in the writing mindset that you so sorely need.

Clear Out All Negative Thoughts

Critics are often a huge impediment to a writer’s abilities. If you are sitting down to write and keep thinking that you aren’t good enough, you can’t do it, and other negative thoughts, getting past that block will be impossible. By learning meditation, you can teach yourself to put a wall around those inner critics, thereby allowing yourself to write and not think of the negativity.

Gain Inspiration

There’s nothing more frustrating for a writer than sitting down to write and drawing a blank. Just because you’re in the mood to write doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get the words to flow. One of the many perks of meditation is gaining inspiration that will allow you to write to your heart’s content.

One Minute Meditations

If you’re in the middle of a sentence and all of a sudden writer’s block hit’s you like a ton of bricks, one minute meditation is the trick that you need. You’ll be able to close your eyes and do breathing exercises in just a few seconds to get yourself back on track.

Calms Your Nerves

Writing can be a nerve-wracking experience. You put so much of yourself into your prose that it can be terrifying. With meditation, you can keep yourself from letting those nerves get to you when you need to get to writing. By practicing basic breathing exercises during meditation you can get better control of your nerves.

Create a Meditation Room

Your home and writing space may be cluttered with furniture, papers, and all those other life essentials. Creating your own meditation room can help prevent these distractions during your writing process. Keep the decor in this room minimal and relaxing such as a wall fountain or small bonsai tree to bring in small elements of nature.

Steps To Meditate

Meditating is actually quite easy, so don’t worry about not being an expert. At the most basic level, you can clear your mind, repeat a positive mantra, and use breathing exercises in your meditation room or small space. Take as long as you need because getting on track with your writing is what’s most important.

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer from Southern California. As a full-time writer, she understands how difficult it can be to get your thoughts down on paper and finds meditation a great tool to avoid writers block. Follow her on Twitter today!

You can also find Marcela on Facebook, Pinterest and her website.

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the second book from The Never Chronicles

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www.TheNeverChronicles.com

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An Invaluable writing tool

Not long ago (actually October 5, 2010 according to the interview date) I was sitting in my car listening to the radio and stumbled upon an interview by NPR with author Bill Bryson.  The interview was about his new book, At Home.  You can find the interview HERE. 

Despite the potential to be quite possibly one of the most boring interviews imaginable, I was completely captivated.  At that point in my writing career, I was up to my eyeballs in writing Exiled and  was greedily seeking resources to add realism to the time period I was writing.

If you're a writer and your writing ever takes you inside a home, you MUST read this book.  Genius in its layout, the book takes you through the history of the house, room-by-room.  Exiled takes place in the late 1800's. In Bryson's book, I was able to find what a home from that time period would contain, how it would be laid out as well as background on the era. 




Even with my description, the book may sound boring but trust me, it isn't.  No it isn't a fantasy story that takes you to far off places.  What makes At Home great is the flow, the content and the readability.  This is not a textbook but, like most fiction (which it is not) it transports you to the time period he is describing. It transports you into the room he is explaining.  In the end, you have a better understanding of how things were in the home and why they are the way they are today.  This insight is invaluable to any writer.


Take this excerpt, for example: 

We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt lightbulb. Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.

My copy is loaded with those multi-colored post-it notes marking pages of interest so I could go back and pull out the things I thought could be usable in my story.  I still flip back through the book as I work on The Never Chronicles #2 (title TBD)