My approach to writing was seeded by my experience of the culture of criticism — and writing to outside standards — that prevailed when I was a young writer. At that time, I was writing fiction, publishing in small literary magazines and attending writer’s conferences where everyone submitted work to people who didn’t know them and received criticism in return, much of which was overzealous and off the mark. I found the whole experience unsatisfying and a little sad.
My turning point came at a writer’s conference where I attended a workshop led by a well-respected literary writer whose first published story appeared in The New Yorker. On a break, she told me that my work had great promise and she offered to mentor me.
"I'll help you write a New Yorker story," she said.
When I asked what she meant by that, she told me how she had come to be published there:
She scrutinized hundreds of issues of the magazine, carefully analyzing the similarities in the stories that pointed to the editor’s taste. Then she created a story to those standards and kept refining it until it met all the criteria. She sent her first story to the editor twenty times until finally it was accepted, and she was in.
“It’ll be much easier for you,” she told me, since she’d already done all the analysis. She gave me her contact information.
I never contacted her.
While her method may have served her soul in a way I can’t know, for me, it felt like a deal with the devil. Rather than being inspired to publish by her offer to mentor me, after this conversation, I gave up publishing my work all together and for many years, dove deep into a process on my own to find out what would help me write from and for my soul. In this process, I discovered a way of writing that has been a major source of nourishment and spiritual growth for me.
Now, confident that I am no longer in danger of deals with the devil, I’m publishing my work again — and it is deeply satisfying to have people respond to my authenticity rather than to my imitation of what I think an editor (or anyone else) would want. I’ve attempted in the materials on this website and in the writing circles I lead to share something of what I’ve learned over these years about throwing off the judging voices and writing from the inside out.
My turning point came at a writer’s conference where I attended a workshop led by a well-respected literary writer whose first published story appeared in The New Yorker. On a break, she told me that my work had great promise and she offered to mentor me.
"I'll help you write a New Yorker story," she said.
When I asked what she meant by that, she told me how she had come to be published there:
She scrutinized hundreds of issues of the magazine, carefully analyzing the similarities in the stories that pointed to the editor’s taste. Then she created a story to those standards and kept refining it until it met all the criteria. She sent her first story to the editor twenty times until finally it was accepted, and she was in.
“It’ll be much easier for you,” she told me, since she’d already done all the analysis. She gave me her contact information.
I never contacted her.
While her method may have served her soul in a way I can’t know, for me, it felt like a deal with the devil. Rather than being inspired to publish by her offer to mentor me, after this conversation, I gave up publishing my work all together and for many years, dove deep into a process on my own to find out what would help me write from and for my soul. In this process, I discovered a way of writing that has been a major source of nourishment and spiritual growth for me.
Now, confident that I am no longer in danger of deals with the devil, I’m publishing my work again — and it is deeply satisfying to have people respond to my authenticity rather than to my imitation of what I think an editor (or anyone else) would want. I’ve attempted in the materials on this website and in the writing circles I lead to share something of what I’ve learned over these years about throwing off the judging voices and writing from the inside out.
If you’d like support for using writing as a deepening process as well as for creative expression, let's talk.
I mentor those who are interested in using writing as a spiritual practice, with or without the goal of publication. Some have come to me wanting to use writing only for spiritual integration and in the process have discovered they were poets or storytellers or essayists. Others have come already identified as writers, and I have helped them bring their work to the next level of congruency and authentic expression. I have also supported numerous authors as they wrote their books, helping them let go of relying on the critic and instead, entering the spacious regions of deep play as the source of their work.
Whether or not your work is ever shared with others, this approach to writing is a profound and powerful practice for self-knowledge, spiritual growth, and for accessing an inner-directed, spontaneous creativity. It's also deep fun!
I mentor those who are interested in using writing as a spiritual practice, with or without the goal of publication. Some have come to me wanting to use writing only for spiritual integration and in the process have discovered they were poets or storytellers or essayists. Others have come already identified as writers, and I have helped them bring their work to the next level of congruency and authentic expression. I have also supported numerous authors as they wrote their books, helping them let go of relying on the critic and instead, entering the spacious regions of deep play as the source of their work.
Whether or not your work is ever shared with others, this approach to writing is a profound and powerful practice for self-knowledge, spiritual growth, and for accessing an inner-directed, spontaneous creativity. It's also deep fun!
