After ten years of struggling to see my stories published while going around and around with the revisions of my novel, something changed. I finished the novel. I found an agent. I signed my first publishing deal. I was accepted to attend the Squaw Valley Community of Writers (after having been rejected two years before). A short story I wrote was not only published, it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I wrote a second, more complex novel in a fraction of the time it took me to write the first.
These were modest successes, in the grand scheme of things, but for the first time I began to feel that my writing career had momentum. With a little bit of hindsight, I can attribute this to two things: I was simply unwilling to quit and I started meditating regularly.
Persistence and Mindfulness
There is no substitute for persistence. There will always be rejections (I still get plenty). If one wants to be a writer, one must keep writing. What’s more, one must improve. That’s where the mindfulness comes in.
Meditation has improved my writing in very real, quantifiable ways, none of which are easily summed up in a few lines. So I’ve set my mind to writing about them in chunks. Over the next several months, I plan to tackle specific subsets of the mindfulness and writing topic. You can view those posts here.
If you’re curious to try meditation and see how it affects your writing, you should check out A Very Important Meeting. It’s a free, online mindful writing group I started with a couple friends. It has rapidly evolved into a wonderful community and you are absolutely welcome.
And lastly, if you would like to dive a little deeper, you can sign up for my day-long Mindful Writers Workshop.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.