Two words: Show up. The more you show up to write your book, the better chance you will write a book and complete and publish it, too. Here is its value. Showing up to write a book – whether in systematic spurts or daily – reveals you take yourself seriously and give to yourself lovingly as a writer. One writer who took my workshop said, “I realized my life always comes back to writing… I don’t wait until I have time and space to write my book. I schedule a time to write daily and hold onto it. And I am writing…finally.” Another writer from one of my writing groups echoed this wisdom, “Those two words – ‘show up’ – have been the most important writing advice I ever received to write my book. Since then, I have been showing up and writing for a few hours daily. Writing is what I love to do. It’s also the discipline I need to get my book done. The writing does not flow every day. Some days, I sit in silence. Other days, I research my book. At times, rewriting can seem tedious – and endless. However, showing up to write the book is part of the process, no matter what happens during the writing time. Showing up, I completed my manuscript.”
I recently attended a presentation by a successful screenwriter who also knew the importance of showing up to write. When she was already a successful screenwriter, she also became a wife and mother. She continued to write at home, but her children started to interrupt her regularly. She could not concentrate on her writing and maintain creative momentum. Sound familiar? This writer did not hesitate. She sat her family down and told them, “I love you. You are important to me. But so is writing. And I can’t write when you interrupt me. So it’s your choice. I can either stay home and write, not have a space to write, or go to a coffee house to write. But know that I will do whatever is necessary to keep writing.”
With the miracle of miracles, her children began to respect her writing space, and she could stay home to write after all.
I have also found “showing up” to be critical to my writing process. As much as I believe you only need 15 minutes a day, a few days a week, to get started writing a book, I also believe in the value of showing up. Consistently. This consistency of writing practice lets your writer self grow strong. It allows your writer to know you will show up on a deep, visceral level and are there for it. More often than not, you will not follow the multitude of other voices that call you to go, do, live, work, play, and handle all that is other than writing a book. Right now, I am writing a novel. And as I have found with the other books I have written, at a certain point in the process, a book-in-progress cries out its need for a commitment of more of your time, more of your steady presence, you follow through; you’re showing up to birth itself.
This need presented itself recently, and I made the drive to show up to write my book, heart wide open. The novel finally reveals its fullness to me in a steady stream of words, a constant flow of words and ideas, and the next steps. I dive and flow between writing, outlining, plotting, and researching, a watery dance with the depths of what presents itself to me in the still moments of the early morning or at night. I show up daily, 5 to 6 days a week – even when I can’t, mustn’t. And the more I do, the more readily I slip into the writing groove, into the stillness from which the words arise to write a book. Dreams come in the night to support it, too. Ideas, phrases, and scenes pop in unexpectedly as I am engaged in the rest of my workday or taking a walk in nature.
Showing up to write a book is a commitment I – and you – must make repeatedly. One morning, I may wake up “too tired” to write. I may feel uninspired. Or the “to-dos” of my workday call. My cat wants to play the moment I sit down to write. Or, I remember an email that “must” be answered. I sense the tug-of-war rope threatening to pull me away from writing. I acknowledge it. Let go of the rope. Then, I turn to my writing desk and say I may not have the energy for it. But I will give the novel at least 15 minutes or an hour. That is something. Even if I sit there. Before I know it, a couple of hours have passed, and I have given myself to the creative process. Your “showing up” to write your book does not have to look like mine. Mine changed from book to book, project to project. However I do it, I’m more like a marathon runner than a writer. Other writers are sprinters. One writer friend does not move forward on her novel-in-progress until the day or two before each meeting of our shared writer’s group. Then, she writes and rewrites for several hours before the group – and comes in with sparkling writing gems.
However you show up or don’t, writing has patience. It will wait. If you can’t commit right away, it will forgive you repeatedly if you don’t show up in a day or month. Then, when you do show up, it will come to you from such purity, such as sweetness and trust, as you open your soft petals to it, and it opens its soft petals to you. What your writing loves is intimacy. What it loves is mutuality. What it loves are the gifts you co-create to share with others. What it loves is filling the stillness, the empty places in your heart with the slow dance of words. What it loves is the joy you find in showing up.
