I have been feeling a bit down in the dumps, dear reader. Well, quite a lot down in the dumps if I am honest. I have been waking up feeling blue, ungrounded and not quite sure what to do with myself. It could be seasonal, the rainy season means the mornings are often overcast and sometimes it rains a lot, and when it isn’t raining it is so hot that you turn into a puddle just popping to the corner shop for a sparkly water to cool down. But I don’t think it is that.

I do think it is seasonal, but I think it is about writing seasons rather than nature’s seasons. I think I am feeling like this because I am not working on a novel. I’ve had so much fun writing short stories and I want to keep writing them, but I think I am edgy because my mind wants to get stuck into the deep spaces of a novel. It’s been almost a year since I finished the last one and I am ready to be held by the next one, to have a story take up all the extra space in my mind that I will otherwise use to make up less enjoyable stories or to worry about things I can do nothing about.

I have had this feeling before, before I started my second novel and I also had it before I started my first (but then it was worse because it was a whole lifetime of wanting to write a novel that came to a head).  Now, I see the signs; despondency, irritability, a little low-level anxiety, looking externally for answers and I know what it means; “Get started on a novel, please. Give your mind something to create.”

Do you understand this feeling? Do you understand Elizabeth Gilbert when she says, “If I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something?” Or Marti Leimbach who says, “If I am not writing, I am this miserable wretch?” I definitely relate and I know so many other writers that do too. It doesn’t always mean you have to be writing a novel, that part can differ depending on your craft, but for me these are the tell-tale signs that a book is itching to be born.

So, this week my friends I am deciding which of two novel ideas I am going to run with. One is very zeitgeisty, while the other is pretty evergreen but gives me a really lovely feeling in my stomach when I think about it. I’m going to decide and get writing. Then I may not mention it again for a while as I sneak around in a novel writing affair, hopefully waking up excited for a day sneaking pockets of writing, rather than feeling gloomy about the morning skies.

Do you have tell-tale signs that you need to be creating? How do they show up for you? Do you notice them quicker these days or are they still a bit of a mystery? Share in the comments.

Recommendations

Article: The Courage to Write: On the Radical Generosity of Letting Yourself be Seen- This is a beautiful article. The title says it all.

Newsletter: I haven’t said much about where I am at with querying my novel but let’s just say this newsletter by Agents and Books was incredibly helpful. If you currently have your manuscript out with agents you will probably find this and many of the other newsletters by Kate McKean to be a great support. If you are not quite at querying stage I still recommend signing up so you can understand the publishing industry more.

Video: The old adage ‘Show Don’t Tell’ gets bandied about a lot in writing circles. It isn’t always the case that showing is better than telling but this video is one I share a lot with clients to help them get a clearer understanding of the difference.

Mentoring

I feel so honoured to be working with truly wonderful and inspiring writers, helping them bring projects to completion or rebuild their confidence with the craft. 

If you want 2022 to be the year that you (re) find your writing voice or that you really move forward with a project that has got stuck, there is still plenty of time and I would love to hear from you.

Writing is magic and I truly believe that in writing we are trying to answers the questions we have about life on the page. I am so grateful when I can be a conduit in guiding my clients back to their inner storyteller.

If you would like support with your writing, please get in touch or book in for a free twenty minute consultation, to see if I am the right person to help you.

Yesterday on the venerable solstice day, the sun rose above the horizon at 7.21 am and returned home at 8.45 pm. The longest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere) has come and gone and slowly, slowly the days will begin to shorten again as the earth turns faithfully on its axis.

Here in Nayarit, we are in rainy season. The afternoon winds that brought kite boarders flooding to town during April and May are starting to ease, and some days there is little escape from the thick humidity that fills the air and coats our skin. Now, the sky is often striped with clouds in the morning which move through to leave a perfect blue sky, dotted with the kind of fluffy white clouds you see in cartoons, the kind you marvel at from the window of an aeroplane that make you daydream.

Gradually, as the sun moves over us and starts to dip towards the ocean, the clouds turn grey, then black, the pressure increasing in our bodies, our heads. Then relief as the clouds so heavy with rain break and pour over the land. I throw open my patio doors and breathe in the freshness of the rain and delight in the cooler air. We have only had a week or two of on and off storms and yet the dry, yellow mountains have already sprung back to lush, green life. The same used to happen in Oaxaca, and every year it excited me. Nature doing its dance.

A small lizard, not a gecko but some other kind I don’t know the name of, takes shelter from the rain in my kitchen. He wanders in and then climbs around the hobs of my stove. I’m not sure why he likes it there, but I exclaim “welcome home” every time he comes back. I love the idea of my small home as his shelter.

Soon enough (or maybe not soon enough- ask me in two months) the rainy season will be over and I will forget what it is like to feel like I am walking in a bubble of wet heat, my hair huge with humidity, my skin glowing always with sweat. I will forget what it was like to crave the coldest water for my showers (the heat warms the pipes making even the cold tap run warm at the moment). Soon these feelings will be a memory that I will struggle to conjure in their most visceral form.

And that’s why as writers we need to document life. Because even us writers forget. I forget now, exactly how rainy season in Mexico City felt on my skin, under my feet because I am living something different. I forget now the smell of summer in London, because I haven’t experienced it in so long. I worry that my ‘memories’ are romanticised idylls; freshly cut grass and “99” ice creams cones…or what were those shuttlecock shaped ice creams with the chewing gum at the bottom called? Do they even still exist?

So, what to do? Here’s an idea:

1)    Grab a notebook for seasonal recordings. (If you need an excuse to buy a new notebook, this is it!)

2)    Pick a spot in your home, preferably by a window or where some outside light comes in, or make a trip to a nearby park, beach, outdoor space.

3)    Set a timer for four minutes and write about what you see, what you can smell, what you can hear, what you can taste, how it makes you feel.

4)    Repeat daily at the same time or weekly as your schedule permits. If weekly, try to do it at the same time on the same day.

5)    See how this changes your relationship to what is around you. Maybe it makes you feel differently about your environment. Maybe it also makes your sensorial writing better.

6)   Come back to your notes when writing your novel/short story/personal essay and thank the former you for making your life easier.

Extra: If you overhear conversations, you may also want to note these down for prompts or use in dialogue. A little bit of writerly eavesdropping.

If you decide to do this, I would just love to hear what you write. How are we all experiencing nature around the globe? Drop me a line in the comments.

I had the delight of being interviewed for the Mind of the Writer Podcast and the first part of our conversation went live this week. We talk about what drew me to Mexico, how Mexico inspires my work and my love of the subconscious drag of the novel, among other things. Part Two will be be out next week, so do subscribe to hear that and other interviews by Rosemary Davison, who asks fascinating questions and is a very thoughtful interviewer.

Mentoring

“One of our chief needs as creative beings is support.” Julia Cameron

I am more and more convinced that while writing is a solitary practice, the support and understanding of others who understand why we do this beautiful, intense, painful, heart-opening craft is key. I feel honoured to mentor writers on their journeys. I work with writers bursting to write their first novels but unsure of where to start, writers who need support getting their work out in the world, writers who are trying to find the balance between paying the bills and filling their creative cups. If you would like support with your writing, do get in touch for a no-obligation chat to see if I might be the right mentor for you.

This weekend, I went to a beautiful little mountain town called San Sebastián del Oeste with a group of friends. In the morning, the fresh mountain air, cool enough to require a shawl, tickled my skin. It’s very hot these days at the beach as we wait for rain, so the hint of chill on the breeze was delightful. As a friend and I walked around the main square, a scent hit my nose. Memories of chanting, heat and deep spiritual connection flooded me before the intellectual side of my brain could place the smell, give it a name. Albahaca, I exclaimed eventually, basil, the main square smelt of Mexican Basil (a more aniseedy smell and flavour than the Italian kind, used more in curative rituals than in cooking on these shores).

I’m sure most of you reading have had this experience, that a smell can transport you in a second to memories long forgotten, to places that you seldom think of. I could be walking along the busy streets of Mexico City, get a sudden whiff of the aftershave worn by a boyfriend I had for two weeks when I was 15, and poof, I am back at school in an instant, my skirt a little too short, my fringe a little too long, my desire to fit in whittling around my bones.  Smells have so much power, they can pull us out of our bodies, make us time travel, transport us to memories good and bad in an instant.

I share this to talk about the power of smells in creative writing. I have noticed when reading and editing writing that smell can often be missed in descriptive passages. It’s not surprising. We live in a very visual and auditory world, smell-o-vision still hasn’t been invented (as far as I know) despite promises of it being part of our future from as way back as I can remember. Also smells can be tricky to describe.

But I want to advocate for the power of scents to bring your pieces to life even more. And I would suggest trying to get creative with the descriptions. For example, the house was rich with the smell of cakes baking, conjures up a feeling and an idea for sure, but going a little deeper and saying the house was impregnated with the smell of cakes baking, the buttery vanilla tickled her nostrils, reminding her of foamy sponge cakes and cold autumn afternoons, tells us more. Going deeper with the cake example (I am not obsessed with cakes, I promise), the type of cake can also tell us a lot about the character.

What do each of these descriptions conjure up for you?

1)    The rich perfume of dried fruit and densely packed caramelized muscovado filled the kitchen, the full notes of port just perceptible below the star anise and nutmeg. 

2)    The cinnamon spice mingled with sweet apple, the deep pastry buttering the air as the pie baked.

3)    Sweet almond filtered out into the garden cut through by the sharp tang of the juiciest cherries, the smell of the last days of summer.

4)    The acrid smell of burnt sugar and engorged raisins sat in the back of my throat. The crispy edges of cake would be smothered haphazardly with sickly sweet icing as if sugar could cover for the lack of attention always given to my birthday. Burnt toast, burnt cake, burnt bridges.

Obviously, I have gone beyond smells here, but hopefully you will see that different smells can conjure up entirely distinct scenes. Smell is a really fun way to let the reader travel off through their own memories and bring extra feeling and connection back to your piece. It is also really helpful in describing characters, the type of person who eats fruit cake might be different to the reader to one who eats a vanilla sponge, for example.

Have you had the experience of being transported by smell? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I’d also love to hear what those different descriptions conjured up for you. What do you imagine the kitchen to be like in the first example… and the last example?

Mentoring

I received this beautifully poetic testimonial from one of my clients this week:

“If the novice writer is a flower bud packed with creative potential and eager to bloom, then Susannah Rigg is the tender gardener and meteorological muse who nurtures, feeds, and allows that plant to unfurl and live out its biological destiny.”  Anna Dulisse

I love this testimonial because it speaks to the tenderness with which I wish all writers could be held. Writing is brave work. Yes, I will nudge you when I see you moving away from your priorities, but I am certain that creativity expands with empowerment rather than demand and pressure.  

 If you would like to learn more about my mentoring options, please check out the mentoring page on my website or book in for a 20-minute discovery call to see if I am the right mentor for you.

Over these last few weeks, I have been thinking quite a bit about what it means to be a writer who puts their writing out in the world. It’s one thing to write something (and an achievement in itself by the way) but it is another thing to publish it. It can feel sometimes like putting yourself on show, like laying your soul out into the world for it to be critiqued.

In a recent mentoring session with a client, we got talking about a short story that I wrote a number of years ago. He said he had read it and I immediately felt a little embarrassed and wanted to qualify that it was just a “little” “silly” story I wrote way back when. I cringe a bit about that story, and I haven’t read it back since I published it. However, I started to question why I should feel that way?

If you are working at your craft, your writing is going to improve over time. That is the way it works, so cringing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is a sign that your writing has got better. If my writing hadn’t improved since I wrote that short story, I would be wondering what the hell I had been doing in between! I am glad that the Susannah who wrote that story had the guts to publish it and I know that she was proud of it at the time. (Maybe I should read it and write a newsletter with my thoughts…).

I have always taken some comfort that Zadie Smith has mentioned that she cringes when she reads her first book, White Teeth, a book that I know many people would love to be able to say they had written. But again, it makes sense. She was in her early twenties when she wrote that book, her writing has changed and she has changed, I am sure.

On the flip side of this, there are also times when I look back on old articles and am pleasantly surprised by them. I think “wow, you were better than you knew!” And I can feel a little tinge of sadness for the times when I didn’t believe that. In both cases, cringing or marvelling, it is almost like someone else wrote what I am reading and I am looking on it with different eyes.

So, what I want to say is, handle your writerly self and your work with care. Love the things you put out into the world because they were the best you could do at that given moment. Delight when things you wrote feel awkward to read now because you are noticing all the things you would change or do differently, because ‘oh how you have grown.’ And back yourself. Because your best right now might just be far better than you think.

And I will leave you with this thought. What would have happened if Zadie Smith hadn’t published White Teeth? For one thing, the world would be just a little sadder and she may not have had the career she’s had. A career which includes feeling a little uncomfortable reading White Teeth to audiences of avid fans, who have bought every book she has ever written since then.  

Write as You Are is free to subscribers. If you have found this newsletter helpful, you can show your support by buying me a virtual cuppa, donating to Choose Love, dropping me a like, or by sharing it with someone else who might also enjoy it. Thank you for being here!

This brings me on to a tradition that every year I find stranger and stranger. Does anyone else find it ridiculous that those of us who follow the Gregorian calendar, begin our year in January? That we make resolutions, plans, set lofty goals and aim to get them going during the deepest darkest of winter (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere…and during mid-summer in the Southern, which isn’t much better). To me it is the surest example that we are entirely out of touch with nature, its natural ebbs, flows, contractions and expansions.

For a few years now, I have been saying to friends that my year doesn’t start until the spring equinox, and the beginning of Aries season. That makes so much more intuitive sense to me. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, the chick breaking free from the egg, and Spring is a time of blossoming and new birth. So, March 20th(which by the way, I have noticed, is often a day when we have a little earthquake in Mexico, as if the earth is also rumbling back to life after a long winter) marks that transition from the old year to the new for me. I feel so much more inclined to start things at that time, so much more energized. That is not to say I am doing nothing in January/February, but it isn’t the time I am trying to start something new, trying to birth a new project or over-expending my energy. It is more a time for finishing up projects, editing, percolating, imagining and casually trying out ideas in my mind.

I mention this, not because I think everyone should do the same, but rather because as creatives I think it is important to really listen to our natural cycles. There is a lot of external pressure to always be productive and I am not sure creativity thrives there. For me it thrives from a space of…well…space, expansiveness, of deep listening, of intuition, devotion, not of force. So that’s why listening to where you are at, honestly and with curiosity is important for any creative person. Are you procrastinating? Is it Writers’ Block? Or are you simply pushing against your own creative instinct, which is to rest into the subconscious for a while, or take a pause?

Granted, this can be very hard to tell at times (and hard to do when we live in a society that no longer appears to value the flaneur). But, if you have gone through plan A, B and C to try to push a project forward and it isn’t working, maybe check in and see if you are pushing against something, maybe your project has something to say if you give it a moment and listen.

I’d love to hear about any cycles you have noticed in your own creative work. Do share in the comments.

Recommendations

A couple of resources on following writing and life cycles

Podcast: Katherine May speaks about how Wintering replenishes us in this wonderful episode of On Being.

Course: For those interested in using their menstrual cycles to find more ease in their writing life, Nicole Gulotta has an interesting course to help you dive deeper.

Mentoring

I delight in mentoring writers. There is something truly special about watching the writers I work with grow in confidence, rebuild their writing muscles and quieten that inner voice that tells them they can’t write.

Writing is magic and I truly believe that in writing we are trying to answers the questions we have about life on the page. I am so grateful when I can be a conduit in guiding my clients back to their inner storyteller.

If you would like support with your writing, please book in for a free twenty minute consultation, or learn more about my mentoring, to see if I am the right person to help you.

Write as You Are is free to subscribers. If you have found this newsletter helpful, you can show your support by buying me a virtual cuppa, donating to Choose Love, or by sharing it with someone else who might also enjoy it. Thank you for reading!

A common question that I get asked by the writers that I mentor, is whether or not they should be reading books about the craft and rules of writing. There are so many on the market, ranging in theme and in quality. There is no doubt that some of them are really useful and writers can certainly find them helpful at different stages of their writing life. So, the answer I usually give is…

Yes, if you are called to, BUT

1)    Try Not to Use Craft Books to Avoid Writing

Writers are usually (though not always) pretty avid readers and I have noticed often that reading How To books about writing can be a cheeky way to feel like you are writing when you are not. While writing my first novel, my kindle was a graveyard for 99p editions of books called How to Finish Your Novel, Hurry Up and Finish your Novel Already and The Idiot’s Guide to Finishing a Novel…you catch my drift. I was so tortured by the story that wanted to be written, but blocked by my imposter syndrome that I looked for external help in these books. Sadly, the only answer was to work out what was blocking me and sit down and write, it wasn’t to buy another book. I have seen this procrastination technique in many a writer.  I think we can convince ourselves that, like with other professions, we need to study in order to write. It can certainly help, but be honest with yourself if the How To books are piling up faster than the words on the page.

2)    Resist Taking ‘The Rules’ of Writing To Be Like Letters of the Law

I always feel that it is important to read books on the craft of writing with an objective eye. No matter if it is written by a best-selling author or if a writer you admire swears by it, you are not them and that is your superpower. Read critically. Do you agree? Does what they are saying make sense to you? Does it make you excited? Do you feel inspired to go off and write a story or does it leave you feeling flat, feeling not good enough, locked out? Pay attention. Your opinion is just as valid. It can be helpful to learn rules, simply so you know which ones you want to follow and which ones you plan on breaking ;) but don’t let the rules stop you from writing at all.

3)    Don’t Forget about Context- Whose Rules Are They Anyway?

If you have read stories from different countries, different traditions, you will notice that stories change. Yes, there are some ideas that all stories have certain aspects, which is probably true, but when so many of these crafts books written in English are written by white people, from Western countries it makes me question, whose rules are we following exactly? There are so many more ways to tell stories that have likely been lost, overlooked and missed in the chase for Hollywood epics and bestsellers. Living in Mexico I know that written Spanish has such a different style to written English, and if you have watched French films you will know that many of them differ greatly from US mainstream movies. So, I think it is worth remembering that if you don’t find yourself within a book on craft, it is not because you don’t know how to write, it may just be that the book doesn’t speak to a way you intuitively know how to do your craft.

By all means read craft books, but try to write from intuition not from rules

Try to always write your first draft at least, without thinking of writing rules, ideas about craft etc. My concern when people rely heavily on these books is that they lose their essence, the bit which makes them unique. So, by all means edit with ideas that resonate with you from craft books, that you think can help make your piece stronger, but please always know that you are what makes your writing special. Be as creative as you want to be, no matter what the rules say.

Having said all of this, I would love to hear your favourite books on the craft of writing and why you like them. I am currently reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders and I love it because he isn’t telling me what to think but is inviting me to reflect and come along for the journey.

Mentoring

I feel so honoured to be working with truly wonderful and inspiring writers, helping them bring projects to completion or rebuild their confidence with the craft.

If you want 2022 to be the year that you (re) find your writing voice or that you really move forward with a project that has got stuck, I would love to hear from you.

Writing is magic and I truly believe that in writing we are trying to answers the questions we have about life on the page. I am so grateful when I can be a conduit in guiding my clients back to their inner storyteller.

If you would like support with your writing, please get in touch or book in for a free twenty minute consultation, to see if I am the right person to help you.

Write as You Are is free to subscribers. If you have found this newsletter helpful, you can show your support by buying me a virtual cuppa, donating to Choose Love, or by sharing it with someone else who might also enjoy it. Thank you for reading!