A mindful alternative to the Writing Industrial Complex

exploring the connection between meditation and writing

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May 23, 2024

On Monday, 6/3, we’re kicking off our Foundations Cohort. In this month-long communal practice, you’ll participate in workshops that include mindfulness and somatic experiencing techniques to help you discover the stories you’re most excited about telling, instruction in the craft of writing, and revision techniques to produce your truest and most powerful expression. Join us.

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. A bird sings because it has a song.” - Maya Angelou

There are any number of courses and books and accountability groups devoted to helping you write more or faster or better. But here at Foster we do things a little differently from most players in what we’ve affectionately termed the Writing Industrial Complex.

I say that as a person who has spent 20+ years in the belly of said complex. I’ve always been interested in writing – I wrote my first short story at age eight – and have taken dozens of classes and workshops at august institutions with first-rate teachers to improve my craft. Zero regrets! I learned a lot.

But what’s probably had the greatest impact on my writing is just…writing. The simple act of getting and staying in practice. Because as it turns out, it’s not so simple.

Not only are there a million things constantly demanding my attention, but I have this stubborn brain with specific ideas about the work I “should” be producing. It should be brilliant, for starters. Full of ripping narratives, sparkling metaphors, and dazzling insights that bring my writing to life and give it resonance. It should be shared widely with enthusiastic readers around the world, opening new doors for me personally and professionally, attracting exciting new people and opportunities into my world. It should lead at least one person to weep uncontrollably at how well I’ve captured the sublime and mysterious experience of being human per day!!!

I kid. But that is what it feels like sometimes. And having worked with and coached hundreds of writers over the years, this is common. We have high expectations of ourselves! So high, in fact, that it often stifles us before we even have a chance to begin. (See Ira Glass’s Taste Gap theory for reference.)

The truth is that approaching writing with an end goal in mind is a quick way to ensure we never write anything at all. So here at Foster we encourage writers to focus on the practice of writing for its own sake.

What does this look like? Instead of starting with your outcome in mind, (e.g. becoming the next Zadie Smith/creating a million-dollar-a-year Substack/winning the Nobel Prize in literature) we approach the page by honing in on what we have to say and proceeding from there.

Because it’s also true that the most powerful, heartfelt writing emerges from a profound need to communicate something essential within us. Something that we, for one reason or another, have to say. And of course in order to do that, we have to be quiet and present enough with ourselves to hear it. Which, once again, no small feat given how difficult it is to pay attention to what’s happening now instead of what we hope will happen in the future.

One powerful method we use for tapping into the rich material that lives in our subconscious is meditation. This ancient practice is most commonly understood (misunderstood, really) as being about calming the mind, but meditation goes far beyond that; it’s really about listening to yourself.

I first discovered meditation in 2009, when a therapist suggested it might help me with recurrent episodes of depression. It did, and that’s a whole other story, but what’s relevant here is that one of the reasons meditation has stuck around for millennia is how it invites us to pause and take the time to truly get to know ourselves. When we do that, a whole internal world of insights and emotions and ideas comes rushing up to meet us. And you know what those are great fuel for? You guessed it. Writing.

By sitting quietly with whatever arises in our minds — be it uncomfortable truths, professional dilemmas, deeply held beliefs, or something else — we uncover material ripe for exploration in our work. In these moments of stillness, we notice emotions stirring within us, ideas that refuse to fade, and lingering echoes of memorable conversations.

So at Foster, we meditate together, drawing on millennia of teachings from meditation practitioners who have emphasized that togetherness enhances the practice and makes it easier to do.

We invite you to join us and discover this process firsthand. But if you want to start on your own, here’s a simple practice you can try:

Find a quiet space and set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Focus on your breath and just notice what arises. Emotions, memories, ideas. Instead of pushing them away or judging yourself for having them, try to be curious about them as potential seeds for your writing. You’ll find an infinite well of things to write about.

Nearly 40 years into writing and 15 years into meditating, I find my best work generally emerges when I slow down and just let myself sit with what’s coming up for me today. And when I go at it from that perspective, there’s no end to the list of ideas I’m excited to explore.

Foster is a unique community of practice where writers get the support they need to stay consistent, go deeper into their work, and write the stories only they can tell.