Monthly Archives: January 2013

small stones – The final day of the Challenge

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Fireworks Vancouver 2006_1
Kaspa writes: What an amazing month we’ve had together! Writing each day, and reading each others small stones. It has been wonderful to read what you have been creating, both here and on the facebook group. Wonderful to see a real sense of community growing too. It’s been really lovely to see old friends writing, and to be introduced to people who have just begun to write small stones.
We’d like to keep writing them throughout the whole year, and encourage you to keep writing as well.

Following the suggestion of one of you we’d like to introduce small stone Sundays. Every Sunday we’ll create a small stone blog post here, and we’d love for you to write post a small stone.

Keep writing. Once a week (or more) for the whole year. Sounds good to me.

I’ve copied some of your comments about this months practice below. It’s both gratifying and moving to hear how writing small stones has affected your Januaries.

Small stones make me look at the world differently and take a moment to pause… Fi

The best thing about small stones though is waking up and reading everyone else’s, or taking a break from work, and spending a good twenty minutes reading through them. The sense of community is wonderful – but then it always has been on WOWH. Truly grateful to you both for putting so much effort in and bringing all these lovely people together. Steenie

I have found that writing one often leads me to others on the same day… Some days it was difficult to find anything to write about but I’ve plodded on so I hope to keep going until the end. Reading others poems is great too… This has been great for me, a lovely challenge and so many people taking part which is wonderful. Heather Walker

It is a wonderful experience…Some days I’ve written four or five, which has surprised me. It’s been more automatic–though only “automatic” because of the daily prompt. I am very glad I signed up for that. They are not only lovely slow-down pieces themselves, but since they arrive in the mid- to late-afternoon for me, they’ve become a signal to slow down, take a break, split the day, see (really see) something. That has been good.  Cynthia Reed 

 Almost every day I’ve thought that nothing could possibly come, yet every day something has made me wake up and take notice. frankie carboni

This practice —of first noticing—then translating to words—has given me great joy this month! Wabi Sabi

I am finding life feels much richer for noticing and committing a few words to the page every day! This has been the brightest January I can remember. Claire Zoghb

I have written one every day. Some are really bad, some are OK, and there are several that I am proud of. Mostly, though, I am happy with what the writing has brought to understanding myself. Wilma 

So many wonderful comments from you all about writing small stones. I’ve had to stop copying them for fear of creating a post which is pages and pages long. If you’d like to read more check out the comments section of this blog post.

So what next? smalls stone Sundays will start on this Sunday and carry on throughout the year. If you didn’t take the Mindful Writing Booster (30 days of small stone prompts) you could sign up for that, or if you’d like to look a little deeper into yourself and into your world sign up for one of our e-courses.

Starting tomorrow we have Journalling Your Way Home and Writing Towards Healing, as well as the Creative Boost Package The Way of Getting Things Done for all of you who need a little boost with your projects…

Thank you again – it’s quite overwhelming to have helped Satya introduce this practice into the world, and to see so many of you joining us and being affected by paying attention and writing.

Enjoy the last day of the Mindful Writing Challenge, and keep writing!

photo by Tony Hisgett

small stones day 30 – why writing is good for us

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Hellebore
Kaspa writes: The penultimate day – post your small stones below…

Satya’s alarm goes off. Her phone buzzes against the hard surface of the bedside cabinet. It’s dark outside. I groan, roll over and go back to sleep. When I wake up the sky is a flat grey. Later, looking into the garden I see how much the tulip shoots have grown. A few slivers of blue cut through the cloud.

These days I tend to look forward to waking up and beginning the day, but this transition time has always been a dangerous point for me. I know that if there are things weighing on my mind it is at this time of day, between waking up and getting up, that these worries become inflated. I remember mornings in the past where I would lie in bed and my mind would create whole stories around these worries….

The difficult conversation I had to have with my boss would become twice as difficult in my imagination. The mistake I made in my work the previous day would become proof of my own uselessness… That second one is a self-fulfilling truth, the more useless I felt – the more useless I would act.

On these mornings I would come down the stairs like the character from some children’s book called The Grump. Huffing and puffing, and grumbling my way to the kettle and the first cup of tea of the day.

The rest of the day would go one of two ways, depending on what I did next. If I dwelt in these stories and added energy to them, then I wasn’t going to have a good day. If I put my attention on something real (instead of on my imagined woes) then my mood would shift and I could begin to enjoy the day.

This is where small stones comes in. Writing a small stone asks me to look into the world at something real, and pay attention. I start to notice things that I haven’t seen before: the pattern of the fuchsia splatter on the inside of the white hellebore, a few yellow primroses nestling in the front garden, the goldfinch at the feeder. All of these things bring me out of my self and into the world.

Sometimes this is enough. To put my attention on something real is enough to shake me out of the blues and settle into the day. Sometimes it’s not enough.

When the small stone practice doesn’t shake me out of my worries, there’s something else that might. If I can become curious, without judgement  about what is going on for me, I can start to untangle the worries, and they start to lift. “Is there a message in this anxiety?” I wonder, “Am I upset about someone not keeping their word, because I haven’t kept my word recently?”

These sorts of questions can often lead to insight, and when I get an idea about where the feelings are coming from, I can usually accept them more easily, and then, in time, let them go.

In our e-courses we use small stones and other forms of written reflection to look both into the world and into ourselves. We are curious about what is happening in our own minds, and what is happening out there in the real world.

Having done this sort of thing for a while now, my grumpy mornings are much less frequent, and when they appear, I can usually shake them off, either through having some sense where their roots lie, or by looking into the world.

If you’d like to spend time looking deeper into your self and your place in the world, sign up for one of our Writing Our Way Home e-courses now – Journalling Our Way Home, Writing Towards Healing or my new Creative Boost package The Way of Getting Things Done. They start on Friday and as soon as you register we can send you out your materials. We look forward to working with you.

photo by Mike Legend

small stone Day Twenty-Nine – What Next?

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Satya writes: Day 29! Day 29! Three days to go! Three days to go!

Do tell us (as well as posting your small stone) how many days you’ve managed during the month so far.

And do tell us if you have any plans for what’s next – might you continue posting on our Facebook group occasionally? Might you write a small stone every Sunday? I hope you’re hooked…

PS I’ve written a piece on being delighted with bad reviews (and the dangers of falling for either praise or blame) on my author blog, here.

Doing the work. small stone Day 27

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The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. ~Emile Zola

Kaspa writes: Inspiration is all around us. One of the questions writers and artists often get asked is, “Where do you get your ideas from?” But my experience of talking to artists and writers, and of my own writing, is that there is often an abundance of ideas. A better question might be, “How do you take this idea and make it into a piece of art?”

I’m also reminded of those writers who talk about getting letters which say, “I’ve had a great idea for a novel, why don’t you write it for me?”

The gift of inspiration is nothing without the work.

I’m really interested in how this process happens. It’s why we set up the Creative Interview series, and why I investigate my own creative process, and enjoy learning from others. What works? What doesn’t work?

If you’d like to join me in exploring your own processes, and get some support in the work of bringing your gift into the world, join me for The Way of Getting Things Done. There’s a 25% discount until the end of today.

We’re into the final week of the mindful writing challenge. If you haven’t written a small stone yet, now is as good a time as any, if you have written lots – keep writing!

Do post them in the comments below :)

Day 25 and Zen and the art of writing

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Kaspa writes: Hello small stone writers. Looking forward to reading your stones below. I’ve copied a post from the archive today, about the difficulty of ‘just write something’, and yet how that is the only instruction that works.

Remember the early bird (25% off) offer for my new Creative Boost package The Way of Getting Things Done ends on Sunday, so register now to get your discount. Check out the rest of our e-courses here: WOWH e-courses

Zen and the art of writing

“Just write something.” Much easier to say, than to do.  When I run drama workshops I know that the most paraylising instruction I can give to someone is “Just go and perform something”. A blank page, or canvas, or an empty stage, can freeze our creativity.
If we have this experience more than once, we can start to believe that we simply don’t have any creative powers, or that any powers we did have dried up.
In the theatre it’s much more empowering for an actor when I give them a more specific instruction. When their creativity is given limits, it is much more able to produce work. “Perform something, but don’t move outside of this small square.” Or, “Perform something using these few words.” Then magic can happen.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig tells a story about one his writing students. She doesn’t believe she can write; faced with a blank page she is frozen. Pirsig instructs her to go into the main street, and to look at the bank there. He tells he to look at a specific brick in the bank’s wall, he tells her how many rows in this brick is, and instructs her to write about this brick.
She brings pages of writing into the next class. She had begun writing about this one brick, and it had led her to explore the history of brick-making in the town, and how the demise of the industry had affected the whole society. Starting from this one brick, she had become fired up (excuse the pun) and created something interesting and wonderful.
Someone else starting from the same brick would have written something completely different. Any object, or writing prompt, is like a gateway into our own personal imagination. Wherever we start from, something that is important to us will appear on the page.
This is why the various writing prompts here are so good, they give us a seed and unlock the door to our creative powers. With the same prompt each of us produces something different.
There are prompts all around us in the world as well; the shout of the scrap-man, “Any old iron”, opens one world, the Sylvia Edwards print of Noah’s ark is a gateway into another, and I have talked before about just how much there is through the office window.
Pick one thing, and start writing.

Here’s the link for The Way of Getting Things Done again, if you want to register and get your discount before Sunday.

The Way of Getting Things Done & small stone Twenty-Three

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Satya writes: It was wonderful to read through all your experiences of writing small stones so far on yesterday’s blog. If you haven’t posted there yet please do – I’ll be gathering some of these quotes to use next year.

Do post today’s small stone below.

We also have a brand new offering for anyone who wants to invest in getting something done – a project, a new habit, something that needs starting or finishing off.

You can read here more and if you’re quick you’ll get the earlybird offer.

Enjoy your writing today. Here more snow has fallen overnight and our Buddha is wearing a tall white hat again. I’m going to get on with my novel writing now, maybe after a cup of earl grey…

How are you getting on? small stone Day Twenty-Two

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Satya writes: With today’s small stone, you have ten more to write until the end of the January challenge.

Just ten. How many have you written so far?

Have you enjoyed the writing? Have you enjoyed the noticing?

Did you say you were going to do it and then not write a single one? What happens if you start today instead and write ten?

Has noticing more brought some difficult realisations along with some extra beauty & joy? (I hope so…).

Have the small stones had any side-effects on the rest of your life?

How has it been to post your small stones in the Facebook group or here? How has it been to keep them all in your notebook?

Will you continue?

We’d love to know! Talk to us in the comments, and post your small stone too if you have one/if you want to.

I’m off to do my novel-writing, which is my new daily habit. And then I better write my small stone for yesterday ; )

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Our next e-courses using mindful writing start next Friday – join us for Writing Towards Healing or Journaling Our Way Home? And Kaspa has something new & special coming very soon…