In September, I started going to yoga. I expected
it to help with my back, and it has. The
surprise for me was how many of the principals also apply to writing. Chief among
these is “Honor Your Body.”
When you think “yoga,” you no doubt picture
someone doing one of those contortionist poses. Those are all well and good if
you can do them, but even with the simplest poses, our instructor reminds us to
honor our bodies. Don’t do x if we have bad knees. Bad shoulders? Then don’t do
y. Hip problems? Then skip z. Yoga isn’t one-size-fits-all. You have to adjust
it according to who and how you are.
That’s a lot like writing. Whenever we find a new technique or hear a
new piece of advice, BIC/butt-in-chair comes to mind, we are tempted to try to
make it work exactly as it was presented. When I first heard the advice BIC, it
was explained to me that I should treat writing like a full-time job. Simply
put -- BIC 8 hours a day. While that might work for some people, I can’t write
that long every day. It’s just not how I’m wired and trying to force myself to
stay in place for 8 hours just aggravates me.
Likewise, if you are a plotter and you try to
follow the advice to just let your writing flow without a strict plan, you may find
that you accomplish nothing. You need the sense of direction that an outline
provided. A pantser, on the other hand, who tries to methodically plot out her
work may find her prose turning wooden when she tries to work from a detailed
plot.
Honor yourself. Honor how you work.
That isn’t a free pass to avoid developing better
habits or trying something new. Something else I’ve learned in yoga is that
each day your body responds a little differently than it did the day before. Pay
attention to how things are working today. A pose that was easy to achieve
yesterday, may be torture next week. Pay attention. Understand why. Honor your body.
If your writing flowed last week but it isn’t
this week, pay attention. Is there a
problem with the project? Are you not feeling well? Needing more sleep? Sometimes we need to
change how we work or what we are doing in our down time. It isn’t a sign of failure. It simply is. Just because a technique worked
yesterday or last week doesn’t mean that it will continue to work without
having to adjust it. Honor your work.
Sometimes the solution is simply to relax into
it. Yoga requires a great deal of
strength but you can’t muscle your way through the poses. Some twists require
relaxation and you can’t slip into the full pose until you manage to relax that
muscle in your hip. It isn’t something you can lie to yourself about. Be aware.
Honor your body.
Some things in writing are achieved only
through hard work. You have to write and write some more to learn to write
well. But that liveliness that pulls in
readers? You can’t force it. You have to learn to let go. Relax into your writing. Have fun. It’s be best way to honor your work and your
reader.
--SueBE
Sue is the instructor for our course, Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults. The next session begins on January 11, 2016.
3 comments:
Sue--Great connection. You not only gave me some much-needed reminders about writing, you also made me reconsider yoga.
Thanks.
Sioux,
You are welcome and thank you! Maybe try a new yoga instructor. I've worked with three.
--SueBE
I LOVE yoga and do it daily! I usually do free yoga on the beach at sunset with a group but it's been chilly lately so I've been doing cardio yoga at my pad with my neighbors. Honestly, so much of life can be viewed through a yoga lens. I love that you mention letting go in your writing and having fun. Great post, Sue! :)
Post a Comment