Most Members of Your Literary Community Won’t Know You Exist
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 13 minutes
Thank God for the people and words that have helped form us and have fashioned us into who we are, who we need to be so we can write what we’re called to write.
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale. If you like, write a note of gratitude for the writers and books and words that have companioned you over the years.
Prompt.
Below are the names of several members of my literary community listed in order of appearance in the first section of my book Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life.
I know and have a relationship with some listed here.
Some are no longer living.
Others are very much alive, but I only know them through their words and books that serve as faithful companions to me.
Father James Martin
Kaveh Akbar
Toni Morrison
Rebecca Solnit
Jesmyn Ward
Dante Alighieri
Margaret Walker
My Daughter
Salaam Green
Tricia Hersey
Simone Weil
Jason Mott
Victoria Chang
Hanif Abdurraqib
Christina Rossetti
Thank God for the people and words that have helped form us and have fashioned us into who we are, who we need to be so we can write what we’re called to write.
Most members of our literary community won’t know we exist. That’s how it should be because it means you’re reading a lot of really great books.
Practice.
Journal, take notes, or begin writing a new poem, story, or essay that honors and acknowledges your literary community—those whom you know, as well as those who are and will technically remain strangers from a personal relationship standpoint.
Want More?
Read Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life.
Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life is coming September 3 and is available wherever you buy books.
This book is for you if:
—you’re a writer who cares about the fact that you have a soul
—you’re a writer who knows there’s more happening in your creative process than you can see or explain
—you want a more sustainable and nourishing writing life
—you make a list of some of the members of your literary community and realize most of them have no clue who you are
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Flourish Anyway with Rhythms, Rituals, & Retreats
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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