William Zinsser edited a book in 1988 called Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing. In his introduction to the book, Zinsser states “the act of writing is ultimately a sacrament for both writer and reader.” The act of writing sustains the writer in his or her quest. In writing, spiritual energy seems to flow in at times and alter our perception. It almost directs the writing. This spiritual energy feels sometimes like a loss of control, but it is really an important renunciation of a certain part of the mind, Zinsser writes. That is the part of the mind that wants to control thoughts. Only when we let go of thoughts can we be free to listen to a deeper voice within.

Look over some of your journal entries, freewrites or unfinished drafts. Where do you note a deeper voice popping up and dispelling the preconceived thoughts with which you may have started writing?

In the following process, you’ll be directed toward understanding the difference between the preconceived ideas you may have brought to the writing and the ones that arrived as you were writing.

****

A Few Tasks You Will Benefit From Doing

List five words or phrases in the sentences you located that you feel are holding preconceived thoughts.

Where might you imagine you are when you read each of them? In a classroom? At a travel lecture? At the motor vehicles licensing place? In a grocery store check out line?

Listen to the quality of your voice when you read them aloud and describe it using a metaphor. For instance: “When I read words in sentences in which I have included these preconceived thoughts _____________, my voice sounds like a gavel hitting the judge’s bench.”

Next, list five words or phrases you use in the sentences that you feel are full of unexpected energy.

What is the quality of your voice when you read each of these words? For example: “When I read words in sentences I have written in which a new energy arrives, word and phrases such as __________________, my voice carries me like sails full of wind.”

A New Order of Being:

Take some of the sentences that carry preconceived ideas and rewrite them.

Scramble the words in a new order

Pick and choose words from several of your sentences until you have as many new sentences as you had ones that carried preconceived ideas.

Write a poem or prose whose first stanza or first paragraph is a list of the sentences from your older writing and whose second is a list of the new sentences you just wrote. What do you feel in this juxtaposition? Write about that.

Take one of the sentences that has preconceived ideas in it and put it in the mouth of a disliked teacher. Now write a note like the ones we used to pass around among our desks in school in which you say why you dislike this person and what he or she is saying.

Take one of the sentences that has ideas and words with welcome energy. Imagine it is being spoken by a substitute teacher who has come in for the day to take that disliked teacher’s place. Write another note to pass about the way you respond to this teacher and his or her words.

****

Read this paraphrase of Zinsser’s idea of how writing works again:

In writing, spiritual energy seems to flow in at times and alter our perception. It almost directs the writing. This spiritual energy feels sometimes like a loss of control, but it is really an important renunciation of a certain part of the mind. That is the part of the mind that wants to control thoughts. Only when we let go of thoughts can we be free to listen to a deeper voice within.

It doesn’t take long to do these “tasks that benefit,” and by doing them, you will have enacted a freeing of yourself from the controlling part of the mind and discovered something deeper about yourself right inside your writing.

I hope that you will let us know how this goes for you by leaving a comment below.