An Authentic Take On Writing...

Flaky layers, fortitude and faith

Writing is my special interest and my greatest joy. It's what I'm driven to do for fun and for life. I cannot exist without it. And yet it's still so hard. I still get stuck with 15 versions of the next sentence crowding my brain and no clear favorite. I must always remind myself to lower my standards and write badly to get anything onto the page. 

I wonder if writing is meant to be a regular exercise in quieting my Inner Critics and Judges in order to generate work and then awakening these parts in order to give them the pleasure of improving and editing my work. Will I ever get used to that? 

I love writing. I use it (like Montaigne) as a way to know myself. So why must I still set a timer before beginning? Why must I always reassure myself that I will not fall into the dark chasm that threatens to devour me whenever I click the nib of my B2P Pilot 07? 

Writing always begins for me like a dive into potentially cold and murky waters. I'm never sure what I'll find. I'm often afraid to open my eyes underwater to find out. And yet I'm always consistently grateful for going there. But the gratitude never makes it easier to go again. 

Yes, the fact that I've written before, and that I am in the mostly daily habit of writing, often helps me to be a better spiller when I allow myself to get to the page, but writing is still hard, something that happens in layers, something I might despise one day and adore another as if I am a fickle creature instead of the fairly rigid taskmaster I am. And yet I write on...

Uta Hagen was notorious for telling her students to quit acting if they could. I’ve tried to quit writing. I find myself compelled to continue, becoming physically ill if I don't write. 

Most of the writing I do is merely to understand myself. I live with Audhd and alexithymia which make it hard to know who I am and how I feel. I have often joked that if I were to ever write a memoir, I'd have to call it Autobiography of a Stranger. I cannot order my thoughts or my priorities unless I write. 

It has been hard to face some of the things I have written: traumas and dark impulses I've had to recognize as part of the conditioned human condition clearly in need of kindness and self-compassion. 

Here finally is the problem. I write because it's the best way I know of to understand myself, and yet the writing has surprised and even shocked me. It certainly changed my life by uncovering traumas and impulses/responses to those traumas that have been hard to recognize, hard to take in, and hard to accept, and by accepting be transformed by, and yet all this has been essential to my life. 

I'm convinced that writing (or any other creative act) is vital to life. I offer support to you all to do it too. Am I enabling our addictions or leading unsuspecting souls toward madness? 

People have said I am brave and bold. I have pushed myself to say the unsayable in works like Abraham's Daughters and FUKT. But I didn’t create Brave Space to only support writers in their darkest hours. It's hard to write light too! My comedies have insisted on just as much attention as my darker pieces. 

I guess I simply want to recognize that whatever gets written takes its toll and rewards us accordingly. I believe we're better off for it, even as it hurts to get it done. Especially as it takes a few (sometimes flaky) layers (like pastry), and fortitude, and faith. Like exercising or gardening, like cooking or parenting, there's a process involved including effort that benefits from support, self-compassion and kindness. All habits well worth cultivating! As important as the watering of houseplants. For me these habits of self-compassion and kindness are just as vital to the writing and the soul as breathing, as life itself. 

Writing is a kind of proof of life. It creates a kind of presence where we exist in words in ways we can't always show up every day. It’s a gift to be treasured if we can allow ourselves to trust ourselves enough to do it. Badly is the only way I know how to begin. 

Writing Prompt: Most of my prompts are for people who already know what they want to write, like me. We are in the middle of writing these things, and yet we often feel lost. We don’t know what’s next. We worry we’ve gone astray or we’re about to… So let’s take a step back from what we have and think about what might be missing - what might be more moving, more emotional, more confrontational, an imaginary scene that we didn't realize we left out… Is there a scene you didn't dare to write (or even think of) before you conceived of this play/novel/story or whatever it is? Write all that down - not perfectly, badly please!

Also now that you've written something or you’re writing it, even though it's amazing and wonderful and all that it is, there's something, a low place, a dip as in a valley or a peak as on a mountain that’s a bit far off to reach, a shriek a character never gets to vocalize… Find a place as yet meandering and undiscovered in your work that’s been there all along but has yet to be exposed as the brilliant opportunity it truly is. Find it and make something happen there that you never thought could happen, something that went on behind your back while you made this thing. Almost as if you’ve just noticed someone at a party, someone you move toward across a room, someone, when you reach them, you are able to flirt with in the easiest way, someone that heightens your senses and thrills you in new ways. That someone is a moment in your manuscript or a corner in your painting. Expand that moment. Enjoy it. (Repeat as necessary.)

all images by Scott Sherman can be found on insta at scottshermanstudio

Brave Space Schedule:

Join me in Brave Space for $5 - 20/session. You get pages of prompts that meet you wherever you are on your project or help you start a new one; an embodiment practice; an hour of writing w/chat support; a discussion about the creative process; and an exit email to prove the magic of Brave Space really happened.

For the week of 3/18 - 3/21/24
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET with wkshp & accountability
I'll be at Washington & Lee the rest of this week

For the week of 3/24 - 3/28/24
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Friday at 11am ET 
Friday at 2pm ET Brave Sharing Salon 

For the week of 4/1 - 4/5/24
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Friday at 11am ET 

Announcements

I’m presenting a part of my mythical play set in 1993 about Zionist American Jews and Palestinian Muslims, providing some context for today’s genocide: Abraham’s Daughters (podcast here) and I’ll be teaching a writing workshop at a Theatre Symposium on Myth, Magic and Madness at Washington & Lee University, March 21st and 22nd. All events will be free and live streamed! More information HERE including the link for the livestream.

If you want to be more creative, (or if you want to do anything), but there’s something in your way, (an Inner Critic, Doubt, Fear, etc) attend my BEFRIEND YOUR RESISTANCE WORKSHOP, Saturday, March 30th, 12-2pm ET More Info HERE or just respond to me, and I’ll put you on the list. It’s $35. If that’s a barrier, let me know. I always keep a scholarship or 2 available. I wrote about Befriending Resistance in last week’s Substack HERE.

My next introductory Brave Group Coaching cohort starts Saturday, April 6th, 4pm - 530pm ET for 6 weeks via Zoom. More Info HERE This is a super-affordable way to learn new somatic techniques and parts work in order to have a greater sense of agency, more groundedness and presence in your life, and increase your ability to regulate your nervous system.

I’ll be teaching a FREE Magical Dialogue class for END OF PLAY at the Dramatists Guild Institute on Saturday, April 6th 12pm ET - 2pm ET via Zoom. Join me! Registration Event Link: https://zfrmz.com/fIGg8CxTjxqpivJ68maU

NYC: Estrogenius Festival! Sheree V. Campbell is presenting work Monday, March 18th, 8pm ET, at LaMaMa’s Downstairs Theatre! She’ll perform 15 minutes of songs she crafted from her creative series, FluxFlowGrow, with other artists. LINK here to tickets 

MEL HOUSE of Hot Angry Mom is offering a storytelling workshop! Email her for your spot at melissahouse at gmail dot com.

Let me know what writing means to you or does for you, or what you hope it will do for you…

Onward,

Emma