Write Anyhow and Always
Make stuff. It is the best tool we have to change the world.
The news of the week has knocked me back. And I’m sure you are thinking about stuff too. It doesn’t make it easy to create when our world is swirling with so many big feelings and questions and problems, and yet, that is exactly why we must.
I scrapped my scheduled podcast for and for one about how to deal with those worldly distractions so we can keep writing. It drops on Monday if you’re curious about how I keep going when distractions in my life feel big.
We have to make stuff. And pay attention. We cannot pretend not to notice and we certainly can’t act like it’s all hopeless, because then it becomes that way.
Art. Creating. Making stuff is the antidote. It’s a demonstration of resilience. And hope. And an expression of who we are and what we believe the world can be.
It’s easy to feel like we can’t do enough to make a difference. But with art, with the things we make, we become bigger than our individual effort.
Art is the movement.
Write. Tell the truth. Offer new ideas. Show the possibility of tolerance and freedom and wisdom and love.
Write your way through. It’s how I process the world and I hope, change it a little too.
Here’s the thought I posted today on Facebook.
Today, I am taking deep breaths and appreciating the quiet and thinking of compassion and tolerance and senior pics and the essay I'm writing about the changing nature of relationships.
I'm thinking about the parents at a local school who are angry not because a girl got into a fight with another, but because she is transgender. I am thinking about the cost of gas and my adorable, little terrier, a friend who is coming west for a visit, and my favorite fountain pen and about what I have in the fridge for dinner tonight.
And I am grateful that I have anything in there at all.
I am remembering how, during my early morning walk, a leaf fell. I watched it fluttering down in the arc of the streetlight as I approached. It arrived at the same time I did and brushed across my cheek.
The leaf was doing its thing. I was doing mine. And yet we intersected and connected and it changed the path for both of us.
We are part of all of this and everything. We are not isolated or alone though some of the structures and beliefs we hold may create the illusion that we are. You can change those beliefs, of course.
We are not separate from our environment. We are not alone in our grief. We are not isolated from each other, in our houses, in our countries, in our offices, especially now.
What I do impacts you.
You might think it's all the delivery man. Or the grocery store clerk, or the server who gets the order wrong.
You might think that when they act rude or unkind it's all about them.
But it's about you too. And me. Because what I did, the way I showed up and treated that person three stops earlier, changed the way he treated you.
You might think the hate that exists beyond us, outside of us. But it is in us too.
In this world now, we see it all. We can feel it all. Our choices and actions are going to change things. Please, make it for the better.
Be kind. Tolerant. Compassionate. To the planet. To the animals. To each other. To yourself.
We must be better.
What’s in the Desk?
On the Simp;y Write w/Polly podcast, we talk about writing craft and crafting a writer’s life. In the What’s In the Desk? segment I share and ask other authors to share the tools, books, or inspirations they have around them when they write. It’s fun to hear what they have to say.
So, what’s in my desk today?
Lynda Barry’s book What It Is. This graphic book on creating, and ideas and writing, and life is inspiring and wisdom-filled
And, today, it’s on my desk.
What’s in your desk—or on your desk? What do you like to have around when you write? Drop me a comment or note or shoot me a pic and I will include it in an upcoming newsletter. Let me know which tools of the trade you most like to use.
Life is not easy for any of us but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and this thing must be attained.
—Marie Curie
Now, sit down and Simply Write.
-p
