I just spent six weeks writing in the woods; here's how it went
With a cameo from Cheryl Strayed
Hey friend,
It’s been a minute!
I’ve been mostly on pause here on Substack while on my self-hosted writer’s residency at a friend’s rural property on the Sunshine Coast of BC.
Now I’m back in Los Angeles, and the faster pace of life has been quite a shock to my system. It didn’t help that I also squeezed in a quick business trip to Austin immediately upon my return. It was good to see my partners at Greenleaf Book Group and pick up some copies of recent Wonderwell Press releases, but that was way too much time in Ubers and airports for someone who has been alone in the woods for a month and a half!
Seriously, though, I really get why people get away from it all to write. During my spell of isolation, I wrote pretty much every day. It was six weeks of walking in the woods, swimming in the lake down the road, building fires in the wood stove, carting my kitchen scraps out to the compost, riding a roller coaster with my ego, and meeting my essential self on the page. I’ve *just about* reached my goal of completing my book proposal and sample chapter. It was an incredibly productive time, but gently so, which is the only way I want to do productivity now.
My final night brought a rather magical surprise.
That morning I was cleaning the house and picking through some emails when I saw one come in from Omega, the retreat center in the Hudson Valley. They were promoting last-minute online access to a live weekend workshop with Cheryl Strayed that I would have loved to be at.
On a whim, I signed up for the livestream just two hours before it started.
I wasn’t necessarily going to participate in the workshop live—I was busy packing up and getting ready to drive down to the ferry to Vancouver the next morning, so I figured I’d wait for the recording and watch it when I got back to LA.
But then I thought, why not log on and watch while I eat dinner? No need to turn on my video. (I had not washed any part of my body or face that day—my favorite perk of country living.)
After a rousing opening lecture, Cheryl gave us a timed exercise: we were to write a letter to ourselves about our writing practice from the perspective of our “wise inner sage”.
I wasn’t going to do the prompt. I hadn’t even meant to be in the workshop for real. But the virtual hive energy took over, so I went ahead and wrote for the allotted seven minutes.
When we came back together, Cheryl invited a handful of participants to step up and read their thing, starting with us Zoom people. Our faces were up on a video screen in their meeting hall.
I wasn’t going to put my hand up, but for some reason, I did. And then they called on me.
So I went on camera, unwashed hair and country-rumpled clothes and all. The evening sky was purple. My head on the Zoom screen was framed in fairy lights. I read my piece to the group. And when I was done, Cheryl fucking Strayed said, “Maggie, I need your inner sage to call me every day and read that to me.”
After that, I felt so tingly I couldn’t quite catch my breath, so I went off-camera and had a little dance party for one.
Ok, inner critic, procrastinator, anxiety monster, did you see and hear that? Did you want a sign that this writing thing is worthwhile, that we did the right thing coming up here and wading into the plasma of our memories and dreams? Would you like a little ceremony to commemorate the closing night of your retreat? And maybe, if it’s not too much to ask, also a moment at the podium and a warm word of encouragement from a literary hero?
YOU GOT IT, BABY!
Here are some things I want to bring home—and share with you—from this experience.
I didn’t feel lonely at all.
Not for a moment. In fact, it was pure luxury to be immersed in my thoughts and present to my own experience. I now think I would make a great hermit.
Of course, it helped that I had the world’s sweetest Goldendoodle for company.
A lot of what contributes to good writing takes place outside of the writing session.
I knew this, but it’s even truer than I understood. Those in-between moments are fertile and precious. When I’m working on a project, there’s a part of me that’s always chewing away at it, making connections and surfacing memories, and it speaks to me in whispers. Turns out, I can walk in the woods, fold laundry, cook dinner, even drive on a country road, and stay attuned to that voice the whole time. If I have a notebook or voice recorder nearby, I can gather every morsel, like I’m picking berries. This puts the whole day in service of my creative writing.
I thrive in front of a beautiful view.
I was very aware of my body sensations and mental state while on the land. What I noticed: I feel happy on a cellular level when gazing at nature. The mist on the mountain, the sunlight through the trees, just being surrounded by green; these things make me feel like I’m standing under a cool rain shower of pleasure, like, the feeling of ahhhhh is cascading down on me. My nervous system went into a state of deep relaxation and my imagination opened up.
I felt noticeably more anxious upon my return to civilization.
It’s not exactly social anxiety or nervousness about specific threats, just an amped-up tension running in the background. My human animal feels out of its element. This surprises me somewhat because I’ve always considered myself a city person.
I also feel a little nervous about how to maintain my writing practice here, now that my view is primarily of the parked cars on my street, and the background sounds filtering into my consciousness are of helicopters and garbage trucks. Filling my eyes and ears with the static of city life easily drowns out that voice and makes it much harder to stay connected to my work.
It seems my concern is well-founded. I have hardly written anything since I got back a week ago, and restarting feels daunting. It’s like a pot of oatmeal that’s been taken off the heat. A skin has formed on its surface and now it’s not so appetizing.
The remedy, of course, is to dip my spoon back in and start stirring.
With that in mind, here is the little piece I wrote using Cheryl Strayed’s prompt.
A word of advice about writing from my wise inner sage
Dear Maggie,
This is your wise inner sage speaking. Here’s what I know about the stories you have to tell and the wild awakening you’re ready for; this is my advice to you about your writing.
You absolutely do not have to do this.
There is no requirement for you to write anything at all, much less a life-changing book. So please relax about that right now.
But sweetheart, I know that you want to write. And you know this, too. And here you are in a body, with plenty to say, some decent language skills, and tentative experiments with craft. So why wouldn’t you?
I am not going to advise you to write, much less push you to do it. But I will give you something that I hope might be an amulet of sorts: My permission.
You have had this yearning inside you for as long as you can remember. Perhaps the time has come for you to give yourself to it… if you want to!
Darling, I will let you off the hook a million times. You don’t have to do it for me, or even for your hypothetical readers. (Although I have been to the future, I can tell you for certain: they’re out there, ready to embrace you.)
But no, this book is not for them. Your writing is not for them. They’ll never miss the books you don’t write.
But you will.
So, if you want to write, you can.
xo
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