A Little Help

Writers often have a love-hate relationship with their work. In truth it’s a love-love relationship, but it’s not always easy to see it that way. That thing with which we are in relation cannot speak to us as directly as we believe we would like it to, though it is speaking to us all the time. Its only means of communication is feeling, and this is where the confusion and the hate in this relationship often comes in. Because it only wants the best for you. It only wants you to create what you most want to create, say what you most want to say. It only wants you to evolve and expand. It has no motive other than your happiness and success. To this end, when the story you are telling is being told within the current of your true desire, you will feel good. You might call this feeling effortless, or exciting, or interesting, or important. The name can vary, but its root meaning is always Yes.

Sometimes, however, the story you are telling is not in service to your true desire. Sometimes it has wandered afield. Or maybe you have quietly begun telling a story about your story, a terrible prophecy of rejection and doom. It does not matter how you strayed, the result will always be the same. You will receive a feeling whose only meaning is: Not that way. If you are very far afield, the feeling will be commensurately strong; if you are still close to the current of your true desire, the feeling will be mild. Either way, the feeling is only there to help you.

But it is not a feeling we normally associate with help. When we are feeling it, particularly when it is very strong, we say we are feeling bad, as if we have caught the virus of unfair life, or we have at last understood the unhappy truth about ourselves. These are just more stories, however, for which we will receive further guidance until we can no longer bear the guidance and surrender to where it is pointing us. Then it is as if we have awakened from a fever, and the world is clear again, and it is hard to remember where we have been because we are so interested in where we are going.

Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion. "A book to keep nearby whenever your writer's spirit needs feeding." Deb Caletti.

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