Write Your Own Story

Oh how I adore my dear co-worker, Kat. Always the design-savvy eye, she saw a notebook at Michael's the other day and knew I would love it. In the lower right-hand corner of the front cover was a small embossed graphic of a typewriter, with the words inscribed, 

"Write your own story." 

So she bought it for me! How sweet is that?

When she handed it to me, I was reminded once again of what an abundantly creative weekend I had. I had the whole glorious Saturday to myself! It was spent admiring the gorgeous sunshine and everything it touched, writing about it, and... painting it. Yes, painting. Haven't done that in ages, so I was both proud of myself and deeply comforted by the fact that I could do it... I haven't lost it - the need, the ability, or the delight I find in it.

Needless to say, the weekend was everything I needed it to be, including Sunday.

Here's my thought: the act of creating, whether it is writing, painting, music, dancing, or even cooking, is an act of dedication. You are dedicating your creative energy to the miraculous story that is your life.

So, I say, create your own story. 

Write your own story. Paint your own story. Sing your own story. Or as my very wise writing friend insisted: Dance your own story. Cook your own story.

Whatever it is you are good at, doing it is a testament to who you are at your core.

Dedicate. Document. Devote time to it. Delight in it.

Writing Update.

It's been a downer of a week and after last night's meeting with my writing partner, I've decided to get back to the 'task at hand' so to speak, and update you on my writing efforts.

Once again, I'm struck by how influential our surroundings can be on our creative flow. In the month and a half since we moved into our new apartment, I have been writing more here and in my journal than I have in the last 2 years! I can attribute it to the fact that my husband and I currently don't have network OR cable TV, so the only time were tuned-in to the tube is to watch a movie. This has made the act of turning on the TV so much more intentional and less of a "I'll just have it on the background" distraction. I ask myself: do I want to watch a 2-hr movie, or do I want to spend my time doing something productive? Now if only I could convince my husband that we don't need cable, but that will never happen. And I'm sure that once Grey's Anatomy is back on I would definitely miss it.

So with all my TV-free time, last Saturday I spent 3 whole hours working on an assignment for my weekly writer's meeting, and I pulled together a cohesive draft after struggling with it for months. I started the piece before my partner and I agreed to begin meeting, for myself, but I think the lack of direction I felt had everything to do with the lack of accountability and the lack of personal space.

For awhile, I felt so guilty blaming my lack of creative energy on my surroundings, but the more writers I meet the more I realize that to hear the truly creative voice within yourself, you have to find a place where the other distracting, condemning voices fall silent. Living with my in-laws in my husband's bedroom with no space of my own is not what I would call "distraction-free."

This is why I felt so compelled to write during my time studying abroad; having ample time to myself, the changing scenery, kept me in a state of perpetual meditation and inspiration. This is also why I felt compelled to write about meditation earlier in the week; if you take time for yourself, whether you practice faith or not, you will find that you have much more to say than you imagined. The doggedness of running around and fulfilling schedules and appointments can inhibit our connections to our creativity because we haven't made it a priority. We haven't let it speak to us.

So anyway, new apartment + new writing partner = new-found writing motivation!

My new assignment for next week: read a few chapters of one of my writing books, and finish 1 or 2 short writing assignments from it. While some writing books are cheesy, I actually find them helpful when everything I have been working on feels stale. Trying an assignment can help divert your thoughts and help you look at something with a new perspective. Maybe if I think it's good enough I'll post it here next week.... We shall see.

What about the rest of you writers? What are you working on? What kind of "exercises" do you to spice up your writing?

Margin and Meditation.

I set this picture as my desktop today:

This will come as no shock to you, but I've been dwelling on this one thought for the past several days: Americans do not understand margin. We do not make time for time. We may think ourselves disciplined when it comes to prioritizing work, school, family, and finances.

We're not.

In fact, several studies have shown that while Americans are making less time for vacation and more time for work, the rest of the world is working and playing and moving forward at a steady pace. Meanwhile, we're running ourselves into the ground.

This is not a plea to my employers to let me have a couple weeks off. This is just an observation, made more pertinent by the fact that I'm getting nostalgic for my Euro-trip in '08. I long for that time when time was all I had to think and reflect and let go.

Also, I was struck by the realization of how Christians in particular view meditation. While we knock other religions for the beliefs they are founded on, we give no regard to the fact that many other religions are much more disciplined and devoted to the act of meditation, or a time set aside for prayer and reflection. We're encouraged to pray on the go, while we go about our work day or running errands or standing in line at Starbucks. Is that true devotion, though? Is that making your meditation the sole priority and focus of your consciousness at that moment?

Meditation - to think, to ponder, to consider, to deliberate, to reflect.

Margin - leeway, latitude, room, room to maneuver, space, allowance, extra, surplus.

Meditation and margin - two things we don't understand and therefore don't do.

I have a lot on my plate with work and projects and home. Before I let this blog and my life become one big rush towards "making it" in a career, I need to stop and take a moment. I'm past the point in my life where my time is my own and I can wander to my heart's content. But. We become less and less effective the more we accumulate on our to-do list. Getting caught up in the rat-race won't make us successful.

I put this picture on my desktop this morning in part because of my nostalgia for my favorite place on earth (Salzburg, Austria) and in part as a reminder to give myself margin and meditation. I need to give myself that leeway, that allowance of time to reflect and consider my life and the world around me.

This is a reminder for you, dear readers, to take what moments we can each day and walk and wander and reflect and pray. You'll be surprised to see what blessings God lays at your feet when you do it.

A Time for the Bittersweet.

It's been a few days since my last post, mostly because the last two days of work brought me twice as many emails as I've been getting in the last two weeks! But I wanted to take a minute to lasso my thoughts into something tangible, and to get some feedback.

Last night, I finally sat down with two of my very dear friends for the first time in several weeks. We ate dinner, talked, prayed, shared news, and laughed about many things. And then I saw it. Laying on the ottoman next to my feet was Mackenzie's fresh copy of Bittersweet, the newest book by one of our favorite authors, Shauna Niequist. I wound up reading aloud a chapter called "Twenty-five."

The chapter is at once a call to action, a letter to Shauna's twenty-five-year-old self, and a prayer for twenty-somethings everywhere who are desperate to figure out who they are and what they want.

"Now is the time," Shauna says again and again. Now is the time before families, before mortgages, before iron-clad schedules, before "job security" that keeps us from reaching for what it is that we're actually passionate about. Before it gets that far, ask yourself what you want and make sure you do it.

Could there have been a better time for the 3 of us to read this? Now IS the time. So we talked. We talked about what we want and what we know we're good at it and what we're doing now to try and make it happen. No solid conclusions, but I am finding more and more that in this period of time where change is the only constant, we should stop being afraid of change and start using it to our advantage.

And this is the very core of Shauna's book: change itself is bittersweet, but it makes our lives so surprisingly, unexpectedly, and beautifully rich. Like coffee. Like chocolate. Like a good Merlot. Like a deliciously well-written chapter in a book.

What I like about chapter "Twenty-five" is how Shauna examines our tendency to cling to familiarity, to circumstances that keep us from reaching our full potential because we are afraid of change.

Any life-changing moment, any epiphany we have doesn't come when we're walking on cloud nine. It doesn't come from being in our comfort zone. It comes when we've just discovered that what we thought was "good enough" isn't good for us, and so we have to try something different in order to find that thing we "can't live without."

I'm not sure that life is about finding ways to make yourself "happy." Can any of us define what that is? There is no remedy, no choice that can ensure that elusive thing that is often only there to make us dissatisfied with what we've already been blessed with.

"Happiness" only satisfies one facet of our appetites, and eventually we realize it isn't enough to make us whole. And then we realize, we don't like the person we're becoming. What we really need is balance. We need boldness and courage.

Bittersweet is a way of life, one that's more real and true and one that allows us to make decisions with the wisdom that the bitter and the sweet, the good and the bad, are intertwined and equally necessary to becoming selves that we are proud of.

We may hate that we don't have everything figured out right now. We may wish that we had peace of mind, the feeling of being secure, settled. But peace never comes at the cost of settling.

Instead of grabbing desperately for the time when we're so sure we're going to "have everything figured out," let's take our twenty-something years and live them like we know they should be: the years that we will look back on as some of the most poignant, the most teaching, the most changing, the most triumphant, the most bittersweet.

For Friederike, A New Look at Brewing a Story.

I started out writing this post as a comment in response to Friederike, who commented on my last post. But then I realized, why not explore this further in an actual blog post? So here are her thoughts and my response. And thank you, Friederike. Though we have yet to meet in person, your tweets and comments are a huge encouragement and motivation for me to write!

Friederike Schmöe Says:

I like the idea of brewing a story - like coffee! Because I am both, coffee- and literature-addicted, and I also know that the taste of coffee changes, depending on the time of day you brew it, of the place and even country where you do it. (May[be] it depends on the water ...) Think about Greek mokka or Turkish coffee! What I am thinking about: When I change the place, live somewhere else, will I brew another writing style?

Bethany Says:

Friederike, that is SO true! I know that when I write, the setting that I am in, my daily routine, my experiences each day, the people I am with, etc, will inevitably influence the tone in which I write something and what I am willing to write about.

For example, when I was traveling in Europe for 3 months, my writing was nonstop. More than that, the subjects I wrote about changed. How I wrote about myself and the world changed. How I viewed the home I returned to changed. (Not to mention my preferences in coffee!)

And now, I've found that having my own space - my own office, and my new apartment - has had a surprising influence on my writing habits. I write more, I write freely, I'm less discouraged then I was before.

Last night I was working on a piece, and when I got to that point where I wasn't articulating accurately anymore, I was actually able to stop and say to myself, "Come back to it later, and you'll have the words you need to finish it."

That is quite possibly the first time I've ever had the self control to do that. At least when it comes to my personal work.

This is why I have a hard time agreeing with critics who claim that a writer's personal life doesn't have an influence on their work. We may never know for sure the extent to which a writer's personal life flavored their writing, but you can taste the difference from one writer to the next.

That's part of what makes writing so incredibly important : CONTEXT. History, culture, personality, experiences. It's what makes it taste and feel so right. It's what keeps us coming back for more. Fiction or non, there is an underlying context to the written word. One sip will give you a taste of the rich soil that it was grown in. The toil or tender care that went into harvesting it. The journey that turned a seed into a good story. And it's addicting, just like any good brew. 

This is also why I find it so important to remove myself from distractions - television, music, company - when I'm writing. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts and discern whether it was you or something else that has tainted or flavored them.

Thanks again Friederike, for that intriguing comment! I will now go back to sipping my morning coffee and get to work.

You can find Friederike's blog here, though some of you might need to brush up on your Deutsch. :)