The Yin and Yang of a Writing Life... and reflections on writing my first book.
Over the past couple of weeks, my entire outlook on the writing life has changed.
I recently completed a training course in Yin Yoga, underpinned by Daoist teachings, which involved lots of discussion about Yin but also Yang energy and where the two meet. Like the ebb and flow of a river, and the light and dark of our days, one cannot exist without the other.
“All the myriad things carry the Yin on their backs and hold the Yang in their embrace, deriving their vital harmony from the proper blending of the two vital Breaths”.
(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42)
It all resonated so deeply and not only because (like so many of you reading this I’m sure), my life has many Yang aspects to it. There are chunky elements of it in every day; rushing on the school run, walking far too quickly to get to the next destination, a mind brimming with ideas scrolling like credits on a movie screen, and the general to-do lists and responsibilities of daily life. But there are times when the Yin side is now more prominent for me. That being said, it is only so because I have had to make a conscious effort to seek it out along the way and as with other habit forming practices, now those pockets of slower time play an important and more regular role that I recognise and value so much.
I have found comfort in the quiet.
The morning after the training course finished, I went for a walk with my canine sidekick. A slow, meandering walk. It gave me time to process the wonderful teachings on the course, and to really think about the difference this has made to me. My mind wandered back in time to 3 years ago. I was just about to release my first book, The Girl And The Dog.
I started writing the book in 2022, full of ideas of what I hoped it would be. Being my first book writing project, I approached it like I had learned to approach most things… with lists and structured time at a desk. I didn’t know any differently. In hindsight though, there was a part of this process that I didn’t enjoy, and that was the battle within myself about how to undertake the project. You see, I never really felt like I wasworking on it unless I was physically at my desk, writing, editing, making lists. It was as if I had a predefined list of actions that I associated with writing a book, and they were all in the Yang category and all involved sitting at my desk.
Over the past few weeks my entire outlook on a writing life has changed, and I can’t explain how good it feels to come to this realisation. (Perhaps I am very late to realise this? But I still hope it is worth sharing).
Yes I spent many (many!) hours at the desk working on the book between 2022 and 2023 – writing, editing, sketching, drawing – every element that was needed to create The Girl And The Dog.
But on reflection, I also spent many hours walking, sitting on the old wooden deck in our back garden, coffee in hand listening to the birdsong. I drove without the radio on, with just my thoughts for company. I sat on a rock by the lake. I sowed seeds slowly, and checked in daily on their growth. There were lots of times that I wasn’t at the desk. Times that I wasn’t in fact doing anything, and for which I’m fairly sure I berated myself for, because as I saw it then, I needed to be at the desk to be writing a book. Finally, some years later, I now realise that all of this was part of my writing process. It wasn’t the Yang element of my writing (which was at my desk, phone turned off, writing, sketching, planning), but it was the Yin side to my writing process. It was the side which gave my thoughts room to float, it allowed my body and mind to be still, to create space, to bask in the absence of Yang activity.
The doing nothing was very much necessary in order to do something.
So if I were to try again to describe my process of writing my first book and more broadly my writing life today, I would say…I walk, meditate, scribble notes, sit in stillness, write furiously (and for long periods of time). I potter in the garden, practice Yoga Nidra, cook, sit at my desk,and I often sit by the lake listening to nature. I mind map my ideas, make lists and edit them. I give my mind space to be still and give my body time to let go of tension. I day dream while sitting in the window of my favourite coffee shop. I spend time with my family and I take long walks with friends. I realise that all of these activities, all of the Yin moments and all of the Yang moments are what make up my writing practice and it’s only the combination of the two that make the process possible at all for me. There is a liberation in this realisation, a release of the guilt that I placed on my own shoulders for the times that I wasn’t sitting and physically writing. Productivity is made up of so much more than just one action and whilst I love my little writing space, and can happily spend hours at a time there with a candle, a hot cuppa on my desk and my notebook, I now know too that my moments of calm where I meet myself, are what make the other part possible.
It took me so long to realise, that just like life in general, our creative lives are a culmination of Yin and Yang…each as important as the other.
What are the Yin elements to your creativity? I’d love to know.
Deborah x
