This is spot on. Watching you navigate this space, the literary world, and the world in general makes me see again and again how authenticity is its own reward. If you are never “ performing your brand” then you never have to worry about getting caught as something other than the self you have performed. And because of your understanding and embrace of self you have a way and space here to address timely topics in that same fully generous way. You make us want to do better and be better just by embodying it and modeling it every day.
I want to do better and be better, too. I have things to learn and areas to improve. But I am never going to step on anyone knowingly, that is something I will never do.
We all do, but you never pretend otherwise and are generous in your curiosity and openness. Some of the smartest people I know frequently say “ I have no idea, but let’s find out” and that is the way I want to go through the world and those are the people I want next to me.
💜 that is beautiful. I think the capitalist approach you refer to is all about the posturing and the posing as if you have acquired things you know, but it is hollow compared to sharing space and a journey on the page with someone who is genuinely curious and loves the journey as the prize itself. This is why I read the acknowledgements first—I want to know if I want to hang out with this person for 300 pages. I would really love to write a flash piece with a series of draft Acknowledgements that tell a bigger/ satirical/ comic story. But it could be a cool prompt for a poem, too. Maybe at camp?
I've always enjoyed reading the acknowledgements before or after reading the book. I keep hoping I will recognize a name, but I rarely do! I love that the author gives credit where it's due.
Yes! It is like the extras after a movie— the story of how it was made and that deepens the whole experience of reading for me. If it supposedly hatched from someone’s head like Athena out of Zeus then I find it just as implausible and frankly, self serving. Creation is messy so get over yourself and come make some mud pies, Zeus.
I couldn't agree more, Jeannine! The deeper I go into the writing part of my life (which didn't begin in earnest until I turned 40), the more I am aware of the community of writers. It's much smaller than I realized at first. Earlier this week, I heard Kim King Parsons interviewed on a podcast about her new novel, We Were the Universe. She described it as being about "Texas motherhood and psychedelics," which is very much in line with the memoir I'm writing. Her interview left me feeling so inspired, and instead of containing my enthusiasm I decided to write her a note. She wrote back and told me that she's going to be in my hometown for the Texas Book Festival in November, so now I have that to look forward to.
That's exactly it. I just reached out to Sejal Shah yesterday to ask permission to use the full text of her flash essay in our Wednesday post tomorrow, and that's leading into more conversation and collaboration. It is the only way to be!
Wow! I love this story so much. It's inspiring to reach out and be a part of the writing community. I feel a little overwhelmed and scared of it a lot of the time. But this helps me feel like it could be manageable.
It's a pleasure to be in this community. Jeannine, you are a master teacher, reminding and nudging, backing up your authentic self, while encouraging and sharing your golden nuggets "shimmers and shards" plus so much more for and to us.
Wow, this was equal parts balm and a rise to higher standards.
It makes me think about how years ago when I stumbled into Buddhist studies, the cultural posture of openness was JARRING. No squeezing tight, no posturing, no “my way or the highway.” (I mean, I’m sure there’s some but the spaces I was hanging out, it didn’t creep in.) It was downright mind boggling and energizing. I just had to understand more.
It’s been 11 years now I think? And the thing that keeps challenging me is the way that no one single person “owns” the Buddhist teachings. They are sort of considered this ethereal, untamable, ever-evolving (yet also preserved and protected?) source of wisdom. And if you’re being responsible with your own wisdom, the point of teachings is to offer them so they can alchemize through others — and let their own wisdom arise from there. In this cycle, the students find genuine appreciation for their teachers and express it back to them.
I try very hard to hold these qualities. I’m not always very good at it, especially when I’m worried about paying bills. I want to cling and clasp down into protective postures. But this reminder does help me re-center. No one owns the teachings AND thank and honor your teachers for their diligence. 🧡
This is really beautiful. You know from this post that I have a relationship with Buddhism. It really informs everything that I do, and all the ways I live. Am I perfect at it? No. But it really matters to me. Thanks for being here, Amanda!!
Yes! I never understood the scarcity mentality aspect of human interactions. Especially where something is ideally coming through the level of heart/soul/spirit - as a calling from one's true nature. It's kind of antithetical to the whole MO and raison d'etre. The well fills itself more when you share - it builds more flow and so generates more energy. And everything tastes is more nourishing when shared with gratitude.
I especially like "Writing...is a holy creative actthrough which we remake ourselves and the world and it should be treated as such." This totally hits and resonates with where I'm at. I've been working through those feelings and ideas recently, in a villanelle to serve as kind of a thesis statement.
Here it is for the hell of it since this post kind of hits the nail on the head for me in many ways. It's a first draft to I'll probably edit or rewrite, maybe jettison and relplace lines or stanzas (idk if the formatting here carries the stanza breaks, something I still have to figure out):
Dream In Real Life
To create the self imagined is to dream in real life.
Unreel the chord that binds from throats unknown
to beat the heart – bleed the ink that fills this hand that writes
How long have I been buried here? Stardust strafes
the stratosphere; flames out. Abandoned. Locked behind bone
in dying cells - unimagined, a dream in real life
I carve patterns on the cavern wall with my spirit knife.
The chamber is a resonator for the words I hone
to cleave a balanced edge, unsheathed in lines I write
Parasitic years; capitulations. All I’ve
neglected, compromised. Denied the light I’ve known -
the self imagined but a dream in real life
Decades I’ve polished this wound, each splinter bright
as pearls. On a slant, rhyming each poem to home –
a shining strand, spooling through this hand that writes
Pen to paper: flint to tinder – and the soul ignites,
mines the ash to spell the words that ink this koan
flaring from the pages, flickers through the hand that writes
to create the self imagined: to dream in real life
This is so cool, Joshua! I love that you are working on this as a villanelle (oh how I love constraint) and this is really cool! Thank you for sharing it. I esp like the line "How long have I been buried there" +++
Thanks! I really like different form poems. I used to go on sonnet jags once in awhile but only 3 or 4 of them may ever see the light of day. I write a lot of ghazals tho; and strings of interconnected haiku I think of as haiku narratives. Moments into moments.
Form poems kind of get a stodgy rep in modern poetry; or people tweak and reinvent the forms so far they become unrecognizable. Yet there are no conversations about apporpriation of cultural traditions, which is interesting. If it feels write to honor the impulse where form fits function - if that's the body the poem wants to wear - it's just right. And I find it's like pouring water into differnt kind of containers: the water - my own consciousness as translates to craft - is the same. But the shape it takes, the play of light it coaxes draws differnt flavors.
Idk why but I only started occasional villanelles the past couple years. But they really resonate with me as a form. From reception by "professional" poets, one of them may be the best capital P poem I've written.
Amazing — I think form is magic. I don’t write form poems (well, I wrote one sonnet at Open School and used it on the cover of my validations booklet!), but otherwise, I’m a free verse gal, but I love constraints of every kind, so, therefore, I love what form in poetry can do to crack open truth. It’s so cool.
Yes, it’s interesting. Probably most of what I write this free verse and some stream of consciousness stuff also. But when you combine the form poems together, it’s a third maybe? But I write songs and that’s a different deal but the rhyme and rhythm and sonic tricks quotient is high there.
Ha, let me tell you about it. This very post had 4 or 5 that I've already corrected this morning, AFTER it went out. That's just the way I roll at WITD. If I had to have my posts perfected before publishing, I could not do this. Maybe someday I can have a proofreader, but that would mean creating my posts farther ahead. I wrote this at midnight last night! It just is what it is. I tell myself, it's fast-paced newsletter with a staff of one, not a book.
That’s really encouraging. I have been scattered and procrastinating really launching mine. Some of it’s understandable, as there are a lot of things shifting and moving around and some fundamental ways in my life. But I had in mind that I should really be intentional and frontload writing up posts. That you do it spur the moment is a little bit encouraging. I’m going to need a lot more time to make sure I’m Not rambling and adhere more cohesively to my intention for the site. But that is really encouraging – I don’t need to continue getting in my own way.
OH!!!! Jeannine. I'm bookmarking this one. It's reads like a holy text for me. A treasure. I made a very clear choice to never paywall my stack. I do ask for financial support. But I refuse to make access conditional on a financial commitment. And, people are supporting my work. I feel supported and appreciated when someone reads my essays and comments, paid or not. I've always approached my life from a place of generosity. Because there's ALWAYS enough to go around. I've had money and i've had nothing, and I've always trusted that no matter what my situation I have what I need. That feeling only strengthens as I age. It's that "trusting the universe" thing. And sometimes I lose sight of it. Buckminster Fuller––a philosopher and renaissance man––and one of my greatest heroes used to say––and I'm paraphrasing here––that "there's more than enough food to feed the entire world and eliminate hunger. The issue is one of distribution." I heard him say that in the mid 70s when I was a teenager and stuck with me for life and influenced a lot of the choices I made. I don't believe in competition––in my business or in my writing. I remind myself when I'm tempted to compare my writing to another's work, that the stories I have to tell belong to me, and nobody could write them the way I can. And the same holds true for their work. Craft can be learned, and I'm learning, but the true essence of our writing comes from our life experiences, our spiritual connection to ourselves and the world around us. From the responsibility given to us as custodians of the planet and each other, as witnesses. I always acknowledge people, it comes naturally, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie advises. All people want to be loved and seen, no matter their station in life. I'm blessed to have a friendship with the writer/memoirist Abigail Thomas. Paraphrasing again, she believes that "we write for clarity, we write for ourselves." Hearing that made me understand that my foremost purpose is to be the best version of myself in my life, and in my writing, and they really are the same when it all comes down to it. Honest, kind, and grateful. I want to tell truths that need to be told, even if they're hard. If people read my work along the way and glean something from it that helps them, even if it just puts a smile on their faces, that's icing on the cake for me.
Just one point of clarification, I do very much paywall and charge for my labor (and for my writing) here on Substack and elsewhere. Writing and teaching writing is my full-time vocation, and I have earned my living solely through writing and teaching writing for almost 20 years. So I am fine with charging for my work (and for my books, classes, etc). Still, I approach my work generously. Both are possible: being paid, and being generous. The whole paywall thing on Substack is a much larger conversation.
^^that said, I offer a lot for free, as is fairly obvious. But writing and teaching are my sole source of income. I will always have paywalls, tuition, etc. It's my job.
I agree with you, and want to get to that place, but for now I'm still a smallstacker. I'm growing my readership. I have no problem asking for money and support. We should be paid for our work, and some people are paying for my writing quite generously, even people I don't know. When I started The Next Write Thing it was fueled and inspired by the work I'm doing in a 12-Step program. I want people who are doing that work to have access regardless of their ability to pay, the same model as any 12-Step program. Maybe one day, I'll be able to support myself through my writing but that's not my ultimate goal, at least for the time being. And yes, the paywall thing is a whole other story. Thank you for reading my comments. I can't wait for the next Write-In!
100% to all of this. It's all iterative, and writing goals never have to include income. For many people, that's wholly beside the point! We are looking forward to the next live Zoom on Friday -- it's an open mic! xoxo
I just had to pipe in the the whole "I do paywall" bit because it would feel disingenuous not to point that out. This newsletter is a significant source of income (and also a ... GIANT amount of labor!).
It's a tremendous amount of work for me and I'm publishing and recording one essay a week (which is a huge output for me at this point). I can't fathom what your workload must look like, and you're so amazingly attentive to us. I hope you sleep enough and well. See you soon!
Though I feel comfortable in my self assigned role as an eavesdropping shadow here on WITD, I am sharing a brief journal snippet that says "yes" to everything you shared in today's post. Written within days of joining about a month ago:
"I broke the barrier by examining the site a bit, small learning steps on navigation and "what's going on here anyway?" I observe my thinking that I'm "old" and "limited". That these people are teachers, editors, publishers! of books! (haha) Why would I even consider plunking myself in the midst of such renown? and I answer myself, where better to learn? most of all to write. Jeannine assures that ALL are welcome. I choose to believe the sense of warmth and authenticity that swirl around her words like a fine mist. She says it's about "Do(ing) Language" in a way that changes our perspective, even our lives. Who wouldn't want that?!"
I think I'll be happily lost in all you offer, pretty much forever. So thank you for your generosity, inclusivity and authenticity.
Well, you just made me cry this morning. As you can probably intuit from my post, I took a bit of a kick to the gut last week, and yet, this--what you have written here--is the heart center of why I do what I do, and why I will keep doing it. I am so glad you are here. Thank you!
"Writing is not a competition. It is a holy creative act through which we remake ourselves and the world and it should be treated as such." Yes yes yes.
Your generosity, passion, patience and sense of community is what sets this place - and you - apart. I meet your offerings with joy and curiosity every day (and truthfully some part of me is always anxious for when it's going to end, because how can something this good exist in the world?? And I get to be a part of it??). We really do gain nothing from gatekeeping, and if anything it just leaves an icky residue of not-rightness. I want to be open-hearted and unselfish. I want to tell people when they're brilliant, when they have an impact, in whatever way, because the light doesn't diminish when we share it - it surely only grows and grows til the whole place is alight!!!
p.s. you're brilliant! and have had a seismic impact!
I love this so much!! Thank you for all that you've taught me. I learn something new from you all the time and I feel like a better writer and person because of you! ❤️❤️
Thank you so much for writing about this, Jeannine - and for your integrity and generosity. I’ve experienced a few situations on Substack where a writer paraphrased my work.
One such occasion, the person asked for my guidance in creating a niche Substack directory (similar to my SoberStack), which I gladly offered via email. She then took an entire paragraph from my own directory, swapping in some synonyms and minor phrase changes...and slapped a big trademark symbol on her directory title! I was outraged upon discovering this, but initially responded by going back to my post, taking screenshots of my original version (as well as screenshots of hers), and editing my post so it was a bit different.
Months later, I came across her directory again and it was still bothering me, so I emailed her mentioning that I was surprised to see that she’d paraphrased my work without including a citation. I never heard back, but she did make a few changes. Honestly, I felt as though I had done something wrong by contacting her and "making a big deal out of this." But, goodness, I don’t understand how any writer can think paraphrasing another person’s work without citation is okay!
This is just soul-nourishing. I run a small writing community (kith) and spent a year of blogs on an alphabet of values for writers a couple of years ago -- radical generosity and attention have always been strong through lines and it's so good to find that in this wonderful space. A million thanks.
Oh! I love getting to know fellow community builders. And I love the idea of radical generosity! I teach two practices called radical self-honesty and radical revision.
This is a bit from the post I did on generosity --
"And those of us who are creators and writers need this generous heart because we are the ones telling the stories.
Without a spirit of generosity we all too easily become judges instead of compassionate observers and witnesses. But with generosity, we write flawed characters, not only because perfect ones are boring but because, by writing of flaws with empathy and kindness, we change human relations.
When the philosopher, Simone Weil, was dying from tuberculosis she refused to eat more each day than the rations given to her compatriots in Nazi-occupied France. Albert Camus described this as a kind of generosity that is about refusal and resistance; that is radical and future-oriented. It’s a generosity that not is not only overflowing with compassion, but also reminds us to live by more humane rhythms.
And it is generosity that can animate our writing as we share what we have within on the page. This is how Annie Dillard puts it in Abundance:
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Don’t hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The very impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.'
Generosity is crucial to a culture of creativity. We need it for all that is life-giving’s sake and, as writers, for the sake of the story that transforms.
This post is not only so so good and important, for me it's timely and assuring. Thank you.
I’m beginning a series of non-dual philosophical teachings starting with the Rasas (emotions), to begin this Sunday. As I mention at the top of the post, I was taught in the old way, the oral tradition, by renowned scholars. I have been blessed. Some times I don’t know who taught me what, even after combing through my stack of note books. So, I decided to start the series with a list of my primary teachers and a thank you. It’s not ideal yet it feels right to do so. When I am sure of the source I do state a specific reference of teacher.
I’m not a Buddhist, though I did study Buddhism for a while. My teacher, ZaChoje Rinpoche used to call it, the "piece of the pie" teaching. Something like, when a friend or another person enjoyes a win/success they did not take your piece of the pie, there is enough to go around. So be happy and celebrate for them. The gratitude is generative.
Big giant yesses to all of this. And it sounds like your plan for thanking your teachers is just right. There is never one perfect solution for all the complex ways we are influenced. I think the idea is, just don't try to cover up the influences because -- why? That's mean for a lot of reasons.
Yes, why? I love that. I used to say when teaching, what you do and how you show up on your mat is the way you do and show up for your life. Now as I focus more on writing and teaching through writing, it's the same. Funny how that works.
I love everything about this post, Jeannine, and it is the ethos I have always followed as a writer. Generosity to others is the most generous thing we can do for ourselves as writers, what goes around comes around. I think it is a privilege and such a lovely thing to be a good literary citizen. That's why I've founded and facilitated writing critique groups over the past 30 years, have volunteered as a judge to read manuscripts for the Florida Writers Association annual literary contest, celebrate the achievements of my writer friends whenever I can. It gives me joy and a sense of community and fills me with love for every one of us "writing in the dark," which is, if we're honest, all of us, no matter how commercially or outwardly successful we are. I always appreciate prolifically published and famous writers who admit that they still face the blank page and panic with a new project, who acknowledge that writing is like breathing and they couldn't stop even if they wanted to. It's how they understand the world. That's how I know a writer is one of us, a literary citizen of the finest order.
This is absolutely wonderful and necessary. Thank you, Jeannine. It's funny how I find my passions to be metaphors for life so I totally agree how writing as passion is also a metaphor. What keeps me here on Substack is that I can actually live out one of my cardinal rules of life: Love others. I absolutely agree that karma is real and that if you are kind with other writers, the universe will be kind to you. The WITD community is one of the most life-giving cohorts I have ever been associated with and the kindness and love never stops. Your words are golden, Jeannine, but your love to us as reflected by this community is even more precious.
Thanks so much for this, Steve. Now, whenever I see you here, I picture you in that beautiful big-windowed, light-filled home with the forest just beyond the glass, the arms of trees stretching open behind you. Just so you know. How lovely!
Thank you so much, Jeannine. We are very blessed to be where we are and the forest, the mountains, the trails reach out to me everyday to give me life, to give me inspiration, to give me love. So happy we can share this vision together.
Your post made me tear up. Because I think it is so true, and clearly stated. Because it affirms how I have tried to live my artistic life for 70 years. And because it embodies the world we want to live in, the one we worry (with good reason) might have slipped away. You have thrown your arms around that world and brought it close. Thank you, with a hug and a sprinkle of tears…
I am headed up to Naniboujou in a couple days ( in Tofte right now), and when I am there I always remember our writing retreat with enthusiasm. And yes, the concrete details of that beauty too 😊
This is spot on. Watching you navigate this space, the literary world, and the world in general makes me see again and again how authenticity is its own reward. If you are never “ performing your brand” then you never have to worry about getting caught as something other than the self you have performed. And because of your understanding and embrace of self you have a way and space here to address timely topics in that same fully generous way. You make us want to do better and be better just by embodying it and modeling it every day.
🌺🌹🪻🌸🌻🌼💐🪷🥀
I want to do better and be better, too. I have things to learn and areas to improve. But I am never going to step on anyone knowingly, that is something I will never do.
We all do, but you never pretend otherwise and are generous in your curiosity and openness. Some of the smartest people I know frequently say “ I have no idea, but let’s find out” and that is the way I want to go through the world and those are the people I want next to me.
Thanks, Emily. I really appreciate this a lot. I do say that often: I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
💜 that is beautiful. I think the capitalist approach you refer to is all about the posturing and the posing as if you have acquired things you know, but it is hollow compared to sharing space and a journey on the page with someone who is genuinely curious and loves the journey as the prize itself. This is why I read the acknowledgements first—I want to know if I want to hang out with this person for 300 pages. I would really love to write a flash piece with a series of draft Acknowledgements that tell a bigger/ satirical/ comic story. But it could be a cool prompt for a poem, too. Maybe at camp?
Oh wow I love that idea so much, and it fits right into one of the workshops I have in mind for Camp!!!
Woohooo! I have never figured out how to land it. Sounds like a great soup to be in to make it happen!
I've always enjoyed reading the acknowledgements before or after reading the book. I keep hoping I will recognize a name, but I rarely do! I love that the author gives credit where it's due.
Yes! It is like the extras after a movie— the story of how it was made and that deepens the whole experience of reading for me. If it supposedly hatched from someone’s head like Athena out of Zeus then I find it just as implausible and frankly, self serving. Creation is messy so get over yourself and come make some mud pies, Zeus.
Love this: “authenticity is its own reward.”
I couldn't agree more, Jeannine! The deeper I go into the writing part of my life (which didn't begin in earnest until I turned 40), the more I am aware of the community of writers. It's much smaller than I realized at first. Earlier this week, I heard Kim King Parsons interviewed on a podcast about her new novel, We Were the Universe. She described it as being about "Texas motherhood and psychedelics," which is very much in line with the memoir I'm writing. Her interview left me feeling so inspired, and instead of containing my enthusiasm I decided to write her a note. She wrote back and told me that she's going to be in my hometown for the Texas Book Festival in November, so now I have that to look forward to.
That's exactly it. I just reached out to Sejal Shah yesterday to ask permission to use the full text of her flash essay in our Wednesday post tomorrow, and that's leading into more conversation and collaboration. It is the only way to be!
Wow! I love this story so much. It's inspiring to reach out and be a part of the writing community. I feel a little overwhelmed and scared of it a lot of the time. But this helps me feel like it could be manageable.
It's a pleasure to be in this community. Jeannine, you are a master teacher, reminding and nudging, backing up your authentic self, while encouraging and sharing your golden nuggets "shimmers and shards" plus so much more for and to us.
Thank you, Maureen. I am *so* grateful for this community, and for all of you. It is a dream for me.
Wow, this was equal parts balm and a rise to higher standards.
It makes me think about how years ago when I stumbled into Buddhist studies, the cultural posture of openness was JARRING. No squeezing tight, no posturing, no “my way or the highway.” (I mean, I’m sure there’s some but the spaces I was hanging out, it didn’t creep in.) It was downright mind boggling and energizing. I just had to understand more.
It’s been 11 years now I think? And the thing that keeps challenging me is the way that no one single person “owns” the Buddhist teachings. They are sort of considered this ethereal, untamable, ever-evolving (yet also preserved and protected?) source of wisdom. And if you’re being responsible with your own wisdom, the point of teachings is to offer them so they can alchemize through others — and let their own wisdom arise from there. In this cycle, the students find genuine appreciation for their teachers and express it back to them.
I try very hard to hold these qualities. I’m not always very good at it, especially when I’m worried about paying bills. I want to cling and clasp down into protective postures. But this reminder does help me re-center. No one owns the teachings AND thank and honor your teachers for their diligence. 🧡
This is really beautiful. You know from this post that I have a relationship with Buddhism. It really informs everything that I do, and all the ways I live. Am I perfect at it? No. But it really matters to me. Thanks for being here, Amanda!!
Love this: “Wow, this was equal parts balm and a rise to higher standards.”
Me too.
“ no squeezing tight” — direct hit, Amanda! Wow.
Yes! I never understood the scarcity mentality aspect of human interactions. Especially where something is ideally coming through the level of heart/soul/spirit - as a calling from one's true nature. It's kind of antithetical to the whole MO and raison d'etre. The well fills itself more when you share - it builds more flow and so generates more energy. And everything tastes is more nourishing when shared with gratitude.
I especially like "Writing...is a holy creative actthrough which we remake ourselves and the world and it should be treated as such." This totally hits and resonates with where I'm at. I've been working through those feelings and ideas recently, in a villanelle to serve as kind of a thesis statement.
Here it is for the hell of it since this post kind of hits the nail on the head for me in many ways. It's a first draft to I'll probably edit or rewrite, maybe jettison and relplace lines or stanzas (idk if the formatting here carries the stanza breaks, something I still have to figure out):
Dream In Real Life
To create the self imagined is to dream in real life.
Unreel the chord that binds from throats unknown
to beat the heart – bleed the ink that fills this hand that writes
How long have I been buried here? Stardust strafes
the stratosphere; flames out. Abandoned. Locked behind bone
in dying cells - unimagined, a dream in real life
I carve patterns on the cavern wall with my spirit knife.
The chamber is a resonator for the words I hone
to cleave a balanced edge, unsheathed in lines I write
Parasitic years; capitulations. All I’ve
neglected, compromised. Denied the light I’ve known -
the self imagined but a dream in real life
Decades I’ve polished this wound, each splinter bright
as pearls. On a slant, rhyming each poem to home –
a shining strand, spooling through this hand that writes
Pen to paper: flint to tinder – and the soul ignites,
mines the ash to spell the words that ink this koan
flaring from the pages, flickers through the hand that writes
to create the self imagined: to dream in real life
This is so cool, Joshua! I love that you are working on this as a villanelle (oh how I love constraint) and this is really cool! Thank you for sharing it. I esp like the line "How long have I been buried there" +++
Thanks! I really like different form poems. I used to go on sonnet jags once in awhile but only 3 or 4 of them may ever see the light of day. I write a lot of ghazals tho; and strings of interconnected haiku I think of as haiku narratives. Moments into moments.
Form poems kind of get a stodgy rep in modern poetry; or people tweak and reinvent the forms so far they become unrecognizable. Yet there are no conversations about apporpriation of cultural traditions, which is interesting. If it feels write to honor the impulse where form fits function - if that's the body the poem wants to wear - it's just right. And I find it's like pouring water into differnt kind of containers: the water - my own consciousness as translates to craft - is the same. But the shape it takes, the play of light it coaxes draws differnt flavors.
Idk why but I only started occasional villanelles the past couple years. But they really resonate with me as a form. From reception by "professional" poets, one of them may be the best capital P poem I've written.
Amazing — I think form is magic. I don’t write form poems (well, I wrote one sonnet at Open School and used it on the cover of my validations booklet!), but otherwise, I’m a free verse gal, but I love constraints of every kind, so, therefore, I love what form in poetry can do to crack open truth. It’s so cool.
Yes, it’s interesting. Probably most of what I write this free verse and some stream of consciousness stuff also. But when you combine the form poems together, it’s a third maybe? But I write songs and that’s a different deal but the rhyme and rhythm and sonic tricks quotient is high there.
I'm going to roll my eyes so hard I get headaches if I keep making typos. It makes the English aide in me wince.
Ha, let me tell you about it. This very post had 4 or 5 that I've already corrected this morning, AFTER it went out. That's just the way I roll at WITD. If I had to have my posts perfected before publishing, I could not do this. Maybe someday I can have a proofreader, but that would mean creating my posts farther ahead. I wrote this at midnight last night! It just is what it is. I tell myself, it's fast-paced newsletter with a staff of one, not a book.
That’s really encouraging. I have been scattered and procrastinating really launching mine. Some of it’s understandable, as there are a lot of things shifting and moving around and some fundamental ways in my life. But I had in mind that I should really be intentional and frontload writing up posts. That you do it spur the moment is a little bit encouraging. I’m going to need a lot more time to make sure I’m Not rambling and adhere more cohesively to my intention for the site. But that is really encouraging – I don’t need to continue getting in my own way.
Love this!
Beautiful, Joshua. I love the line "Pen to paper: flint to tinder -- and the soul ignites..."
Yeah, I really like that one – it’s economical, evocative and rhythmic. Thanks.
Yowzers, Joshua- bleed the ink, polished this wound, flickers through the hand- gorgeous!
OH!!!! Jeannine. I'm bookmarking this one. It's reads like a holy text for me. A treasure. I made a very clear choice to never paywall my stack. I do ask for financial support. But I refuse to make access conditional on a financial commitment. And, people are supporting my work. I feel supported and appreciated when someone reads my essays and comments, paid or not. I've always approached my life from a place of generosity. Because there's ALWAYS enough to go around. I've had money and i've had nothing, and I've always trusted that no matter what my situation I have what I need. That feeling only strengthens as I age. It's that "trusting the universe" thing. And sometimes I lose sight of it. Buckminster Fuller––a philosopher and renaissance man––and one of my greatest heroes used to say––and I'm paraphrasing here––that "there's more than enough food to feed the entire world and eliminate hunger. The issue is one of distribution." I heard him say that in the mid 70s when I was a teenager and stuck with me for life and influenced a lot of the choices I made. I don't believe in competition––in my business or in my writing. I remind myself when I'm tempted to compare my writing to another's work, that the stories I have to tell belong to me, and nobody could write them the way I can. And the same holds true for their work. Craft can be learned, and I'm learning, but the true essence of our writing comes from our life experiences, our spiritual connection to ourselves and the world around us. From the responsibility given to us as custodians of the planet and each other, as witnesses. I always acknowledge people, it comes naturally, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie advises. All people want to be loved and seen, no matter their station in life. I'm blessed to have a friendship with the writer/memoirist Abigail Thomas. Paraphrasing again, she believes that "we write for clarity, we write for ourselves." Hearing that made me understand that my foremost purpose is to be the best version of myself in my life, and in my writing, and they really are the same when it all comes down to it. Honest, kind, and grateful. I want to tell truths that need to be told, even if they're hard. If people read my work along the way and glean something from it that helps them, even if it just puts a smile on their faces, that's icing on the cake for me.
This is so very beautiful, Nan.
Just one point of clarification, I do very much paywall and charge for my labor (and for my writing) here on Substack and elsewhere. Writing and teaching writing is my full-time vocation, and I have earned my living solely through writing and teaching writing for almost 20 years. So I am fine with charging for my work (and for my books, classes, etc). Still, I approach my work generously. Both are possible: being paid, and being generous. The whole paywall thing on Substack is a much larger conversation.
^^that said, I offer a lot for free, as is fairly obvious. But writing and teaching are my sole source of income. I will always have paywalls, tuition, etc. It's my job.
I got it! And I support that 100%!
Thank you!! Just trying to make sure I don't sound falsely saintly! ❤️❤️❤️
I agree with you, and want to get to that place, but for now I'm still a smallstacker. I'm growing my readership. I have no problem asking for money and support. We should be paid for our work, and some people are paying for my writing quite generously, even people I don't know. When I started The Next Write Thing it was fueled and inspired by the work I'm doing in a 12-Step program. I want people who are doing that work to have access regardless of their ability to pay, the same model as any 12-Step program. Maybe one day, I'll be able to support myself through my writing but that's not my ultimate goal, at least for the time being. And yes, the paywall thing is a whole other story. Thank you for reading my comments. I can't wait for the next Write-In!
100% to all of this. It's all iterative, and writing goals never have to include income. For many people, that's wholly beside the point! We are looking forward to the next live Zoom on Friday -- it's an open mic! xoxo
I just had to pipe in the the whole "I do paywall" bit because it would feel disingenuous not to point that out. This newsletter is a significant source of income (and also a ... GIANT amount of labor!).
It's a tremendous amount of work for me and I'm publishing and recording one essay a week (which is a huge output for me at this point). I can't fathom what your workload must look like, and you're so amazingly attentive to us. I hope you sleep enough and well. See you soon!
Open mic! Wowee!
Yes! They're fun!
Though I feel comfortable in my self assigned role as an eavesdropping shadow here on WITD, I am sharing a brief journal snippet that says "yes" to everything you shared in today's post. Written within days of joining about a month ago:
"I broke the barrier by examining the site a bit, small learning steps on navigation and "what's going on here anyway?" I observe my thinking that I'm "old" and "limited". That these people are teachers, editors, publishers! of books! (haha) Why would I even consider plunking myself in the midst of such renown? and I answer myself, where better to learn? most of all to write. Jeannine assures that ALL are welcome. I choose to believe the sense of warmth and authenticity that swirl around her words like a fine mist. She says it's about "Do(ing) Language" in a way that changes our perspective, even our lives. Who wouldn't want that?!"
I think I'll be happily lost in all you offer, pretty much forever. So thank you for your generosity, inclusivity and authenticity.
Well, you just made me cry this morning. As you can probably intuit from my post, I took a bit of a kick to the gut last week, and yet, this--what you have written here--is the heart center of why I do what I do, and why I will keep doing it. I am so glad you are here. Thank you!
So glad you are here, Pam!
Thanks Emily!
"Writing is not a competition. It is a holy creative act through which we remake ourselves and the world and it should be treated as such." Yes yes yes.
Your generosity, passion, patience and sense of community is what sets this place - and you - apart. I meet your offerings with joy and curiosity every day (and truthfully some part of me is always anxious for when it's going to end, because how can something this good exist in the world?? And I get to be a part of it??). We really do gain nothing from gatekeeping, and if anything it just leaves an icky residue of not-rightness. I want to be open-hearted and unselfish. I want to tell people when they're brilliant, when they have an impact, in whatever way, because the light doesn't diminish when we share it - it surely only grows and grows til the whole place is alight!!!
p.s. you're brilliant! and have had a seismic impact!
Thank you so much, Emily--thank you!
I love this so much!! Thank you for all that you've taught me. I learn something new from you all the time and I feel like a better writer and person because of you! ❤️❤️
Thank you, Mesa. I love writing with you.
Thank you so much for writing about this, Jeannine - and for your integrity and generosity. I’ve experienced a few situations on Substack where a writer paraphrased my work.
One such occasion, the person asked for my guidance in creating a niche Substack directory (similar to my SoberStack), which I gladly offered via email. She then took an entire paragraph from my own directory, swapping in some synonyms and minor phrase changes...and slapped a big trademark symbol on her directory title! I was outraged upon discovering this, but initially responded by going back to my post, taking screenshots of my original version (as well as screenshots of hers), and editing my post so it was a bit different.
Months later, I came across her directory again and it was still bothering me, so I emailed her mentioning that I was surprised to see that she’d paraphrased my work without including a citation. I never heard back, but she did make a few changes. Honestly, I felt as though I had done something wrong by contacting her and "making a big deal out of this." But, goodness, I don’t understand how any writer can think paraphrasing another person’s work without citation is okay!
I guess I replied to this on Notes. Just to say again, sorry that happened. Not cool. Stealing like an artist doesn't mean actually stealing.
This is just soul-nourishing. I run a small writing community (kith) and spent a year of blogs on an alphabet of values for writers a couple of years ago -- radical generosity and attention have always been strong through lines and it's so good to find that in this wonderful space. A million thanks.
Oh! I love getting to know fellow community builders. And I love the idea of radical generosity! I teach two practices called radical self-honesty and radical revision.
This is a bit from the post I did on generosity --
"And those of us who are creators and writers need this generous heart because we are the ones telling the stories.
Without a spirit of generosity we all too easily become judges instead of compassionate observers and witnesses. But with generosity, we write flawed characters, not only because perfect ones are boring but because, by writing of flaws with empathy and kindness, we change human relations.
When the philosopher, Simone Weil, was dying from tuberculosis she refused to eat more each day than the rations given to her compatriots in Nazi-occupied France. Albert Camus described this as a kind of generosity that is about refusal and resistance; that is radical and future-oriented. It’s a generosity that not is not only overflowing with compassion, but also reminds us to live by more humane rhythms.
And it is generosity that can animate our writing as we share what we have within on the page. This is how Annie Dillard puts it in Abundance:
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Don’t hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The very impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.'
Generosity is crucial to a culture of creativity. We need it for all that is life-giving’s sake and, as writers, for the sake of the story that transforms.
Wow Jeannine, just reading this lifts us all up and enriches! Thank you.
Thank you, for sharing your time and creative energy with me to make this place what it is.
This post is not only so so good and important, for me it's timely and assuring. Thank you.
I’m beginning a series of non-dual philosophical teachings starting with the Rasas (emotions), to begin this Sunday. As I mention at the top of the post, I was taught in the old way, the oral tradition, by renowned scholars. I have been blessed. Some times I don’t know who taught me what, even after combing through my stack of note books. So, I decided to start the series with a list of my primary teachers and a thank you. It’s not ideal yet it feels right to do so. When I am sure of the source I do state a specific reference of teacher.
I’m not a Buddhist, though I did study Buddhism for a while. My teacher, ZaChoje Rinpoche used to call it, the "piece of the pie" teaching. Something like, when a friend or another person enjoyes a win/success they did not take your piece of the pie, there is enough to go around. So be happy and celebrate for them. The gratitude is generative.
Big giant yesses to all of this. And it sounds like your plan for thanking your teachers is just right. There is never one perfect solution for all the complex ways we are influenced. I think the idea is, just don't try to cover up the influences because -- why? That's mean for a lot of reasons.
Yes, why? I love that. I used to say when teaching, what you do and how you show up on your mat is the way you do and show up for your life. Now as I focus more on writing and teaching through writing, it's the same. Funny how that works.
I love everything about this post, Jeannine, and it is the ethos I have always followed as a writer. Generosity to others is the most generous thing we can do for ourselves as writers, what goes around comes around. I think it is a privilege and such a lovely thing to be a good literary citizen. That's why I've founded and facilitated writing critique groups over the past 30 years, have volunteered as a judge to read manuscripts for the Florida Writers Association annual literary contest, celebrate the achievements of my writer friends whenever I can. It gives me joy and a sense of community and fills me with love for every one of us "writing in the dark," which is, if we're honest, all of us, no matter how commercially or outwardly successful we are. I always appreciate prolifically published and famous writers who admit that they still face the blank page and panic with a new project, who acknowledge that writing is like breathing and they couldn't stop even if they wanted to. It's how they understand the world. That's how I know a writer is one of us, a literary citizen of the finest order.
Thank you, Amy xo
This is absolutely wonderful and necessary. Thank you, Jeannine. It's funny how I find my passions to be metaphors for life so I totally agree how writing as passion is also a metaphor. What keeps me here on Substack is that I can actually live out one of my cardinal rules of life: Love others. I absolutely agree that karma is real and that if you are kind with other writers, the universe will be kind to you. The WITD community is one of the most life-giving cohorts I have ever been associated with and the kindness and love never stops. Your words are golden, Jeannine, but your love to us as reflected by this community is even more precious.
Thanks so much for this, Steve. Now, whenever I see you here, I picture you in that beautiful big-windowed, light-filled home with the forest just beyond the glass, the arms of trees stretching open behind you. Just so you know. How lovely!
Thank you so much, Jeannine. We are very blessed to be where we are and the forest, the mountains, the trails reach out to me everyday to give me life, to give me inspiration, to give me love. So happy we can share this vision together.
And what a place to run!!
Your post made me tear up. Because I think it is so true, and clearly stated. Because it affirms how I have tried to live my artistic life for 70 years. And because it embodies the world we want to live in, the one we worry (with good reason) might have slipped away. You have thrown your arms around that world and brought it close. Thank you, with a hug and a sprinkle of tears…
What a gorgeous thing to say. I feel really lucky to know you and to have written with you in that special, special north shore beauty. Love to you.
I am headed up to Naniboujou in a couple days ( in Tofte right now), and when I am there I always remember our writing retreat with enthusiasm. And yes, the concrete details of that beauty too 😊
Oh wow yay for you. Enjoy and write a shimmer/shard for me?!