Accepting My Writing Process. What a Revelation.

Posted November 10, 2015 by Barbara Techel

This writing thing and my own process has taken me just about ten years to be comfortable with. While I love to write, I was always looking for thee method that would make me feel like a real writer.

You know… those you put on a pedestal and think they lead this all so glamorous life and their writing flows out the end of their fingertips with no effort what-so-ever?

When I began sharing my writing with others, first via a column in a local paper, then my blog, and four books that have followed, I got caught up in trying to find the right way to do this and the one that would make it feel effortless.

I’ve read oodles of blogs, articles, and books about the creative process. Oftentimes I’d follow the advice of one author or another thinking this was it – this was thee way. But it would fall to the way side eventually. Nothing stuck.

But I kept at it, and I keep at it. What does my process look like? More importantly, what does it feel like? It’s messy and it causes lots of ups and downs of a roller coaster of emotions in my life!

But I’m not quitting.

As I near the end of the fourth draft of my second memoir, Wisdom Found in the Pause, I see that writing for me is so much about working through my own time and my own process. In other words, I gave up trying to buy into what others are doing that works for them.

It has nothing to do with how other writers write or their own process. There truly is no right or wrong way to do this.

The only way is to keep working at it. Keep trying it on for size.

I realized today that I started working on my current manuscript two years ago this month. And for many of those 730 days I found myself internally beating myself up wondering why I don’t yet have a published book.

Today I cut myself a huge piece of slack cake! Because I really understand now that this book wasn’t meant to be born yet. I see it so clearly as I continue to revisit and edit what I’ve written to date.

In large part, I’ve been working through my own inner process of healing and capturing in my everyday life what I’ve learned from the over 55,000 words I’ve written so far. It’s taken me this time to do just that.

But I’ve never stopped writing.

That’s the thing. Writing helps me to process life. To process what I’m feeling. To help me heal. To bring me to another level of awareness. To get comfortable with where I was, and where I’m going, and then share what I’ve discovered with others when that right time feels right for me.

What a new level of awakening this is for me today and it feels pretty dang good. And I do think I shall have to post this particular post next to my writing desk for that day, which oh yes, will no doubt come again…when I question my own process….because it is part of the process of a creative life!

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What Makes For a Creative Life?

Posted November 9, 2015 by Barbara Techel

Yesterday I helped John load and unload two trailer’s full of wood for our woodstove which we burn during the winter months. We have a furnace, but enjoy trying to be more self-sufficient when we can. Besides the ambiance of a woodburning stove is so soothing to one’s soul.

But as we loaded and unloaded the wood I was fascinated by some of the shapes of the pieces, such as this one above. It’s an an art statement just as it is.

It had me wondering what it is that makes a creative life. I always used to closely associate it with what medium we may work with or try out such as writing, painting, drawing, or sculpting to name just a few.

When I think about my life, so much of it is creative in the way that we make choices for what works for John and I. Neither of us work in the corporate world having left there over 20-years ago. John with his own construction business which lends itself often to his own sense of creativity, and me with my writing, animal advocacy, and SoulCollage® workshops I teach.

But it’s more than that really. To see life as one big creative playground no matter what you are doing.

Like yesterday setting out with John to travel about 20 minutes on a sunny Sunday morning to get the wood. Feeling blessed to have the life I do with John who is so good to me and makes me happy.

Working with our hands, throwing the pieces into the trailer, being out in nature listening to the birds, feeling the wind in our faces and the sun on our backs.

Seeing the beauty in each piece of wood, imagining how it started out as a seedling and grew into a magnificent tree, then chopped down for many different purposes.

Creativity is all around me at all times. It’s in the way I plan our meals, decorate our house, hang out with my dogs, talk with John, go for walks, practice yoga, and meditate. This is, in part, what makes my life feel so creative.

It’s about being open to how we see the world through our own eyes and feel into it into the depth of our hearts. It’s about making the conscious choice of staying in awareness of this thing called life and accepting all that we can see, but also the mystery of it, too.

It’s about following your hearts calling even when times feel tough. It’s making it work despite the odds stacked against you at times. It’s really, to me, about listening to the inner truth that is there if you wish to hear it.

And I think it really is about pausing often, listening to that inner realm, and capturing what it is that matters most to you… and then living from that place within that makes your heart sing.

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Wood Hauling Day. A New Tradition.

Posted November 8, 2015 by Barbara Techel

One of the things I love most about my husband, John, is that it seems no matter what we do together, we have fun.

For the past three years we’ve had a wood burning stove and burn wood in it every winter season. We love the coziness and wonderful smell of it.

You know the saying, what a difference a year makes?

Today is one year since my mom’s husband passed away and I’ve thought of him often today. As part owner of a lumber company, he’d smile knowing we are using what Mother Nature provides us as we stack the last trailer full of wood today in our garage.

The hauling and stacking of the wood for the past two years was something John did with a friend of ours that had become very dear in our life. But that all changed too when we went our separate ways which is approaching the one year anniversary of that friendship that fell to the wayside. It was a very tough time for us, because it broke our hearts at the time.

But today, as John and I made the two trips to haul the wood, and the radio playing music from the 70’s and 80’s we started a new tradition – just him and me.

And it was beautiful. And I gave thanks in my heart for the life I have with him. Working hard, side-by-side and sharing a few laughs. No doubt each of us also giving thought to what had been and though that still tugs at our heart strings a bit yet, we have moved on, stronger for what we learned.

And truly grateful for the bond we have. God sure knew what he was doing when he put us together as husband and wife… and I’m so very lucky. So lucky.

Well, back to stacking wood!

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