How To Embrace Your Potential As A Writer

A short introduction to the Empty Writers Club

"A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper." ― Ursula K. Le Guin

For the last month, a handful of friends and I have met weekly to sit in silence and write. In doing so, we've accidentally created a writing club. It's become the most rewarding hour of my working week. I have concluded that if you consider yourself a writer, you are very lucky. But with that identity, you also likely feel you don't write enough. I want us all to have the necessary space to practice our art. So, if you are a writer, I'd like to invite you to the Empty Writers Club; just reply to this email to join us. More below!

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To my friends who are writers:

The last few months have not been easy. As my therapist said, "So, you want to be a writer…. and now you're doing AI for dental front desk management…?!" I obviously cringed when he pointed this out. I spat out my tea. While travelling, I learned to trust my intuition, but the way intuition expresses itself is often by a kind of emotional abduction. It captures us by the ankle or throat and never tells us what it wants. We are left guessing. I have felt stressed and panicked, and I haven’t understood why. All the while, intuitively, I have found sitting among friends and writing feels correct. In these moments, the grip has loosened.

Likewise, I feel an intuitive guilt, almost a shame, when time passes between writing sessions. When I don't publish here, or when I fail to work on my book, I let the embers of my creativity dwindle. Returning to the blank page gets more difficult. I feel like I am wasting something important. What might I be wasting?

In Buddhism, it is said that we have received a tremendous gift to be reincarnated as human beings. It's the product of perhaps millions of Samsaric years of diligent karmic work. We easily might have been reincarnated as a gnat, a horsefly, or a stray cat. Unlike animals, humans have choices, opportunities, the possibility of artistic expression, and so on. It's a blessing!

“Both Hindus and Buddhists say human birth is highly auspicious, because it has the elements for liberation. You have everything you need to work with in a human birth to become realized: consciousness or awareness, conceptual understanding, the emotional heart, joy and sorrow.”— Be Love Now, by Ram Dass

And, although I'm admittedly biassed and unabashedly arrogant about it, I think it's better still to be reincarnated as writer.

Writing is a passion that is simultaneously invigorating and enlightening whilst entirely free to do. This cosmic gift shouldn't be overlooked. It often is. Only a few of us discover writing as an outlet, a source of expression or, at other times, therapy. Writing can be a way of existing, a livelihood, or a thing to fill winter evenings. It's a lens with which we look into the world. Ah! — to be able to meet oneself in the mirror of the page!

Those of us who feel our pull to write invariably feel we're not living up to our creative potential when not doing it.

We love the practice and process; we treat it as a ritual, but sometimes, a month goes by, and the ritual is not carried out— nothing is sacrificed at the altar of our creative pursuits. As such (we ponder at 3 a.m.), might a lifetime whistle by while our dreams of being an eminent writer, or at the very least a passable one, set like the sun after a long day of lost opportunities?

Now, not only to be reincarnated as not a gnat, but also to have the passion of a writer, really is something special (those poor gnats who dream of writing the next Great American Novel — I feel bad for them).

So, let us not waste this opportunity. The next time we glimpse ourselves reflected in a shop window, might we see somebody who has taken advantage of their lucky karmic trip? Or will we look at somebody who has let their god-given passion dwindle? Will we stare into the sad-blank eyes of someone who has always more important things to do than express their creativity?

I am not alone in feeling these doubts. You might also feel them. But hell, we won't allow our lives to turn out as a creative disappointment! If even part of you wants to write, we will create the space to do so with inspirational people.

The Empty Writers Club is a group of writers who don't expect anything from themselves aside from simply sitting down with their empty selves in front of an empty page. We are empty of expectations! Simply, we take the time to capture that stream of consciousness that flows unceasingly from deep within us.

We support one another's various writing pursuits: Some of us are writing books. Others are launching newsletters. Others use journaling as a way to understand themselves. Some join to draft a letter to an estranged aunt. One writes about an ex-boyfriend in livid red ink, only to incinerate the page in fire ceremonies. No - there is no judgement here! Nothing written can ever be wrong.

What is wrong, however, is ignoring our divinely gifted practice; what's wrong is failing to take up the opportunity to develop a writing ritual. It's our responsibility. Truly!

We write together once a week. We meet for an hour. We write in silence. This stimulates the creative nerve, somewhere (maybe) at the base of the neocortex, so we lean into more writing opportunities. Soon after, the act of writing — and by that I mean creativity — shifts to the front of our lives. We carry ourselves differently for at least the rest of the day (and, more often, the whole week) because we've honoured our deepest desire.

Remember, writing begets writing as surely as night follows day.

Our Empty Writers Clubs comprises:

• Weekly writing calls (no yapping)

• Unlimited feedback & edits (share your Google doc, get comments)

• Inclusion in our Empty Writers Club monthly updates (we circulate the members's writing)

I want to share this experiment as it cooks on the hob, so I'll intermittently update you here.

I believe we will make the most of our creative potential by feeding ourselves a little quiet writing time and spending it lost among words. Selfishly, I want to write more and encourage those in the same position as me to do the same.

The club is free, of course, so reply to this email and get involved! x

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“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." ― Cyril Connolly