I've had this open in a window on my laptop since it came out, and finally got to read it today. Thank you, Jeannine, for sharing your thoughts on this in the same generous way you do everything! What an amazing world this would be if literary (and worldly) citizenship looked like this for everyone!
ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!! Oh my lord this was a potent read Jeannine. Your generosity and graciousness will never cease to amaze me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. XO
"Also: No one is ever so big that they are immune to love. We all need flowers."
This made me a little misty eyed. I think we sometimes forget that everyone, no matter how "big," is still a person navigating the messy and weird vicissitudes of life. No one is ever disappointed to have received love.
Well, I have strong political views but that's not what we are here for, we're here for the art. I do though have a diversity policy that I uphold passionately. I am glad you are here.
One of the most profound things you have said is people write the way they live. That is an amazing sentence because a lot of that is so true.
I really love how generous of heart you are. You don’t hold back your knowledge and how you have learned to do what you do as words on the page unlike other authors and writers
you share everything, and that tells me your heart is full of love and understanding, but that’s what makes us unique.
You offer books and articles to read that are inspiring and you are always teaching us something good. And most importantly, you reach out to the people you teach lifting them up in someway making them shine bright if only for a moment. You are not stuffy and you never have an air of arrogance about yourself.
Thanks, Denise. It's true, I am not arrogant. I am still a scared little kid inside, just like most people, but I am also brave. I am glad you are here.
From the day I was led to your site, I have never doubted your authenticity, generosity and the love of the craft and its teaching that shines from everything you say and do. I feel so blessed to have connected with the community you have built here. It is my happy place.
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.
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!
^^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.
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 😊
I've had this open in a window on my laptop since it came out, and finally got to read it today. Thank you, Jeannine, for sharing your thoughts on this in the same generous way you do everything! What an amazing world this would be if literary (and worldly) citizenship looked like this for everyone!
ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!! Oh my lord this was a potent read Jeannine. Your generosity and graciousness will never cease to amaze me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. XO
Thank you. It is a good idea to try to understand another’s perspective and even when people disagree we need to remain diplomatic and respectful. 🙂💕
"Also: No one is ever so big that they are immune to love. We all need flowers."
This made me a little misty eyed. I think we sometimes forget that everyone, no matter how "big," is still a person navigating the messy and weird vicissitudes of life. No one is ever disappointed to have received love.
Yes, yes, yes.
Oh yes, PS. What is really honorable about you as a person is that you don’t bash politicians like a lot of the readers in Substack do
Well, I have strong political views but that's not what we are here for, we're here for the art. I do though have a diversity policy that I uphold passionately. I am glad you are here.
One of the most profound things you have said is people write the way they live. That is an amazing sentence because a lot of that is so true.
I really love how generous of heart you are. You don’t hold back your knowledge and how you have learned to do what you do as words on the page unlike other authors and writers
you share everything, and that tells me your heart is full of love and understanding, but that’s what makes us unique.
You offer books and articles to read that are inspiring and you are always teaching us something good. And most importantly, you reach out to the people you teach lifting them up in someway making them shine bright if only for a moment. You are not stuffy and you never have an air of arrogance about yourself.
Thank you so much. 🙂
Thanks, Denise. It's true, I am not arrogant. I am still a scared little kid inside, just like most people, but I am also brave. I am glad you are here.
So am I. Ty
From the day I was led to your site, I have never doubted your authenticity, generosity and the love of the craft and its teaching that shines from everything you say and do. I feel so blessed to have connected with the community you have built here. It is my happy place.
Thank you, Anna!
Yes!!! This!!! This, this, this!!! Every single word. So wise. So very wise.
Ah, thank you so much, Stephanie!
Thank you for this. It is needed on all accounts. And you present it with such ease and coherence. Thank you!
Thank you, Riyam 🙏
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.
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!
^^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! ❤️❤️❤️
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?!