On Writing: Emergent Stories & Process Tips

The writing process is fascinating when you think about it. I recently finished the first polished draft of an essay and have been reflecting on the act of writing it. I used what qualitative researchers call an “emergent” design. As a research method, the process is iterative, with research goals potentially changing as new data is collected and analyzed. The same is true for creative nonfiction. The story emerges from our experiences, our remembering, and our research.

The most important thing a writer can do is discard any notion that writing is linear. It is, if anything, a puzzle, with the puzzle master in charge of both creating the image, cutting the pieces, and fitting them together. The difference is in writing sometimes we cut the pieces, so to speak, before we know exactly what the image looks like. We have a vague idea, but it’s the pieces we create, the scenes we write from which the complete image emerges. The trick is knowing what kind of pieces we need, and how many. One tip from the writing guide Telling True Stories is to start with the end. This way you know where you’re going and can build a roadmap by working backward.

Thanks to my course at the UCLA Writer’s Program, I developed a “formal” writing process that works well for me. I joined 750 Words and have been diligent with my “daily pages,” although I failed the March monthly challenge because I was so engrossed in writing my essay I didn’t remember until past midnight! The goal is to write at least 750 words a day, just random thoughts that pop into your head to get into the practice of “flow,” of just letting the thoughts pour onto the page.

I paste my daily words into Penzu, an online journal, and the next day (or hopefully not too many days later) read what I wrote and paste chunks of anything useful into Scrivener, which is like writing on virtual sticky notes. The notes become scenes or summaries you can rearrange however you like and, with the click of a button, view a complete document. No more scrolling up and down or cutting and pasting! You can write, rewrite, and reorder to your heart’s content until the story you want to tell emerges.

I firmly believe the greatest obstacle facing writers is writing. So, if you find yourself stuck, maybe this process will work for you. Write on!

Time Flies

Time Flies

How quickly time flies, which is why we must seize it and make it our own, make our lives our own. There is nothing more imperative than this. What life is today is not necessarily what it will be in the future, for better or for worse. We can worry, or we can appreciate what we have and live each day as it comes. We can embrace the now and focus on the positive in our lives — the people we love, the activities we enjoy, the comforts we may take for granted.

The less-than-desirable will fade if we give space for the desirable to emerge.

Time continues, with or without us, and ultimately leads to a day that marks our end. Owning that time, creating space for growth and seizing opportunities, is how we can reconcile time with life. Time is constant; there is neither too little nor too much time. It does not vary, but rather moves at a steady pace. There is always time; it is how we spend its passage that matters.

Open Yourself

Open yourself and let the universe fill you. Others might say, “Let go, and let God.” Either way, it’s the same. Only misery emerges when we resist; a futile act indeed. When we whine about our circumstances, we are simply engaging in a form of resistance. Not resisting is to figure out ways to cope with or change the circumstances. Opening ourselves to what may come, new opportunities and experiences, is to accept our circumstances. From this perspective, acceptance is a form counter-resistance.

The energy we put into the universe – be it positive and hopeful or negative and resentful – dictates what we get back. It’s the law of attraction. Unlike in the realm of physics, where opposites attract, in the psychological universe like attracts like. Think negatively, and receive more negativity and frustration in our lives. Think positively, live life through a lens of hope and eagerness, and attract opportunity.

Everything happens for a reason, and while we don’t have power over all that happens to us – indeed, sometimes we feel completely powerless – we do have power over how we react, how we approach life. While thinking about this topic, I drew a card from a site with a deck of online affirmation cards. Ironically, this was my card, “I claim my own power, and I lovingly create my own opportunity.” 

So, how do we claim our power and create our own opportunity when we feel crushed by the demands of daily life? We make a choice to live our lives consciously, embracing each moment and then letting it go to free our minds and our time for other things. Once the work day is done, it’s done, let it go. There will always be more to do…tomorrow. Right now, once our daily obligations have been fulfilled, is our time. How we spend it, both internally, via our thoughts, and externally, via our actions, is up to us.

One way to claim our power is to refuse to let other’s actions or words impact us in such a way that it feels as if we’re being controlled. Maybe we can’t change a decision our boss made that we don’t agree with, but we can change how we react to it. We can dwell on it even when we’re away from work, or we can accept it and figure out how to work within the confines we’re faced with. Maybe we can’t change something a coworker, friend or family member said or did, but fuming about it leaves us only feeling angrier and drained of energy that could have been put toward other things. Replaying something over and over in our minds is giving others control. Put that circumstance over “there” in our minds, away from our center so that we may focus on other, more positive things.

If claiming our power means we refuse other’s the right to have power over us, the next step is creating our own reality. We can’t all move to our dream destination, or magically fill our bank accounts with a million dollars so we can escape the rat race of life. We all have the power, however, to create our own reality with our thoughts, our words and our actions. From the minute we awake each day, we can choose to think, “Oh no, not another day in the proverbial chains,” or we can opt for this thought, “Here’s a new day, a gift I embrace.”

Creating our own reality means being grateful for what we have and for who we are. If there are other things we want, or aspects of ourselves we want to change, we create a space for these events to occur by clearing our minds of clutter and envisioning our life as we desire it to be. This is how we shape our world and our experiences. This is how we change our lives, even if it just means changing how we think about our experiences. One of my favorite songs, Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd, perfectly sums up this approach to life:

Follow, follow the sun
And which way the wind blows
When this day is done
Breathe, breathe in the air
Set your intentions
Dream with care
Tomorrow’s a new day for everyone
A brand new moon and brand new sun

Tomorrow is indeed a new day, one of promise and opportunities, but first we must create the space for their entry into our lives.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

If you’re looking for a good pick-me-up movie that puts life in perspective, that regales you with gorgeous, panoramic scenery and fills your senses with music and color, that carries you on an emotional journey of sadness, fear and happiness, then watch Hector and the Search for Happiness. Simon Pegg is a psychiatrist grown weary of what he perceives as his patients’ petty issues. The rich “stay-at-home” mom who declares she’s at the end of her rope as she prepares to depart with her daughter on a 10-day cruise. The psychic who’s lost her connection with the universe, who ultimately plays a crucial role in Hector’s search. The journey to China, Africa, where he’s nearly killed, and finally LA in search of a lost love provide him with insight into his quest to understand what makes people happy.

Perhaps the most poignant moment was when Hector found himself standing beneath hand-cut Tibetan prayer flags fluttering with such force from the mountain wind it is as if they might fly off on their own search at any moment. He stands there, his face tight in concentration, or in sadness, as the Tibetan monk holds up his hands, beaming, and others dance around him beneath the life and breath and brilliance of the flags. He cannot join them. Or he feels that this extreme experience of happiness is beyond him. That perhaps what’s wrong with his life and those of others is that they have not experienced the torture and persecution of the Tibetan monks; maybe this is what allows them to feel so deeply.

To feel exuberant, to welcome it, to embrace it first requires knowing what it is to be without it. How can happiness even exist without pain? How would we know what it was if we never felt sad? Perhaps the key to happiness lies in allowing ourselves to experience all emotions, to embrace them regardless of their effect, but to let them go when the time comes, even happiness. To not cling to it but appreciate it when it arrives. To know that just as there will be times when we feel unhappy, there will be times when happiness visits us, if we let it. To do so, one must be present in the moment. Cliche, but I’ve come to believe it is the secret to an ultimately happy and contented life. To live in the now, to feel what’s around us and within us, to be open to what comes next without fixating on it. To accept what came in the past without living in it. To appreciate this life. To just be.

A Meditation on Time

There’s a fire in the distance, to the east. It could be someone burning. Burning in the countryside, the woodpile you’ve watched for months, finally the time arrives. Arrange the kindling, gather some leaves, light the fire, watch it burn. Tend to it, until there’s nothing left to tend. Dead and blackened like night. Cold and stark. Like life feels when we fail to seize it; to savor the seconds. They will not come again. There is never that last second back. Time only marches forward…unyielding, unending. Always fleeting, moving toward or away from us eternally.

The present moment eludes us, this very second in which we exist in perfect unison with time, our life aligned with time. The very moment in which we are living. Pinks of the fading sunset reflecting off the lake. Gentle contrast to the muted blues of a softening sky. Trees devoid of leaves. Evergreens turning black in the dusk. This, the passage of time; this, which must be seized.