self discovery Archives

In Separation, one of my favorite poems that contains essay elements, W.S. Merwin writes,

“Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle

Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

The “your” in the first line could be applied to almost anything; a thing, a feeling, something we do.

This time of year, with its concentration on celebration and roving routines, I notice who I am without writing. Turns out, even when I’m not writing or thinking about writing or focused

on editing or publishing, everything I do is still stitched with its sensibility. At its heart, writing wants to communicate, to connect, to unearth meaning. I find that even when I’m not tap-tapping keys with my fingertips or scratching on paper with a pen, I still want those things. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Writers and artists may be closer to all of this or perhaps more inclined to articulate it since expression is what we do. But dissecting our creative process doesn’t only give us a huge boost in our creative endeavors, there’s application for daily life. This seems to be a good time of year to ask:

Who are you without your routine?

What are your threads made of?

Is there something that you want – or need – to be stitching?

I offer these as end-of-the-year questions to ponder what you’d like to weave into the coming as you hug your houseguests and sing your holiday songs, and what you might like to leave behind. Hoping that whatever you choose will allow our paths to connect.

P.S. Looking for a last minute holiday gift? What about a gift certificate for a coaching session or manuscript review? For more info, email me at ellen@ellenblumbarish.com.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema. Courtesy of Unsplash.

Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Maya Angelou

There’s a story you want to write. It hovers. Pokes at you. Maybe even stalks you. You’ve thought about it – in fact you have taken a seat, a pen and pad in hand, but you just didn’t know how where to start and you hoped the feeling would pass.

But it hasn’t. You’ve shared parts of the story with friends and they have urged you to write it down. It felt really good to tell it. You think it would feel as good — perhaps even better — to get it into words. Words that you could return to and read aloud, to feel it again and share with others. A bird, compelled to sing her song.

Anais Nin wrote that we write to taste life twice. Writing offers second chances, writes Jonathan Safran Foer, and allows us to reframe our life, to take it in and give it back differently, “so that everything is used and nothing is lost,” write Nicole Krauss.

There are so many reasons to write your story but, sadly, there are more reasons not to.

And most of the time, we chose not to because it’s so big … so time-consuming … so complicated … so scary… so personal … so private …. so hard.

I know all this because I have felt all of these feelings as I considered, struggled or walked away from writing personal narrative. But allow me to share three secrets about writing personal stories.

1) Finding and writing the personal story is better (not easier, just more pleasant) with someone – a knowing, trusted someone – rooting you on.

2) Having captured your story (or “having written,” as Dorothy Parker wrote) is one of the most satisfying, joyful experiences you can have in life. (Okay, I’m a little biased, but this I can guarantee.)

3) The third and perhaps best secret, so well expressed by Anna Quindlan, is about writing is for self discovery. She wrote:

I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.

Thinking about working with a private writing coach? I work with writers of all levels – face to face, via telephone, email or Skype – that is as unique as the individual and the project. I’ve rarely worked the same way, twice. Feel free to email me at ellen@ellenblumbarish.com to set up a free telephone consultation to see if private writing coaching is what you need to find your story and begin to write it.