Bodies/Embodiment

Getting To Know Yourself As A Writer, Part Two

My previous post introduced the idea of getting to know ourselves as writers, in much the same way that athletes or musicians study themselves as total beings–body, heart, mind, and yes even spirit–in order to better show up for and execute their craft. In these next few posts, I’ll be inviting you to take a deeper and more nuanced look at each of these aspects of yourself. This week, we’ll be thinking about–dare I say it–bodies. Our physicality, and how, despite writing seeming to be such an intellectual practice, our attention to our physical selves is an essential part of discovering our bodily needs and then using the knowledge that attention grants us to become better writers.

Bodies. It starts as simply as where we sit, lay, or stand to do our writing. Are you comfortable enough to stay in whatever chair, couch, standing desk, or bed you chose to begin your writing session, or will you grow tired or cramped too soon? One of my clients who has POTS needs to recline on her left side if she wants to spend any significant amount of time at the page. Many of my clients find that using a standing desk, a ball, a kneeling chair, or an anti-gravity chair serves their writing time. One even writes while using an inversion table. Me, I sit at my desk or on my couch, but I use a back support, and I have a timer set to remind me to get up and move around every twenty minutes. This is a little disruptive to my concentration, but it also gives me greater endurance.

Then too, where is that couch, chair, bed, or standing desk? This one quickly blends into my next post, which will be about our minds, but still–is the location where you are writing warm enough? Or maybe too warm? Are the lights bright enough? Or are you a writer who needs anything but the bright glare of overhead fluorescents? When I lived in Boston, I tried writing at the Public Library’s Bates Hall, with its gorgeously vaulted ceilings and green banker’s lamps. It’s stunning, and it certainly lent an air of seriousness to any writing I attempted, but I could not write there. The chairs were too hard, and, because I am a recluse, writing in such close proximity to so many other people was excruciating. Maybe you are the sort of writer (at least for your current project) who thrives in a crowded cafe, or a group study hall. Sassafras Patterdale wrote Roving Pack almost entirely on their phone, as they rode the NYC subway to and from their job. If you have not read Roving Pack, or any of the rest of their work, you are missing out! https://sassafraspatterdale.com/

And what about your bodily needs? Are you more able to concentrate before, after, or between meals? Are you apt to need a snack–or to use getting up and pawing through the fridge as a distraction? How about hydration? Some writers rely on the jolt of caffeine to get them writing and keep them writing. Others swear by protein for concentration. And of course, for many of us, where we are in our medication cycles has a tremendous impact on our abilities. One of my clients throws a five minute private desk dance party for herself before each writing session. Exercise might give you a big creative boost of endorphins, or it could leave you so tired and in pain that all you can do is rest.

Oh, and rest! Are you less inhibited when your defenses are down from fatigue, or does exhaustion leave you in a brain fog thicker than pea soup? When you are well rested, does your body demand movement before it's willing to sit still?

Our bodies are deeply individual and our own experience of what we need will always be specific to our bodies, so rather than offer any advice, I’ll only encourage you to take the time to pay attention to how all of these aspects of embodiment influence your focus and stamina, and then learn how to use and play with all of these possibilities.

Play with? Yes. Once you understand how hunger or satiety, exhaustion or restedness, discomfort or ease, even arousal or anhedonia affect you, you can start to consider how you might harness all of these for your writing. Say you need a scene wherein your character has not slept for several days. You can use your insomnia to help you enter that scene. Or you can set an alarm for the middle of the night, and write from that place of disruption. If you want to portray a character in the throes of hunger, try (if it’s safe for you) pushing the edge of your own physical hunger before you start to write. I’d never advocate harming yourself, or inviting injury, but if you pay close attention the next time you are unwell or in pain, and take the best notes you can, that experience will be something you can use the next time you have a character in pain or discomfort.

Our bodies and our relationships to them are complicated, nuanced, and sometimes deeply uncomfortable and challenging things to contemplate, much less live in and with. I’m not implying that any of this is simple, or easy. You may very well find that you want to enlist the help of other professionals as you do some of this work. Therapists, body-workers, professional trainers, and even doctors may be able to provide much needed tools and support. I am none of these things. But, after 30 years of working with writers, I do know a thing or two about some of the ways that bodies and embodiment can serve or hinder our craft, and I encourage you to take the time to learn more about your own needs and requirements.