Week #3: Listening transformed
Preserve your precious writing time; transform your writing practice with the art of listening, and more in Lesson 3 of our 6-week journaling practice
Precious Writing Time
In the new year I resolve to:
Prioritize my poetry.
Start each day writing in my journal—email can wait!
Write more, scroll less.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve started the new year resolving to put my writing first.
And then I start to rationalize. I convince myself that writing an email, drafting marketing copy for my workshops, or a proposal for a book talk counts as writing.
And then comes creative procrastination:
A few minutes on IG before I write is part of my warmup …
Sound familiar? Yeah, I figured that. In fact, I know I’m not alone.
Just last week, a member of my writing circle announced during check-in that she planned to use our 2-hour writing period to compose sales copy for her new book, answer emails, and return a few phone calls.
Then she stopped herself. And with passion in her voice, she declared:
Wait! This is my precious writing time!
And with the group’s enthusiastic encouragement, she resolved to write poetry instead.
Creative writing time is a precious resource.
In a world where any activity that doesn’t directly contribute to a bottom line is dismissed or derided, it’s difficult to justify spending even twenty minutes writing in our journal, let alone devoting a morning—or more—to composing a song, a poem, or a paragraph.
Writing together is one way we affirm our commitment to our creative souls and keep ourselves lovingly accountable and on track.
That’s what the Make Your Journal a Book of Transformation workshop now in session is about, it’s what the monthly Dreaming on the Page Writing Circles that will resume in February, are about, and it’s what the upcoming Stay (Cozy) at Home and Write virtual weekend writing retreat is all about. (Paid subscribers to this newsletter get 20% off.)
Start the New Year right: Honor your precious writing time. Join the at-home writing retreat, Jan. 19-21.
Welcome to Week 3 in the paid-subscriber course.
Make Your Journal a Book of Transformation, is a bonus feature for paid subscribers of This Dream is a Poem, Tzivia’s Substack Newsletter for writers, dreamers, and creative souls.
This week’s lesson focuses on how learning to listen can transform our writing practice.
