Birthing A Project

Dear Writers, carriers of story, crafters of words, metaphorical creatures, wild ones,

Here in southern France, in one sudden stroke of nature’s wand, we‘ve descended into autumn.

If you’re like me (which you may well be given you’re reading this), and lucky enough to have a relationship with your imagination that means it offers a place of safety, escape and joy, this is the time of year when cocooning with a pen or keyboard can seem like a mighty good idea.

It can also provide a container for self-expression, and help to process emotions around what is going on in the so called ‘real world’ (she shakes her head wearily).

What are you writing, and what stage are you at with it?

Personally, I’m close to the end of a long fiction project. Well, when I say the end, I’ve almost finished writing it – that’s the end of one process and beginning of another. Having a child is a useful analogy here, I feel. There’s the birth, but then – assuming that’s achieved safely – it still has to grow and develop, and find independence, and its tribe, and where to live. This view helps me to have patience with the process. In the same way that I believe deeply in the organic unfolding of the writing process, I believe the same of the journey after its birth.

I take a step: I put my book/film/performance/poetry out there, in whatever way seems to make most sense. ‘Most sense’ = the most reach I can achieve whilst not losing touch my own stability and receptivity to the naturally unfolding process.

My work begins to engage in conversations. Over time it finds increasing numbers of people who want to listen.

Quite often – as long as we’ve patiently continued to make contact with those conversations – there will be a kind of ‘whoosh’ moment. Our story, words, ideas will suddenly strike a chord with the collective unconscious, tap into trends, speak to a movement, or just have the perfect baseline emotion for the immediate time and place.

The error many wordsmiths make is to expect things to happen QUICKLY. Often, they don’t, but that doesn’t mean they won’t! A secondary mistake is to think we know the avenues via which success will come, and what it will look like. It’s helpful to be open to it coming from unexpected quarters, and being a different animal to the one which we expected.

Recently I heard a celebrated French film-maker, Coline Serreau, talk about this, in relation to her film, ‘La Belle Verte’. Initially panned by critics, it has, over decades, gained cult status. In present circumstances it speaks to our need for re-connection, simplicity, and connection to nature.

To reference a more well-known example: J.K. Rowling’s pitch for Harry Potter was rejected twelve times, but then look how that turned out…

In the same way we tend to wait for someone’s birthday to give them a present, we watch for our potential readers/audiences to be in the right place to receive what we’re offering.

Wherever you are, I hope you have everything you need to feel safe and connected. Wishing you a fire of creative inspiration this month.

This is the lead article from the October 2020 Newsletter. If you’d like to receive the writing prompt that accompanies this article, sign up on the website homepage, for the Monthly Newsletter.

I’d be delighted to hear about your experiences . You can comment below, write in the Facebook group, or contact me privately via bridgetholding@wildwords.org