Great news! My article about authentic writing was featured today at Women on Writing. Read on!
“3 Ways Receptivity Leads to Authentic Writing”
By: Melanie Faith
We writers tend to be natural observers. Sometimes, that means noticing little nuances of behavior or movement that others might not pay attention to at all. Other times, that includes thinking about an overheard conversation or wondering about the tension within someone’s voice minutes, hours, or even days later.
This receptivity often leads to amazing results and renewed vitality in our writing. According to vocabulary.com, “Your receptivity is your ability and willingness to take in information or ideas.”
Why receptivity? Overall, we writers are meaning-seekers and meaning-interpreters. Not only do we have to choose (or be chosen by) our subject matter, but also we write and edit to bring out symbolism, metaphors, and resonance so that readers will connect to the main ideas and themes we explore. People who are closed off, even partially, tend to miss countless excellent ideas that come their way. The world is jam-packed with ideas waiting for you to notice them.
Here are three top tips for staying open to quality material you might be bypassing:
1. Receptive writers cast their nets widely first and narrow down later.
Since March, millions of workers around the world have worked from our home offices. Conferencing online at a distance has become an ordinary new feature of how the workplace functions in 2020 and into 2021. It can be pretty easy to feel isolated and in one’s own bubble when the majority of social interactions after the workday are also often at the click of a button rather than in our living rooms or at restaurants.
As much as my inner introvert rejoices at a good curl-up-and-read fest, I recognize the need for hanging out and absorbing ideas from friends and fellow creative makers. Nobody is an island, even with Covid-19 social distancing. We need to keep coming into regular contact with others’ everyday conversations about hopes, dreams, fears, complaints, and even the seemingly silly minutiae or anecdotes that used to be more commonplace before quarantine.
Art thrives on community and the spontaneous mingling of ideas. Cast your net wide and get a few recommendations to keep ideas flowing.
If you’re not conversing or overhearing juicy, disparate, random or rambling conversation on the regular, you’re probably missing out on some very important ideas that could positively impact your writing. Don’t immediately scroll past an argument or debate on Twitter or Facebook—read through strands of comments, even if you don’t comment.
Put your favorite podcast on while you work out at home or take a quick run around the block. If you don’t have a favorite podcast or book or song at the moment, text a friend or ten and find out what they’re listening to or reading recently.
2. Slow and steady: receptive writers listen and give themselves time to reflect before creating.
I’ll admit: this is a hard one for me. My mind is almost always bursting with ideas, and never more so than when I read an article that inspires me or watch a video or overhear a conversation that strike a chord. It helps my writing, though, to remind myself that when I come across new inspiration that I need to tune in and give the information a little bit of time to settle before reacting.
Give yourself some time to take in new ideas by keeping a notebook handy to jot down initial impressions, conversation snippets, or notes, but then give that information some hours or even days to rest in your notebook before using them in a new piece. This little grace period between gleaning exciting ideas and integrating or exploring them will deepen your pre-writing period. Your subconscious mind will make connections between ideas that may surprise and delight you.
Great news: often, in the hours or days in-between first hearing or learning of something and beginning to write, several other tangentially- related ideas or pieces of information will also cross your path and enrich or change the focus of your initial idea, enriching your theme in the process. We’re a fast-paced culture, but our writing process doesn’t have to be rocket-launch speed.
We hear not nearly often enough: slow it down, reflect. I’ll say this again because it’s just so soothing: slow it down.
3. Receptive Writers don’t put too much pressure on a single idea.
Here’s something we don’t tend to talk about much, but it’s as true today as it was a hundred or even a thousand years ago for scribes: don’t expect your entire writing career or reputation to be built on one magnum opus. Realize that there are many, many ideas out there and likewise a multitude ways to interpret, structure, and create art from those ideas.
Think of your writing as a marathon run, rather than a sprint. Explore each idea to the best of your ability with what you know now, but realize that you have many chances to edit and/or add to your ideas during the course of your writing career. Also, if the piece doesn’t immediately gel or if it changes focus or shape, that’s a natural part of the process. If this project doesn’t pan out after endless weeks or months of struggling, it’s okay to let it go and begin another project. There are endless other possibilities to pursue at any given time that may refresh your writing—remain flexible and open-minded about beginning again.
Ease off the pressure for the latest project to showcase every single one of your writing talents, and ease into the openness to each idea’s potential to bring out new qualities in your writing during the writing process.
Using our natural observational skills will deepen our writing. In addition, such receptivity will work wonders for creating fresh, authentic writing again and again.
Care to learn more? Clickety-click: Developing Your Authentic Voice. Starts January 8, 2021. Sign-ups now open!
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