This week, Judy Reeves, author of the new book, Wild Women, Wild Voices, shares her thoughts on writing practice. Here article serves as a good review for all of us who are busy concentrating on revising and publishing and may have begun to overlook the idea of what a writing practice is and offers. She gives a nudge forward, too, for those of us shying away from writing what we have in us to write.

If You Want To Write … Writing Practice for Personal Expression and Creative Explorations
by Judy Reeves

This title comes from a book by Brenda Euland. The subtitle is “A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit,” which are qualities you can gain from writing, whether you want to be a published writer or you’re writing for personal expression. Euland’s book is evergreen; it was published in 1938 and what she wrote then is just as true today. “Everyone is talented, original and has something important to say.”

I come from the writing practice school of writing. Rather than writing to be published —creating a product — writing practice is a process. It’s taking ten or fifteen minutes, or half an hour if you can, to put words on the page about anything. Word sketches, bits and pieces of something you might be working on, explorations of what you’re curious about, memories, capturing pictures in words, dialogue you may overhear or that comes to you out of the blue. Maybe a poem, if you’re lucky.

The thing about writing practice as personal expression and creative exploration is that you don’t have to already be a writer to do it. You just do it.

Writing practice is what writers do naturally. Like imagining and wondering and daydreaming. It’s only when we begin to have expectations of ourselves or our writing that we resist what is so natural to us.

Writing practice is the occasion in which you are able to move out of self-consciousness that might judge or analyze or criticize what you write, and give yourself over to the page. You become the writing. You are absolutely in the moment, doing what you are doing, unconscious of time or place or the space around you.

Within the daily ritual of writing practice, the stories that want to be written find their way from our deepest self and onto the page. We may not even know what these stories are. With writing practice, we surprise ourselves. This is where authentic voice explores its range. Consider practice to be voice lessons.

In day after day of writing practice, notebooks will be filled. Page after page of your original writing. Not all of it good. But not all of it bad, either. And some of it will be absolutely gorgeous. For some, this is enough. Making daily contact with their writing is a way of touching home. It is an affirmation of their deepest longing. For them, the process is what matters most.

Others discover what they want to write about. Through practice where no directive is given except Write, they find their voice and the genre in which it hits its truest notes.

And they take risks. I had a writing teacher who told us “stay in the room.” Meaning, don’t let your characters or yourself leave the scene before it’s complete. In real life when there’s danger or conflict the safest action may be to hightail it, but in writing, safety is not a desired ingredient. And in your notebook, you can try anything. What the heck, this is just practice.

Practice is trying out ideas and auditioning words and writing nonsense and secrets and lies. It’s the equivalent of an artist’s sketchbook for writers. It’s liberating and joyful and playful and exciting and surprising and spontaneous and fulfilling. It’s a place for grieving and healing and working through and remembering and recovering. It is expansive.

Writing practice is a way of getting better, like practicing the piano or practicing your dance moves, but practice is also a way for the mindful doing of something—like a yoga practice, or a meditation practice.

Following are just a few of the benefits of having a regular writing practice:

• Builds self-confidence
• Enhances creativity
• Offers opportunities for explorations
• Supports risk taking
• Expands vocabulary
• Sets a place for the Muse
• Honors commitment
• Develops trust (in yourself and your writing)
• Allows discovery of what matters
• Helps you find your voice
• Encourages spontaneity
• Evokes imagination
• Nurtures courage
• Evokes self-expression
• Sustains spirit

In writing practice groups, we have a few rules we follow. They include:

1. Keep your hand moving, don’t go back and edit what you’ve written.
2. Don’t worry about the rules—punctuation, grammar, syntax. In fact, don’t worry about anything, just keep writing.
3. Use concrete details, be specific, use the senses. Write how things smell or taste or sound; what they feel like. Use the names of things. But don’t stop to think of these things; go back to the first rule: keep your hand moving.
4. Don’t worry about making it good; just write it. As Natalie Goldberg told us, “you’re free to write the worst junk in America.”
5. Be fearless and trust your pen.

Let’s take a few minutes to put our practice into practice.

If you’re ready, open to a clean page in your notebook, or a blank screen on your computer and set your timer for 15 minutes. Let’s write to the prompt: “One rainy afternoon” — go where it wants to take you; enjoy the ride.

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Take Judy Reeves up on her challenge to us with this prompt and her reminder about writing practice. Post your responses to the prompt under the comments section here. It will be great fun to see where your wild voice went.