Wild writing

Wild writing

Wild writing is a way of paying attention to life. It is a call to adventure.
A call to remember the beating heart that wants space on the page.

Why do you currently write?
Is for love, for money, for deadlines?
Do you want to write but struggle find enough time?

The wild within wants to help, whatever the reason. The wild ways of writing call you to attention.
I’ll be honest with you. Giving something your full attention is a potent form of magic.
Writing is how I feel alive. But to protect that life, I need to write from within the feeling of home.

Home is inside our bodies. Home is the earth that holds us.
Earth and the body are inexplicably linked.
Wild writing comes from the spaces in which your body meets the Earth.

If you remember one thing from this article, let it be this:
We must find a way to bring our bodies into our writing practice.

Let’s explore the wild ways of writing.

We are all writers

We all have stories to tell. But our stories can get lost within our busy lives. Our stories can change shape without us even knowing it. They can shrink beneath the weight of world. Because the world we live in has its own stories to tell.

Our writing may be in danger of becoming too safe, too routine, too human. What could the forests, rivers and winds teach you about writing?

How could your writing become inspired from allowing wild, natural energy onto the page?

My heart accelerates with the inquiry. Too often I know exactly where my writing is going. I begin with a topic, a theme, a structure. But a map removes the mystery. So much so that I stop exploring and only write what I already know. I want to remember what if feels like when anything seems possible. This is why I have been rewilding my writing practice.

Rewild your writing practice

Wild writing is a way to find your own story within those being woven around you. But finding your unique story can be hard.

Consciously or unconsciously, I influenced by the land around me. It is almost impossible for me to write without the lens of my culture. I am interconnected with my environment. I am writing this from a city in New Zealand. Why is this important?
I write city stories within a city and pale imitations of anything beyond.

This is the first step to rewild your writing practice.
Locate your body.
Where is your body in the world?

I’m in a library, with somebody coughing on the desk behind me. I’m slouching slightly and occasionally breathing through my mouth, muttering words as I write them. There is a sugar craving somewhere between my stomach and my teeth. I could use another coffee.

The body is what keeps us focused. It is the breathing organism that brings writing onto the page. The body is the source of our energy to write.

I realign my posture and continue. Words follow close behind.

What role does your body currently play in your writing practice?

For years, my answer would have been none. Only the hands typing on a keyboard.
For years, I thought writing only existed in the mind. But for years, I wasn’t able to sustain a daily writing practice.

Rewilding my writing practice has given me the energy to write for hours (and hours) every single day. This isn’t some big secret. Athletes train for countless hours before entering the area. Shouldn’t writers be similarly prepared to face their own dragons?

Actionable tip:

Start a writing session with an invitation to your body. This could be a few breaths. Or an awareness of your posture in a chair.
Or a few stretches. A short meditation. It could be a few sentences about the physicality of your body in the world.

Back to basics

The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust

What does your body want to write about?

Take a moment and feel into the inquiry.

Mine wants nature poetry. But my organized mind wants business articles and deadlines.
My spirit (my inspiration and presence) is kept outside, chained to a tree like a dog. It wants to join me at my desk but my spirit is not housetrained.

Our bodies need attention to realign, relax and strengthen. So does our writing practice.

Wild writing is the practice of bringing ourselves into alignment. My inner voice tells me that poetry has a role within business. Presence, inspiration and spirit has an important place on the page. The space of freedom.

Wild writing is where your internal freedom meets the world. The emergence of something important in the writer, creates an opportunity for the reader to respond in kind.

Writing is an ecosystem. There is more to a story than words inside the mind. There are the subjects that make your heart beat faster. What does your body want to write about?

There are subjects which seem so immense, mysterious and intimidating. How can we even begin to write about something like love, nature, friendship or loss?

Start small. Start with ritual. Start with a subject already living in your body.

Writing exercise:

This exercise involves a candle. It can be physical or imaginary.
Begin by lighting the candle. Watch the flame, see it flicker.
The air moving the fire is the same air that holds your body.
Imagine a sphere of light between your hands. See it shine.
Move your hands to your belly and transfer the light inside your body.
Stay here and breathe. Focus on the exhale.
Let the visualization enter the space between you and the candle.
Expand your light to the room around you. Write about the room.

Listen for the great thing

Do not worry if the ways of wild writing don’t immediately yield results. It takes time to grow fruit and ripen.

I’ve always wanted to be a nature poet. Nature is the sacred subject I want to write about. It has taken a long time before I felt like anyone (including myself) was listening.

Writing comes alive in the presence of a great subject. A conversation forms between the writer, reader and subject. The body comes alive when in communion with a great thing.

The depths of a great subject speak to the depths within you.

The great thing is waiting for you on the sacred journey of writing.

I am a slow walker. I am often the last in a group to arrive at a destination. But I will show up, eventually, with the memory of leaves and flowers that I befriended along the way. Or sometimes, I walk fast and arrive first. But in doing so, l ignore my own wild way of engaging with nature.

This happens when I am competing for attention within a group. There is often a voice which is louder than my own. My civilized mind dominates my internal space and competes for a place in the conversation. This is when I cannot hear my own wild ways.

The same thing happens when we enter a competitive state to improve our writing. The part of us that wants a place in a journal, a book, a published anything. We can easily make too much space on the page to please someone else’s standards for our own writing.

Is there something you’ve always wanted to write but don’t?

It’s so easy to follow someone else’s story and forget about our own.

Our bodies fear the aloneness that can come with writing your own path.
But fear is part of being wild. Be daring. Name the great thing you have always wanted to write about. The thing that makes your heart beat faster.

Now, we can learn how to harness fear as a source of strength.

Fear of the wild things

Beyond the romantic ideas of the wild, there is the terrifying wild. The non-glamourous side of rewilding. Adventure involves risk.

We’ve spent thousands of years building walls to the wild out. We have educated ourselves to suppress the very thing we are trying to summon. The risk is real because the danger is real.

But the magic of the wild is also real.

I suspect you are here because you are tired of hiding from the wild within you.

There could be nothing out there beyond the safety of the nest, the writing desk. Nothing but ocean and open sky. But you could also find exactly what you are searching for.

Fear is powerful. It is the body telling us that something important is about to happen. Pay attention.

How have you historically responded to bodily fear?
Fight, flight, freeze. Our body remembers how we respond. A pattern of flight will cause us to run away from the feeling of fear. Freezing leaves us unable to respond and whatever magic was there, dissipates. Fighting creates more fighting. The wild creatures you encounter will know how to fight back. Is this how you want to be received by the world?

This is where we return to the breath and body. Reframe terror and fear. Name them strength and courage. Reframe them as a willingness to step through the threshold. Teach your body that it can safely wander the wild spaces.

We’ve forgotten the power that writing can have.   
We can find meaning, purpose and the words that deserve to be written.
Wild writing is a door to your important truth.
Knock upon the door that only you know how to open.

What subjects make you come alive?

Your writing is worthy of attention. Start with your own.
Your voice is all the magic your writing needs.

Actionable tip

Take yourself on a micro adventure.
Start small. Give yourself an hour of protected time.
Only you and your notebook. No one else.
It could be a garden, a hike, a forest.
Somewhere you can be alone with writing.
Pay attention. Carry leaves in your pockets,
let them fall onto the page. Sit with a bird, translate its song.
Rest beneath a tree and listen for the water within the roots.
Walk, witness and write.

Talk soon,
Harley.