Real Writing in the World #1: Choose Your Writing Season Word
Here we go!
Welcome back Real Writers!
Now that you’ve chosen your writer alter ego, it’s time for your first writing adventure! Based on the catchphrase you wrote, what kind of power does inhabiting this alter ego give you and how can you use that power to drive your writing and your writing life?
If you distilled that down to one word, what would it be?
(Remember—this is about magic and play. No one will know about this secret world of yours we’re exploring. That’s what it’s all about. I encourage you to go to the previous post and create your writer alter ego if you are just joining us with this post, but feel free to do it later. No rules here!)
You may already be familiar with the practice of choosing a word at the start of the year as a signpost for guiding you toward a goal or self-improvement or state of being. It can be a mindfulness practice, an affirmation, even a rallying cry to inspire and encourage.
What word would embody what is most important to you? Channel that alter ego!
Write down the first word that comes to mind. Don’t judge it. Don’t worry that it’s not special enough or evocative enough. What matters is that it resonates with you—meaning, you viscerally feel it as right.
This is your season word. Seasons change and there are many cycles within them that everything goes through—animals, plants, humans, the earth. As a human being and a writer, you are also evolving.
Your season may be one month or two years. The word that is meaningful now may not be so in future. Now is all that matters. The important thing is that it’s yours. It follows the flow of time, desire, inspiration that is uniquely yours with your own milestones, challenges, fireworks, rapids, and still waters along the way.
All of it is just right because it’s just right for you.
A season word is also the anchor of a haiku poem—called the kigo. This reference to the literal season can imbue this little poem with so much metaphorical and sensory meaning. It’s a shortcut for cultural and historical associations crafted over thousands of years and passed through generations.
It’s a complex system that doesn’t fully translate to English, but we can appreciate the depth and breadth of the concept and its three-dimensionality. The word exists in time and space, as do you, and anchors you to your alter ego and your writing life.
In terms of our writing adventure, if you’d like to use a word more in keeping with the kigo, there is a list here with many wonderful ones: thunder, summer sea, slow day, shell gathering. All of these can describe you, your alter ego, the act of creating—the flow of writing, creating, and inspiration and how that feels.
Once you have your word, make an appointment with yourself for your adventure. On the day, take a small tote bag and visit your favorite place in nature—your backyard, the woods, the beach, a park, and go for a long walk, collecting whatever catches your eye along the way—flowers, leaves, grasses, acorns, pine cones, rocks, twigs.
Found a dead butterfly? What better burial than to be part of your mandala.
If you come across found objects you’re compelled to pick up, go ahead (be careful with any glass or metal—anything sharp. It’s no fun if your adventure ends with getting a tetanus shot…).
Focus on the experience of the walk and your senses. Enjoy the sky, the sun or light rain (depending on the weather), the temperature of the air, its scent, the sound of leaves or stones underneath your feet, the wind in the trees, the music of water if there’s a stream or river or ocean.
This isn’t a competition and there isn’t a time limit. Enjoy it!
Once you feel you have collected enough, find a spot that appeals to you—a large, flat rock, a stretch of sand, a small clearing, a space amidst the roots of a towering tree, a field of flowers. Then create a mandala of your season word there.
I’m using the term mandala loosely. These are a spiritual tool for focusing attention and establishing sacred space, most often a circle or a series of concentric circles with their own geometry. For our purposes, you can choose whatever shape you wish.
Make it as simple or elaborate as you want. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be heartfelt. Don’t think. Don’t plan. Don’t craft. Place everything you’ve collected where you sense they belong.
There is no need for symmetry or balance or perfection.
Scroll back up to the picture of my word: integrity. The sand is different colors. The rocks are different shapes and not evenly spaced. The “N” isn’t as well defined as the other letters. It doesn’t change the meaning or make it “less.”
Once you feel finished, sit with your creation for a while. You might journal on the word or write a poem or make a list of associations, memories, longings, invoked by the word. If you are a meditator, perhaps repeat the word to yourself. Feel it in your mouth—its texture, taste, weight—and watch whatever comes up on the screen of your mind.
You’re opening one of many doors we’ll open together, to your sacred space—your imagination.
When you’re ready, leave your season word mandala where it is. Take a picture of it to remind you, if you like. Take a picture of the view from where you’re sitting/standing.
You’ve set an intention, and you can update it as needed, whenever, wherever you wish. Taking actions, however small, creates movement and magic. That’s what these writing adventures are all about.
Over time the word will drift away, be destroyed, or decompose, which does not diminish its importance or power. Letting go is an important part of writing (and editing).
Share your word and/or pictures in the comments!
It’s time to consult the poem oracle in the next post.
Happy writing,
Chris