Make Writing a Spiritual Experience
And find that distinguished voice
This February I made time to discover this wonderful writing platform, somewhat of a miracle for writers like me, who have been toiling night and day churning out thought-provoking manuscripts in the dark. This shrine for writers deserved to be studied and rightfully used. As a result, I read several tutorials.
I read about writing longer pieces to generate more income and relatively shorter content to encourage people to read. I wrote on topics that people would want to read and tagged them correctly so the superpowers miraculously splashed them on the timelines of other devotees.
After learning to generate that perfect piece, I read about the good and bad doors to salvation out there. Some publications were considered whorehouses inviting and publishing all types of writers, and others took in only white-collar workers which had no association to them. And yet others hesitantly gave you a chance if you left those whorehouses, confessed for your sins, and were at least 30 days clean!
Each worship place a.k.a publication had its own commandments that devotees must follow to fame and fortune. They made sure that their followers read their holy book and almost all of them forbade self-promotion.
If you want to be seen stand up if you want to be heard speak up if you want to be appreciated SHUT UP!
Bill Cosby
The takeaway
I tried karma to get people to read my brain musings through clap for clap, follow for follow, kiss for kiss. After reading some 1000 perplexing articles to get me to write better, I started to invest in producing quality content instead.
A good writer is one who writes from the heart. He has spent a lifetime reading other people’s work and has consequently developed his own style. Good writing attracts more readers and eventually more followers. The clap for clap, read mine, I’ll read your’s Kindergarten method neither helps one’s talent nor morale.
What comes easy won’t last long, and what lasts long won’t come easy.
Here are some tips to help you make the most of this spiritual experience
- Write as you speak
True writers use writing as an art to stay calm. Some engage at this task after a long workday. Others use this as a means of catharsis. And yet others turn to this passion after retirement, or the loss of a partner when they have more time.
When I was young, publication seemed like a dream. I wrote a diary that contained all of my turmoil. Writing for me was an activity that provided healing in my solitude.
A compelling piece captures the point when the sea waters blue, grey, and green amalgamate to produce the most amazing hues. It is the perfect consistency when milk mixes with coffee without having to stir it. Let your writing flow with milk and honey.
2. Do not write every day
Write only when you have the urge to write. Do not produce just about any piece, for the heck of it. Writing every day makes you a better writer, but writing forcefully makes you hate this very act. You want writing to be that comfortable pillow you would want to rest on and that jumping pillow that lifts your spirits up when you are low.
There is no good or bad time to write. Many a time I have felt the urge to wake up in my sleep and pen down what I dreamt about. I wait till morning and lose the train of thought. Write when your heart tells you to. Write what your heart tells you to.
Writing to attract others to read is a gradual process. Write with vigor so people can hear your voice in the darkness. Write in a way that people read the first few lines and know it’s you, even without reading a by-line.
3. Accept Rejection
All writers out there have been rejected. It’s not easy to be shunned away after putting much thought and love into that piece, you thought was beautiful.
Sometimes, being rejected repeatedly snatches your very will to write. And then, spend time creating something other than words strewn together in a sentence. Travel back and forth on that street train without reason. Take a random trip. You may encounter a story somewhere and be able to produce that masterpiece in no time.
“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
4. Find your writing stimulant
Take a walk, do some garden work, paint, soak up in the bathtub, cook up something that you have been craving, exercise. If you are the traditional type who needs to hit the beach at 6 am with a pencil and book in hand, do it.
At some point, you will structurally form a piece in your head with the perfect introduction, body, and conclusion. You will then magically write it down in less than five minutes and press that publish button. It will be a hit because it will be your heart talking.
Convincing writing cannot be forced upon. The words need to flow freely like a stream and not stare dangerously like quicksand. Don’t repeat your ideas. A whirlpool eventually drags the reader in and kills his very will to read. Let your words be engraved in your reader’s heart because he empathizes with your pain, not because you painstakingly carved them down.
5. Overcome Writer's block
90% of the best stories are first embedded in the mind and not suddenly compiled on paper or on a PC. If the creative juices are not flowing for you despite constant trials, try to find the root cause.
Maybe you are getting married and have too much on your plate at the moment. Maybe work is draining all of your energy. Maybe life has thrown too much negativity at you and sucked out the very will to tell your story.
Before you spend time and money attending writing workshops, make peace with your inner-being. You cannot magically emboss positive reflections on paper when you are writhing in pain. Make space so that your head is less cluttered. Persevere for self-love.
6. Write true accounts
Personal stories make your reader connect with you right away. Telling the reader about something you experienced adds more credibility. While elaborating a true account, you relive emotions thereby convincing and educating your reader.
I am a colored person from India. Almost all of my pieces, whether humor, fiction, or true stories grew on me since childhood. When I write an account on, “The day I fell into the drain”, it may sound humorous, but the feelings woven together make this believable for my readers. Not only will they learn about me and my country, but they will be grateful for what they have.
7. Let emotions take control
Focus on producing content that you are in the mood for. If you automatically misconstrue my thoughts and construct a misogynous secretion of embellishing locutions with a word salad in cessation, so be it.
If you feel like explaining why you spotted that pea in your poop this morning, do it.
Focus on finding what you are good at. Stick to it. Run with it. Repeat. Before you know it, writing would be an addiction. Getting published a habit and readers will yearn to read your work.
8. Use your strengths to your benefit
Do your thoughts miraculously flow when you calligraphically set that pen on paper? Do it.
If your strength is telling a story through illustrations, so be it.
Can You sing and write, make movies, photograph, and produce additional content to make your piece more interesting and compelling? What are you waiting for?
Find your niche as a writer. Specialize in a particular genre. Choose to tell your story through narrative events, key characters, or other sources. Learn which option works best for you and practice it often. Soon you would develop your very own writing style.
9. There are no absurd topics
Write about just anything that you are convinced would help your reader.
If you have found a way to get up from that chair without having to move a limb, write about it. Researchers may pay heed to your advice and use it to make the disabled move.
If drinking ink and producing blue blood during your menstruation cycle helped reduce the pain, this would benefit your readers.
If squatting while just brushing your teeth in the morning and night gave you white teeth and a fitter body. Tell people how you killed two birds with one stone.
Thanks to education and social media, there will always be readers, publications, and writers. Write convincingly. Readers will come.
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” — Swami Vivekananda
10. Open up to your readers
True storytelling entails touching your reader's heart, hijacking their brain, and tickling their funny bone. That is a lot of responsibility on the writer's shoulders without having any personal contact.
Let the reader feel your suffering and your pain. Inspire them to be optimistic through your positivity. Let them laugh with you when you are rejoicing and gasp for breath when you fear.
We writers do not take things at face value. We observe things that no one does. Our sensitive minds and hearts notice the needy and forlorn and reach out to them. Our vulnerability draws the readers closer to our writing. We let them into every corner of our journey and develop a trusting bond with time.
To produce optimistic content, you need to surround yourself with positivity. This process involves spitting out hatred and malice, doing good deeds to improve your work environment, and believe in the power of magic and dreams.
“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?”- Buddha
Conquer the world with your appellations, change one heart at a time with your odes, swoon readers with your charming soliloquy, numb hatred through your poems, gratify lovers through your prose, win debates through intelligent dialogue, convince baffoons through reasonable arguments and entertain the wounded with witty humor. Happy writing!
Shireen is an avid writer, budding Opera singer, apprentice nurse, dog sitter, dog walker, walker…. Jack of all trades and master of one — Mother to two children aged 8 and 10!