Writing
Sunday, November 11th, 2012
Today is the official 13th birthday of my first book Soul Purpose published way back in 1999. Where has the time gone? I wrote Soul Purpose when I was 37 years and achieved a life long ambition of publishing a book. Despite being out of print I still receive letters and emails from readers and in the last couple of years sat in the same carriage on a tube where someone was actually reading my book.
I am glad I had the courage to go and ahead with pushing the book out into the world. It’s part of my legacy and I am deeply thankful that Piatkus books took a chance on an unknown writer like me and published it in the first place.
At the time I was an inexperienced writer who had a choppy on off relationship with creative writing but had huge dreams and ambitions of being a writer. I modelled myself on literary giants, the likes of Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and the new writer on the block at the time Iyanla Vanzant. Whilst I admired writers from other cultural backgrounds these writers were significant because of their racial backgrounds, If they could do it then I believed in my heart that I could do it too.
What I learnt from writing of Soul Purpose
- One needs to cultivate a regular habit of writing. It doesn’t need to be an hour a day but it needs to be regular
- Wanting to tell your story is not the same as knowing how to write your story. There’s an art, science and synchronicity that all work hand in hand when writing
- Writing is a physical act. We write through and with our bodies and you need to show up and actually write to call yourself a writer
- Soul Purpose was not the book I intended to write. Once I started to write the writing created it’s own path which I followed
- We have to let go of our plan for the book and allow the book it is meant to be to come through
- Writing is a practice
- How grateful I am for that very first step of my publishing journey. I sent out ten book proposals and struck lucky. But I wouldn’t have given up
What I would do differently if given the chance to do it all again?
- I would ask for more help. I seriously needed a writing mentor or coach
- I would have more people read and comment on my text
- I would have been much braver on writing about taboo subjects such as sexuality and race
- I would have edited more and negotiated a new deadline with my editor to give the book more time to incubate and mature
- I would have worked from a more organised work and writing space so my creativity could have flowed better
- I would have delivered my second book for Piatkus and not let fear get the better of me which it did, which resulted in a seven year gap between books one and two
- I would have invested more in learning the craft of writing and opened myself to more feedback
- Made sure both my parents attended the book launch and invited them both to say a few words
What I would keep the same?
- Definitely the cover, which I still love to this day
- The first few opening lines at the start of the book
- The quote at the beginning of the book
- The opportunity to write Soul Purpose
- My innocence in writing Soul Purpose
- The synchronicity surrounding obtaining my book deal, which included a chance conversation with a stranger in a workshop queue whom it turned out, was a commissioning editor at Harper Collins who at the time had my book proposal sitting on her desk.
- The excitement and buzz at my book launch at the Ritzy Café in Brixton on the 11.11.1999
I have some exciting plans for Soul Purpose in 2013 & 2014 when it will celebrate it’s 15th birthday including publishing her on kindle.
Soul Purpose is my baby and holds a special place on my writing journey.
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Monday, January 2nd, 2012
Did you know that one of the best ways to get free coaching is by keeping a journal? In many ways a journal is a personal coach. By writing a journal we can access many of the benefits of coaching for free.
Here are five reasons why your journal can be your own personal coach:
1. Writing in a journal allows you to slow down and hear your own voice, thoughts and reflections
2. A journal is a safe place to really be yourself without censorship
3. By writing freely and getting your thoughts down on paper you will often lead yourself to better ideas, new perspective and valuable insights
4. You can access your journal 24 hours, no appointment necessary
5. Its a great way of recognising recurring themes, patterns and behaviours and bringing them into sharp focus
What are the additional benefits or ways in which journaling can offer you free Personal Life Coaching?
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Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
You don’t need huge chunks of time to write!
That’s great news isn’t it? Believe it or not, most of us don’t practice what we think we believe in. Instead, we think that once we clear the desk, answer a few emails (it’s never a few emails), load the dishwasher and soon, then we’ll finally have time to get to the page and write.
I say stop kidding yourself. The best way to get yourself onto the page is to start with small, bite size chunks. You’ll be amazed at what you might be able to capture in a five minute chunk. Writer, Anne Lamott, suggests we have to download first. I thought I’d put it to the test by writing this post in five minutes – and it worked. However, don’t get me wrong, you won’t always end up with a piece you want to publish but I guarantee you will be further down the line than if you hadn’t made it to the page at all.
So what are you waiting for? Forget the dishes, move the mess aside and start writing for five minutes.
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Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
I have learnt to lend myself to pen and paper just about anywhere. I can hear the music blaring out from the iPod of the woman sitting ten seats behind me whose music I have not consented to share, especially so early on this crisp winter’s morning.
The loud non-stop banter of the two women on the lower deck is yet another distraction, way too bubbly for such wee hours of the day. None of it matters though. I have slipped into my private space with pen and notebook and soon I am scrawling fast, across the blank pages of my yellow Moleskin notebook on the front seat of the upper deck of a 37 bus. I have trained my mind to be focused and write with ease. I can navigate my way skillfully across the page between the jolts and bumps as the bus heads South towards Brixton from my home in East Dulwich.
What matters most is writing my Morning Pages – a kind of writer’s ritual that affords one the space to undo yourself on the page. I write Morning Pages for many reasons. Today one reason is paramount, I write so I can enter my day with less angst, less worry and more head and soul space to give myself more fully and present to the awakening day.
Over the years I have written in many places. I’ve written at the feet of various trees in many of London’s gorgeous parks and under the shade of trees as far away as New Mexico and upstate New York. Every month, I write regularly on local and intercity trains out of London and Kings Cross mainline stations. I prefer the quiet coaches on trains where away from the noise and din of mobile phones I have a noise free zone for writing.
I’ve also written on packed buses and commuter trains, in cafes and restaurants around the world and dare I say it, many bars. Once, during a lunch time meal with a friend in a posh restaurant in St Christopher’s Place in central London, I excused myself hurriedly from her incessant chatter and headed down to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet seat and scribbled notes on the back of a napkin. Although it wasn’t quite Victor Frankl’s experience of writing on toilet paper in the concentration camp, Frankl’s experience certainly had inspired me to getting scribbling on my double ply luxury napkin.
Nowhere escapes being transformed into a temporary writing station for me. One thing I am sure of is that my Muse cannot afford the luxury of a favourite place or ideal space to write. This writing business is daily business. It’s an everyday task like brushing your teeth and taking a shower. I cannot afford to do one and not the other. If I am to embrace being a writer then the one thing I need to do more than anything is to find places and spaces in my day to write.
I know you’re probably thinking it’s all right for me to sound so gleeful. But trust me, I honestly haven’t always been this way. With years of procrastination, fear and doubt under my belt I’ve been my own worst enemy when it comes to this writing lark. But honestly, I cannot predict better times for me in my life than those times when I commit to writing, do the darn thing and write. The gains to be had from writing have become obvious now. For whatever life throws my way, if I am writing and doing it regularly then somehow I get through it differently. In fact much better actually than if I’m not writing at all.
Right now I’m in the café at Friends Meeting House in central London. I am transcribing my notes from the pages of my yellow Moleskin, in and amongst occasional glances out the window at the traffic thudding past along the Euston Road. In a few minutes I will be sitting on the top deck of a number 68 bus. I will write again. Maybe a few texts, maybe more notes or maybe add some notes to my To Do List.
Where do you prefer to write? Where have you trained yourself to write? Where would you be willing to try out writing? Where are you right now? Can you stop what you are doing right now and write for just 5 minutes?
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Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
Today I woke up around 5am, did a short meditation and started writing.
Well, I didn’t start writing immediately. Instead I surfed the internet for a while before I caught myself and got back on track.
I had three blog posts to write which I had been putting off for ages. I was crippled with anxiety and a desire to do it perfectly – the wrong ingredients on a menu for getting your writing done.
Finally, I forced myself to write, reminded by the wise words included in the brilliant chapter in Bird by Bird – Instructions on writing and life by Anne Lamott, where she writes about the importance of writing those shitty first drafts.
Reminded and inspired at the same time I kept my fingers moving across the keyboard. Slowly my writing began to carve out a momentum of its own. Soon I was weaving threads of ideas together. One post generated the idea for another and before I realised it, I had the three drafts I needed. Not perfect, but working drafts that could be improved and revised.
My writing didn’t stop there. I only had one coaching client booked in for the day so the rest of the day was mine to use as I wished. With plenty of other projects and programmes to plan I simply kept on writing throughout my day.
When I next looked up it was 2pm. I had not raised my head for breakfast, for tea or for any food that I would normally be on the hunt for.
The reason being that writing had curbed me of my physical hunger. The act of writing and immersing myself in it had fed my creative appetite, which in turn dulled my physical desire to eat. I was full.
I had found what Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly called the flow. I had lost myself in a morning of words and creating. I had become so absorbed I had no idea where the time had disappeared to and had little desire to eat.
Above you’ll find an image of the juicy mango I eventually treated myself to once I managed to tear myself away from my laptop and head down to the kitchen for a late lunch. It was delicious and the icing on the cake for what turned out to be a perfect day.
When you do what you enjoy you increase the likelihood of losing track of time and becoming absorbed – a word that is becoming obsolete in our world of fast living.
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Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
Yesterday, right after coaching an early morning client I put down my notes, reached over to one of my bookshelves and plucked out an old Gratitude Journal.
It’s beautifully bound in soft leather with lovely quotes and I realised that my last entry in that Journal was in January 2009.
Within seconds of opening to a blank page I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and began writing a list of the things in my life I was very grateful for. It wasn’t long before I had filled several pages and had tears in my eyes.
I am sure many of you will be familiar with the concept of keeping a Gratitude Journal. But there can often be quite some distance in our lives between what we know and what we do.
I have found this to be so true for myself and for so many of the people I’ve had the privilege to work with. It is one thing to know something, and another to really know it and put it into practice.
Many of us know about Gratitude Journals but we are not in the act of truly knowing them. Isn’t it funny how the things that do us good often get pushed aside in our daily quests to reach driven outcomes? It really isn’t enough to simply read stuff in books. To truly know it, we must actively engage and enter into a relationship with the thing.
My reconnection with my Gratitude Journal came through my client coaching conversation earlier that morning. My client, a brilliant writer, had come to the call frustrated that she wasn’t keeping to her word to write. As we talked our focus centered on helping her get clear about what she wanted to get from the coaching. I was doing what we refer to in coaching as ‘Establishing the Coaching Agreement’.
A sense of purpose came first and sticking to a daily routine came next as we continued to drill down to discover what really mattered to her.
Within minutes, she had arrived at the practice of getting back into the habit of writing down her gratitudes each morning and achieving a sense of peace. Turns out that achieving that sense of peace would give her the peaceful frame of mind she needed to re-engage with her writing.
As we talked about the benefits and values of writing a Gratitude list a few things became clear.
The act of writing down what she was grateful for changed her perspective on how she viewed what was happening around her and most importantly her world.
It helped her to see what was good, healthy and positive right now in her life, even if there were challenges and dilemmas.
It shifted her energy from feeling negative and disheartened into a more positive domain.
Within minutes she noticed how much better she felt and how her energy levels had increased.
Sometimes the practices we help our clients reconnect to are simple ones. They start doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. My client wanted to re-commit to writing and her creative spirit. It turned out that the act of writing her Gratitude list would give her the healthy foundations she needed to fuel her commitment to herself as a writer and as a wonderful human being.
It turned out that this insight and connection was not just for my client. This lesson was also for me the Coach and that moment with my Gratitude journal was deeply fulfilling and soul satisfying. It also offered me a meaningful and moving start to my day.
You don’t need a special notebook for writing or recording what you are grateful for. I’ve taken to writing my Gratitude lists anywhere. Today, my list will be kick started right here on the blog. Tomorrow they may find themselves on the back of a scrap of paper or an envelope.
Let anywhere be a home for writing down your daily list of what you are grateful for. Make writing them be the goal.
Today I am deeply grateful for:
The lovely bed I get to sleep in
The great parks nearby where I live
The carrot and broccoli stir fry with salmon that I enjoyed last night for dinner
Knowing I have white spaces in my day today for time to think and a walk out in nature
Really grateful for working freelance and getting to work on such creative and enriching projects and programmes
I am especially grateful for the 15 minutes of meditation I did before writing this post I really, really appreciate my lovely laptop which is my creativity portal
What are five things you are really grateful for right now?
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