Category: Write

Another excerpt from  my book Women Voice and Writing.

Megan LeBoutillier used the term “creative wound.”  There is an archtype of the wounded  healer. The theory is that one needs to go through a healing crisis oneself, facing death or near death, before  one  can  come  into  the  fullness  of  her  healing  power.  Only though the alchemy of this kind of transformation, then, can one understand and minister to others in healing.

Wounding may not be necessary to attain depth of voice. But if one has been through  a crisis—creative or personal, that crisis can be used in service of strengthening voice. And clarifying voice.

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There is a myth that one needs to make huge caverns of quiet time to write. The reality is that  most writers  begin in the margins  of their unquiet  life, and  move to full-time writing  as occupation  only after many years. Writing in the margins becomes especially complicated for women with  work, relationship, and  children.  The myth  of needing  time to write full-time may be confused with the need for some combination of solitude,  silence, and  stillness  in order  to write.

Here is an excerpt from my book Women Voice and Writing, to help you think about this…

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Sometimes when you are creating, you just need to put a lot of muscle into it. Here is an excerpt from my book Women Voice and Writing.

We have a myth that the Muse visits, like the tooth fairy, giving inspiration. This can of course  happen,  but  in its own  unique,  un-forcible timing. Until then, and to woo the Muse, we need to sweat.

Rachel Vail touched on this myth first in my interviews, when she talked about the athleticism of writing:

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