Affirmation Shmaffirmation or Power Words to create reality?
May 15th 2008 03:00
Seven years ago I was attending a writers workshop in Cape Town, South Africa along with a group of other mostly women, each one hoping to write that novel we all have secreted inside of us.
I had been working on mine for years, my concentration and enthusiasm for it having been recurrently interrupted by two pregnancies, births, newborns and toddlers, a semigration from Johannesburg to Cape Town and work commitments on diversity literacy which was bringing in some much needed nappy money.
But this time I was Serious. It was Now or Never. I wanted To Finish. The problem is, as so many of us find, that Finishing is a very different business to Beginning. It has a particularly exacting energy and requires very different emotional and writing muscles. Whereas beginnings can tolerate the chaos of inspiration and the various explosions of insight that propel all of us to write in the first place, finishing is about tidying up afterwards. It’s the clearing away of the dirty plates, and the scrubbing down of the floors. It is the neatening of loose ends and the dusting down of surfaces.
The problem is I am a horrible, simple ghastly housekeeper and have no attention span for the activity of completion much as I lose interest in tidying up when I am half-way through a drawer or cupboard surrounded by things I can’t begin to work out where to put or file or even to figure out if I ought to be throwing them out. Finishing requires us to put on those gumboats and wade into the swamp of our creativity. It requires a big black garbage bag. It asks of us ruthless decision-making. The cutting away of extraneous bits, the folding down of corners and the smoothing down of edges. Finishing is the art of narrative origami, with a couple of bloody swipes with a samurai sword.
If Beginning is the Interior designer, Finishing is the housekeeper. Beginnings are for artists, Finishing is for accountants. To be a successful writer, we have to be able to do both. Writing is a discipline as much as it is a flamboyance.
But at that particular juncture, I was committed to this task of Finishing. Though my book had become feral, and had grown from a few pages on a screen to about seven files, with I-can’t-remember-how-many-ver sions-or-which-one-I-last-wor ked-on, and three boxes of research, I knew that I just had to wade in and work it out. Tax accountants do it all the time – work their way through papers, one by one (or bird by bird, to quote Anne Lamott) and make some order out of it all.
I was well aware that I was going to need some motivation to carry me through this ordeal.
What I lacked, I think, was the confidence that this part (the really hard part) was worth it. That far from it being a futile hobby, like trainspotting or bird-watching, there was some point to it all, some uber-rationale. That maybe what I had written, was worth the effort and um… (to be whispered) someone might actually read what I’d written.
Most writers suffer at some point from this crushing lack of self-confidence. Ironically it often kicks it at a point in time when we are just about to achieve something, to make a breakthrough, turn a corner, manifest a transformation. We often don’t recognize the guerilla tactics of our own self-sabotaging psyches.
So in the spirit of mentoring my uncertain self, I made small cards with the words ‘I AM A WRITER’ on them. I laminated them. I handed them out to all the participants in that writing workshop. And at the back of the card, I wrote ‘Don’t forget the book and the magic it carries. You can do it.’
With blutak I pinned this card up on my computer screen. Each day when I sat down to write, those words looked down on me.
There are a gazillion books out there which talk about the power of affirmation, (The Secret being just one of these). An affirmation is an assertion, a verbal visualization, a pronouncement about a state of affairs. When we aver in the present tense something we really wish for in the future, so the theory goes, we create our reality. The power of the declaration makes it so.
I have no way of measuring the power of that card on the course my life took, which did in fact, bring me to a point in my life where I have three published books and am working on my fourth. I no longer cringe when I say, ‘I am a writer.’ It is true now. But it wasn’t when I first wrote that affirmation.
I guess if there was magic in those words they cast their spell. If there was invocation in their presence, they summonsed unknown powers.
Some of the women in that workshop contacted me years later to tell me they kept that card up in their studies, on their computer screens and in their diaries. Some have emailed me to say that the card serves to remind them of their writerly mission, that their book awaits them.
I don’t know enough about the sacred hidden geometries of intention and how they interact with and exert forces over a seemingly random destiny. But I’m going to put this affirmation thing to the test once more. I’m putting up ‘I am a millionaire’ on a little card on my computer screen. Stay posted. Maybe this is all much simpler than we imagine.
www.joannefedler.com
Things Without A Name book trailer
I had been working on mine for years, my concentration and enthusiasm for it having been recurrently interrupted by two pregnancies, births, newborns and toddlers, a semigration from Johannesburg to Cape Town and work commitments on diversity literacy which was bringing in some much needed nappy money.
But this time I was Serious. It was Now or Never. I wanted To Finish. The problem is, as so many of us find, that Finishing is a very different business to Beginning. It has a particularly exacting energy and requires very different emotional and writing muscles. Whereas beginnings can tolerate the chaos of inspiration and the various explosions of insight that propel all of us to write in the first place, finishing is about tidying up afterwards. It’s the clearing away of the dirty plates, and the scrubbing down of the floors. It is the neatening of loose ends and the dusting down of surfaces.
The problem is I am a horrible, simple ghastly housekeeper and have no attention span for the activity of completion much as I lose interest in tidying up when I am half-way through a drawer or cupboard surrounded by things I can’t begin to work out where to put or file or even to figure out if I ought to be throwing them out. Finishing requires us to put on those gumboats and wade into the swamp of our creativity. It requires a big black garbage bag. It asks of us ruthless decision-making. The cutting away of extraneous bits, the folding down of corners and the smoothing down of edges. Finishing is the art of narrative origami, with a couple of bloody swipes with a samurai sword.
If Beginning is the Interior designer, Finishing is the housekeeper. Beginnings are for artists, Finishing is for accountants. To be a successful writer, we have to be able to do both. Writing is a discipline as much as it is a flamboyance.
But at that particular juncture, I was committed to this task of Finishing. Though my book had become feral, and had grown from a few pages on a screen to about seven files, with I-can’t-remember-how-many-ver sions-or-which-one-I-last-wor ked-on, and three boxes of research, I knew that I just had to wade in and work it out. Tax accountants do it all the time – work their way through papers, one by one (or bird by bird, to quote Anne Lamott) and make some order out of it all.
I was well aware that I was going to need some motivation to carry me through this ordeal.
What I lacked, I think, was the confidence that this part (the really hard part) was worth it. That far from it being a futile hobby, like trainspotting or bird-watching, there was some point to it all, some uber-rationale. That maybe what I had written, was worth the effort and um… (to be whispered) someone might actually read what I’d written.
Most writers suffer at some point from this crushing lack of self-confidence. Ironically it often kicks it at a point in time when we are just about to achieve something, to make a breakthrough, turn a corner, manifest a transformation. We often don’t recognize the guerilla tactics of our own self-sabotaging psyches.
So in the spirit of mentoring my uncertain self, I made small cards with the words ‘I AM A WRITER’ on them. I laminated them. I handed them out to all the participants in that writing workshop. And at the back of the card, I wrote ‘Don’t forget the book and the magic it carries. You can do it.’
With blutak I pinned this card up on my computer screen. Each day when I sat down to write, those words looked down on me.
There are a gazillion books out there which talk about the power of affirmation, (The Secret being just one of these). An affirmation is an assertion, a verbal visualization, a pronouncement about a state of affairs. When we aver in the present tense something we really wish for in the future, so the theory goes, we create our reality. The power of the declaration makes it so.
I have no way of measuring the power of that card on the course my life took, which did in fact, bring me to a point in my life where I have three published books and am working on my fourth. I no longer cringe when I say, ‘I am a writer.’ It is true now. But it wasn’t when I first wrote that affirmation.
I guess if there was magic in those words they cast their spell. If there was invocation in their presence, they summonsed unknown powers.
Some of the women in that workshop contacted me years later to tell me they kept that card up in their studies, on their computer screens and in their diaries. Some have emailed me to say that the card serves to remind them of their writerly mission, that their book awaits them.
I don’t know enough about the sacred hidden geometries of intention and how they interact with and exert forces over a seemingly random destiny. But I’m going to put this affirmation thing to the test once more. I’m putting up ‘I am a millionaire’ on a little card on my computer screen. Stay posted. Maybe this is all much simpler than we imagine.
www.joannefedler.com
Things Without A Name book trailer
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Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
Saying "I am a writer' is so scary because the usual response is, "So what have you written (ie published)?" I believe being a writer is a state of the heart - 'I am a writer because I feel it in my bones." It has taken me a long time to acknowedge this fact.
And - coincidentally - today is the day I received my first cheque for a piece of my writing. And a nice little sum it is - nowhere near your dream million but it will buy me a shiny new bike!
I said to my editor. "I know I'm supposed to frame it for posterity...but I'm going out to spend that sucker!!!"
I guess I'll have to photocopy it.
Once again, a wonderful post. It should be read by writers of all flavours.
Cheers
Jayne
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
And just to say, that when I wrote that affirmation, I was an unpublished writer. I felt like a fraud calling myself a writer when I hadn't published anything yet. But I agree, being a writer, is a state of the heart. When we are emotionally committed to it, it becomes who we are. I lived with my husband for 8 years, before we got married. I could NEVER say, I am a wife. I still can't. But I can say 'I am married to a wonderful man.'
I think we should all have licence to have outrageous dreams.
Thanks for your lovely comments - you are always so generous with your praise.
Jo
Comment by Sonya 1
Writing Words
What an great post!
I have a long history of sticking post-it notes with affirmative quotes to mirrors and computer screens. One was: "I write, therefore I am a writer", and I am convinced it helped me to think of myself as a writer. Still don't like telling other people, though. Maybe it's time for: "Let them laugh!"
Good luck with the millions!
Sonya
Comment by AmyHuang
Sydney Table
Project Job Search
Travel Debate
Travel String
Love Adventures
So true. Unfortunately I lack that discipline. I have this novel idea for a while now, and it's taking years already and I still haven't FINISHED. I am going to take your advice and concentrate on having it FINISHED this year.
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
Jo