14. Practice vs praxis (Or, getting the real work done)

You’ve probably heard this core and celebrated advice for a successful writing life:

1. Write every day
2. Finish as many projects as possible
3. No exceptions

And maybe, like me, you’ve also heard this extremely well-adjusted and reasonable guidance more times than you can count: Being a writer is awful. So if you’re able to walk away from your writing, you should—but if you’re too obsessed to quit, no matter how miserable you get, that’s how you know you’re the real deal.

That last nugget of wisdom scared me away from books on the writing life for years.

This month, I get honest about “failing” this classic (and ultimately unhelpful) advice. And I’m exploring how writing praxis can rescue your writing practice from becoming just a bunch of self-punishing rules spiraling inside a pit of despair.

Plus, I share the four key threads of much better guidance that I learned from finally binge-reading hundreds of pages of writing life advice from Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and others.

Apple Pods | Spotify | Podcast Addict | Overcast | Pocket Casts | RSS

Writing praxis tips

If you were intrigued by the idea of using praxis goals within your writing practice, I’ve put together a few prompts to help you start playing with this distinction in your own work.

These prompts begin with some more abstract journaling and gradually get more targeted, so you can formulate a few key, bite-sized praxis goals to apply to your concrete practices. (And there’s a brief example at the end.)

1. Write for a few minutes about a creative experience you’ve had that was especially fulfilling, engaging, or exciting. (It doesn’t have to be a writing experience!) How did that experience make you feel, specifically? Go back to childhood if you want, but any good creative experience counts. If you’re having trouble identifying this kind of memory, think about a time when you’ve experienced someone else’s creative work in a way that made you feel the joyful itch to join in.
   
   If it helps you to start out by describing the experience in full prose, like a story scene, feel free—but try not to limit yourself to that kind of description. Disjointed phrases and metaphors and other free-form stuff can expose interesting feelings and memories.
   
   It doesn’t need to make sense yet, or even be “good” writing. It just needs to capture the feeling.
   
   (Bonus: Journal about 1-2 more experiences when you were doing something very different from the first one you explored.)
   
   
2. Now take a look at what you’ve gotten out on the page. If you could pick 3-5 snatches of feeling to bring to your writing life right now, which ones would you choose? Look for any phrases from your journaling that trigger an especially strong somatic reaction—a release of muscles, a change in your breath, or even something like your eyes tearing up.
   
   
3. Next, rewrite your chosen phrases on a clean page. What common threads do you see? Start some new brainstorming/journaling, distilling your phrases down into a couple core themes.
   
   
4. Finally, look at your 2-3 core themes. These are the creative values your praxis goal(s) will be bringing into your writing practice in a tangible way. What would be a clear signal that these values are coming through in the way you feel when you write? Something that captures the desired feeling in a clear way?

Here’s an example of working through the prompts, taken from the praxis goal I talked about in the episode.

Chosen phrases after journaling (notice that they’re not particularly awesome writing; that’s not the point!):

• “meeting someone I recognize but don’t yet know”
• “I don’t know how to jump out of my skin but I do know I can do it anyway”
• “open windows, open doors, the wind blows in”
• “out from the jar leaps the best spice-y, herb-y thing I’ve ever smelled and I’ve got no idea what it is”

Common threads: the familiar unknown, influx of air/breath, surprising possibility and revelation

Clear goal: feeling surprised; prioritizing surprise over word count or progress goals

In this example, it was the word “surprise” that stuck out as the most tangible—still not a concrete goal like writing for 21 days, but something I could clearly formulate and set as a goal feeling for that concrete practice (in a playful, open-ended way).

Episode references

The Wave in the Mind, Ursula K. Le Guin

“Furor Scribendi,” Bloodchild and Other Stories, Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott