Writers tend to have a mixed relationship with silence (either literal or more internal). On the one hand, we sometimes crave more of it, as a way to make space for the words we’re trying to coax onto the page. When those words don’t flow, though, silence can feel more like an enemy—like a space filled with nothing but our own hypervigilant expectations about our work.
But what if you could make silence a true ally and co-creator in your creative practice? What if instead of having to fill the silence (or avoid it), you just needed to meet it, with no expectations?
Maybe that sounds easier said than done. But this month, some insights from a memoir about life in a convent are giving me a few new and surprisingly simple ideas to reshape the role of silence in my writing—and I think they might help you, too.
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If you’re into the concept of befriending the spirit of silence, but it also sounds a bit slippery to put into practice, then this month’s tip is for you. And it’s quick to do!
One way to ease into connecting with abstract ideas or forces in your life as spirits is to take some common phrases with the word “spirit” and play with personifying them. (I know this might sound incredibly silly, but bear with me.)
Here are a few that are evocative for me, that I find pretty easy to personify once I start to imagine them as... well, a person.
If any of these three jumps out at you, run with it and see what happens. Or, go with another common “spirit” that pops into your head. If one of these phrases makes you feel prickly, that irritation can be a particularly good entry point into imagining the concept as a spirit you already have a relationship with.
Grab a bit of scrap paper or your notes app and start riffing on what this spirit is like and how you relate to them. Then, after you’ve filled a page or so, see what’s emerged that you might not have thought about if you were just reflecting on, say, the entrepreneurial spirit as an abstract, inanimate concept.
The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong