Welcome to my new Friday series, Inspiration Fridays! In this series, I take a quote from a featured book and discuss it. Today, I want to talk about this quote from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg:
“In a sense, that beginner’s mind is what we must come back to every time we sit down and write. There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before. Each time is a new journey with no maps.”
Many skills get easier over time. The first time I chopped an onion, I was clumsy and I almost cut off my fingers. The first time I tried driving a car, I felt overwhelmed by the multitasking required to avoid crashing as I inched down my street. The first time I tried to read a chapter book on my own, I read slowly and laboriously. Now I can do these—and many other tasks—with ease. I don’t even need to think about them. I just do them. Practice has made me comfortable.
But it’s not really the same way with writing. One of the hardest parts about writing for me, and I think for many other people, is facing a blank page. Even though I’ve written a decent portfolio of poems and short stories and essays and articles and even entire books, there’s always a moment when I open a blank document, look at the blinking cursor on my screen, and think, “How can I do this?”
Sometimes this "beginner's mind" moment lasts a while, and sometimes it passes fairly quickly. But it always shows up.
I did my first NaNoWriMo this past November. It was a modified NaNoWriMo—I knew I couldn’t pull off a full 50,000 words, and the middle grade book I wanted to write didn’t need that many words anyway. So I set a goal for 20,000 words. It seemed easy enough. I’d already written two other novels a few years before, both more than double that length. This would be a piece of cake.
But as I started, I wondered how I’d ever gotten through those other two novels. How had I managed to pull it off? How had I worked through scenes that felt flat, pushed through the murky middle, figured out stakes and tension and structure and three-dimensional characters?
I almost felt that the person who’d written those two other books sitting on my computer was perhaps not really me. Maybe that person didn’t exist anymore. But I pushed through until I’d finished the first draft of the book, clocking in at 20,538 words. I still don’t know if any of those words were objectively good or not—I’m still in the “resting” phase with it—but completing it was exciting and rewarding, and it reminded me of all the things I love about writing long-form fiction.
Through this experience, I discovered what Goldberg means by the “beginner’s mind,” about embarking on a “journey with no maps.” Even though I’d refined my skills significantly since writing those first two novels, putting the words of the third on paper still felt like walking straight into the dark.
Because we have to struggle to produce good writing, we can still feel awe and joy when we write something that fits our definition of “good,” whether it’s our first project or our hundredth.
Maybe it’s not like this for everyone. Maybe the most prolific, successful writers reach a point that the process of producing a new book feels like clockwork. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like for the Stephen Kings and the Brandon Sandersons and the Sarah J. Maases. Another year, another book. Or three.
But I think a lot of people experience this “beginner’s mind”—this sense of insecurity—when they sit down to write, and I’m glad about it. I think it keeps the work from feeling mundane, like chopping an onion or driving a car.
Related: "Learning to Write Is Not a Linear Process": Inspiration Friday with WRITING DOWN THE BONES
Because we have to struggle to produce good writing, we can still feel awe and joy when we write something that fits our definition of “good,” whether it’s our first project or our hundredth. Because of the inevitable return to that beginner’s mind, each new writing project can feel fresh and exciting. Each new project challenges us to dig deeper to find what’s true and what’s important and what’s needed.
In a couple of months, I’ll be starting another draft of another book. I’ll open up a document and I’ll stare at a blank page and I’ll wonder how I ever did it before. I can’t wait.
Keep an eye out for more discussions on Natalie Goldberg's amazing book, Writing Down the Bones!
Happy writing!