Conscious Writing

The holiday season is also a good time for indulging traditions, and here’s one of mine.

I’ve gone into the background on this meditation in previous blog posts, so if you’ve read this before, feel free to skip to the end. If you’ve joined me in the last year, this will be new.

I adopted this creative exercise from the writings of psychologist Gay Hendricks, fittingly from his book Five Wishes. The process is intended to help one focus on the emotional development and success stories that would be most vital for your long-term happiness, and turn them into lifelong goals. Hendricks learned this exercise from Ed Steinbrecher, an astrologer (I know; bear with me), teacher, and metaphysician. The exercise is a simple, but not necessarily easy, four-step process.

Step 1: Imagine today is your last day of life, and someone asks you if your life was a complete success. How would you respond? We have all heard the cliché deathbed laments: I wish I’d worked less. I wish I’d forgiven more. We may also have happy thoughts. I climbed a mountain, metaphorical or physical. My kids turned out ok. Maybe your answer is a resounding yes! If – like me – you feel that your life, if it ended right now, would not have been a complete success, continue to step 2.

Step 2: Now, still imagining yourself on your last day, consider why you might say your life was not a complete success. What did or didn’t you do? Express that idea as a wish. I wish I’d had a better relationship with my parents. I wish I’d spent less time at work and more time with my kids. I wish I’d gone to college. I wish I’d learned to swim or play guitar or had travelled more. I wish I’d been more spiritual. I wish I’d had the confidence to pursue my dreams.

The specific answer doesn’t matter, because it’s personal and unique for each of us. The only restriction is that your answer should be something within your control to accomplish. I wish I’d been taller doesn’t count. It may also be helpful to focus on spiritual or emotional success, rather than something like “I wish I’d had written a bestselling book and made 10 million dollars.” We’re looking inward here, people.

For the exercise, it’s important that you be honest about the accomplishments that would have made your life a complete success, whatever that means to you. Take time to consider why this accomplishment would be important to you and why you would feel fulfilled if you achieved it.

Repeat this step until you have identified five things you wish you’d done. Five regrets and five wishes. If you have more than five, that’s fine. If you don’t have five, that’s ok too. Actually, that’s pretty good, right? We should all have so few regrets. But you probably have at least five.

Step 3: Next, reframe those regrets and wishes as positive present-tense statements. Consider what you might regret not doing today and turn it around. Here’s a paraphrased example from Hendrick’s own attempt at this exercise:

• Wish: “My life was not a complete success because I did not follow through on significant communications with people who are important to me. I wish I’d gotten around to saying all the things I wanted to say to my family and close friends.”
• Present-tense statement: “My life is a complete success because I say and do all the important things I need to say and do. I leave nothing significant unsaid or undone.”

For Hendricks, this meant taking responsibility for any lack of integrity, making amends, expressing appreciations, and fully committing to loving, honest communication. If something is on his mind and he thinks someone else needs to know it, he’ll say it. If you read any of his books, you’ll find he is committed to a level of honesty that may feel off-putting if you aren’t prepared for it. Fortunately, his wife is playing from the same game plan.

Consider your regrets and celebrate that today is probably not your last day. You have time to take action. Write down your five wishes as if they are already happening. Write your success story.

Step 4: You’ve now identified the accomplishments that would make your life a complete success, and you are ready for the hard part: putting them into action. Take some time to set goals for how you will turn those present-tense aspirations into a real state of being.

Some of your goals may require time, planning, or resources you don’t have right now, but others can be acted upon immediately. Some may have concrete actions and some may require discipline and practice to develop a good habit. You probably can’t leave today to spend six months backpacking across Europe but you can start writing poetry again. You can’t heal a broken relationship overnight, but you can make a phone call or write an email. You can do something as simple as express appreciation to the people in your life who lift you up.

How is this about writing?

I’ve completed this exercise for the past few years, always around the New Year. I focus on spirituality, relationships, integrity, self-acceptance, and creativity. I then go through the meditation a second time, focusing on my creative work and goals. There’s quite a bit of overlap, but the creativity exercise concludes with more concrete steps around my writing. I’m not always successful, but I make progress. I might even forget about some practices, but then the New Year comes round again and there’s a chance for renewal.

My wishes

Last year, I was coming off a rather trying 2024, and I happy to report that 2025, while not perfect, was relatively smoother. I hadn’t set any new expectations for 2024, which turned out to be a good thing, but at the beginning of 2025 my Five Wishes were:

• My writing life is a complete success because I work on projects that are personally meaningful and allow me to explore my big questions about life. I write fearlessly, dig deep for emotional truth, and share my observations, without worrying about anyone’s judgment. I carve my own path.
• My writing life is a complete success because I’m committed to continuous learning and development, I’m unafraid to challenge myself, and I’m excited about trying new forms, genre, strategies, and other elements of writing.
• My writing life is a complete success because I finish the projects I start and share my work with others.
• My writing life is a complete success because I’m not competitive with other writers. I share my knowledge, offer encouragement, and celebrate their successes.
• My writing life is a complete success because I engage with other writers, foster community, and seek out creative collaborations.

How did I do? I’m happy. I’m not a complete success, because I haven’t typed “the end” to my novel yet, but I’m committed to finishing. I’m ok being a slow writer, and if you count my blog – I do – then yes, I’m completing projects and putting them into the world.

Wish Five has long been my stumbling block. Every year I express my wish for community, and every year I come up empty. There are reasons – not ready, not good enough, not a good fit – but let’s roll them all up under a general category of self-doubt and fear. But every year, I express this wish again and keep my heart and eyes open for the possibilities.

This year, I’m happy to say I’m on my way to being a complete success because I am engaged with other writers and fostering community with my blog readers, my writing meetup, and my networking group. I sat on a panel discussion – two, in fact – for the first time since my mini-publisher days and got way more talk time. We’re early days still but I see a future and it’s good. This is the first year where I feel I haven’t let down the side.

My writing wishes don’t change much year to year. When I go out, I want to have a few books under my belt, written to the best of my ability, and without regard to what anyone else thinks I should be writing. I want to keep learning and freely share what I know, and I want to do all these things with a community of friends. And every year I get a little bit closer to being a complete success.

What are your five wishes for your creative life this year?

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A year ago on January 1, I embarked on a year-long journey to embrace and enhance my creative practice using the book A Year of Living Consciously by psychotherapist Gay Hendricks as my model, and to blog my thoughts and results.

What is this?

Conscious Living is Hendricks’ approach to healing negative thinking, living and communicating authentically and with integrity, and being fully present for every moment of our lives. Its principles are based on full honesty about your feelings and your choices, and center responsibility and accountability. Rather than approaching life with a list of grievances, Conscious Living says we are responsible for what we create and that we have the power to change. The bedrock tenet is the embrace of reality, not fiction or wishful thinking or finger-pointing.

Through the year, I practiced applying the lessons and exercises in A Year of Living Consciously in my life and wrote about how these precepts influenced my creativity and how they were useful in my writing.

Yes, this was a crutch to help me keep my commitment to blogging. It worked for Julie Powell.

Why Conscious Writing?

I like Hendricks’ approach for accepting reality and truths, even when they make me uncomfortable. I appreciate that he acknowledges that our negative thinking and behaviors may have been learned from sources outside ourselves, while also saying that the responsibility for our outcomes rests on our own shoulders. The Blame Game may be temporarily satisfying, but it’s not fulfilling. Conscious Writing shifts the focus from what you wish to what you choose and do. It’s not for whiners.

How does this apply to creativity?

The goal of Conscious Living is to help readers live in the present by letting go of past baggage and avoiding worry about a future that may never arrive. Applying these lessons to my creative work has helped me drop a lot of the learned negativity surrounding my writing and to cease caring about what the future holds for whatever I create.

Being present in the moment and making conscious choices about how I spend my time are also important to my creative practice. Over the last year, I’ve given myself permission to drop activities that weren’t meaningful to me or that distracted from my important projects. I read fewer writing blogs and listen to fewer podcasts. Learning is still important to me, but so is putting that knowledge into action. I also spend way less time doom-scrolling social media or binging television. I’m keeping all my books, but I Marie Kondo’d my emotional dead weight.

Also, I believe that self-knowledge and the ability to ask and answer tough questions is vital for my creative work. To create interesting characters, a writer must know something about how people work and the path to that wisdom is knowing ourselves. While many of the exercises in A Year of Living Consciously are meditative, a number of them ask the reader to examine motivations and ways of thinking. I’ve pulled a lot of good character bits and twists from the work, and have gained a different understanding of some of the people in my novel-in-progress.

And finally, taking responsibility for my own happiness puts me in a better frame of mind to create. I’m in a better mood when I leave my job. I spend way less time fretting about having enough time to write and more time enjoying the time I set aside. I worry less about what anyone else will think about my work and way more time loving the process and the journey. I’ve stopped counting words and started focusing on being creatively present in the moment I’m working. I consider my time successful if I write 3 pages or 3 paragraphs.

Simultaneously, I’m more present in the work itself. Instead of fixating on the number of words I’ve added to a document, I work to ensure the right words are going in. I already feel like my writing has improved, because I expend more energy on telling the story rather than tracking productivity. The story has become something I enter, not something I have to construct. It’s a mindset shift and difficult to explain, but it feels right. It’s not easy, but I’m learning to focus on what’s before me.

This year, I’ll probably refer back to the book from time to time when I need a refresher, but I won’t use it to provide structure for the blog. I made my commitment for 2023 and I reached the end of the line. Time for a new thing.

Today’s thought is simple.

Take some time today to honor your journey over the past year and the people and experiences who have brought you to where you are today.

You may recognize a pivotal moment that lead you in a new direction or taught you an important lesson. Or you may honor the slow burn of learning and wisdom you accumulated every day.

Celebrate the work you accomplished, whatever it is. Reflect on the people who shaped and guided you, in the past year or farther back.

Count your blessings and pay them forward.

Thank you for being here this past year. I appreciate you.

If I learned anything from last year, it’s this: Simplify, simplify, simplify. I began 2023 by setting weekly goals for reading, learning, blogging, research, and writing, and also wanted to start a podcast and make time for drawing and painting, which I love. Two days before the end of the year, I want to reach back and give 2022 me such a pinch.

Blog and possible redesign. I promised myself that if I kept up blogging every day I could splurge a little to upgrade the site. I don’t plan to add a lot of bells and whistles, but the templates that come with basic WordPress are on the dull side.

Novel. I did good work on my novel last year. I’ve hit the mid-novel wall and gone back to the plotting stage multiple times over the last two years. Mid-year, I took a break from the writing to do more craft reading and focus on research for inspiration. I’m cautiously optimistic that I can push through the muddy middle this time and actually hit the end note. While I can salvage most of what I’ve written, I’ve had to pull out characters and scenes that didn’t serve the story, and I need at least a few new chapters to start the story and bridge some gaps. But I have a map and I’m happy with the new writing I’ve finished over the past 2 months. I’m still in the struggle phase with some of these chapters, but I know I can get through them because I’ve done it before. When the going gets tough, nothing engenders confidence like looking back at the other puzzles you’ve solved.

Community. I didn’t achieve my vision of community this year, but I’m proud that I got out of my shell to join some online workshops and writing sessions. More of that in the New Year. I need to carve out some “giving” time if I want to make this happen, and that was tough this year. It’s easy to get discouraged, but I know my folks are out there. I need to make a stronger effort to put myself in view, because none of them are going door to door looking for me.

Drawing. I’d like to get back to doodling this year. I’ve never been a great artist, but I love it. It’s a shame I don’t make more time for it. I’m going to schedule some time over the next year to work through Lynda Barry’s Syllabus, a memoir/outline of her cartooning workshop. Lots of low-stakes drawing exercises that also include writing and memory work, which will also serve the prose writing. I might post a few things I don’t hate too much.

Change. Finally, I commit to changing any of these goals that don’t serve me well. If I’m struggling, I promise to examine the reasons and the solutions. Do I need a mental break? Is this a problem I can muscle through? Can the goal be postponed? What would bring joy back into the process?

What are your plans for 2024?

December’s end and the beginning of the New Year is traditionally the time we reflect back on what we’ve learned and achieved during the past year and imagine what we’d like to create in the new.

In the past, my habit has been to look back on the past year and think about what I didn’t achieve. I didn’t finish the novel. I didn’t redesign my website or start the podcast I have in mind. I didn’t lose weight or get buff. Other than making myself feel bad – which is both one of my toxic traits and one my best tricks – this isn’t a particularly productive habit.

That’s one reason I started my Sunday evening posts. Once a week I look back at what wasn’t terrible, whether that means a great book I read, a concert I attended, some good news, an accomplishment, or a pat on the back. This habit made me more conscious of what good happens in my life, even if things sometimes go awry or big projects remain incomplete. During the week, I look for good things to write about, rather than waste time kicking myself for what didn’t go well.

Reflecting on 2023, I’m pleased – and more than a little shocked – that I kept my commitment to this blog and wrote at least once every day. I didn’t always have time to post every morning, but I wrote every day. This was a commitment I made to myself this year, and I kept it even when I didn’t feel like writing or wasn’t inspired. If you bothered to look back, you could probably spot the struggle days, but short posts count, and keeping my promise to myself mattered. The emotional gift was much greater than the sum of the writing.

For the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m closing out the year with some tangible accomplishments, even if I didn’t grab everything I wanted. I’ve incorporated my writing and creative work into my daily habits and made them a priority, which they haven’t been for some years now. Looking forward, I know I can adjust and incorporate new goals for the coming year. I’ve learned to be happy with the creative journey, without obsessing over the final result I desire. The result is still important, but if I’m not happy along the way, what’s the point of the trip?

I plan to continue blogging every day in 2024, though I’ll switch up what I write about. This year, I relied on A Year of Living Consciously to prompt ideas about writing and general creativity. Now that I’m nearing Day 365, I don’t need that crutch. I’ll still blog about writing and creativity and may turn to the lessons in the book for some inspiration, but these past 12 months have helped me develop a focus for the blog and the confidence that I have something interesting to say once in a while. Now that I fulfilled my one-year commitment to blogging the daily exercises, I’m free to explore some other topics.

I’ll keep up the Sunday gratitudes because that’s healthy and my Tuesday horoscope because it’s fun, but in between look for some deeper dives into writing topics and book discussions.

Let’s see where this takes us.

In today’s exercise in A Year of Living Consciously, Gay Hendricks shares an anecdote shared by his niece, Laura. When her oldest son was four, he collected rocks, plain old stones you’d find in any yard, wood, or trail. One day, Laura tossed the lot into the garbage, not realizing their importance to her four-year old. Thankfully, she was able to salvage the rocks from the trash without his knowing, and then spent time with him as he pointed out what made each small stone special to him.

I used to collect rocks as a kid, too. Our home had a gravel drive, so not any grey stone would do. I loved finding stones of different colors, especially those that were mottled or marbled, streaked with reds or yellows or multiple shades of brown. I collected big rocks and small, those that were craggy and rough and those that had been worn supernaturally smooth.

As an adult, I had another small collection, rocks I’ve picked up on my travels, in England and Ireland and other places. I had a stone too where I hid my heart, but that’s a story for another time.

Today, if you’re able, spend some time outside viewing the world as you did when you were a child. Pick some natural element – stones, trees, leaves, flowers, or some kind of greenery – and make note of their varying details. See how many difference sizes, shapes, textures, and shades you can identify. Write these down so that you remember what you saw the next time you need to describe a stone in the road or blades of grass or a special bloom in your writing. Treat yourself to an hour viewing the world with a child’s sense of wonder.

One of the lessons I’ve hoped to learn through this blogging year is perspective. Successes are fleeting. Setbacks are not permanent. Worry is a useless habit.

I am striving to recognize the small things, so I can let them go. I’m working on picking better battles. I’m learning to recognize when an objective serves my ego or my soul. I’m not especially good at any of these things but I’m getting better.

What does this mean for me creatively?

I’ve learned that writing goals are only worthwhile to the extent they serve my happiness. Writing 2 hours every day sound reasonable, but not when I use the goal as a cudgel on myself when I don’t make it. I finally caught COVID a few weeks ago, which blew up my December writing plans. I would rather have avoided it, but I chugged Nyquil and watched crappy movies with zero guilt.

When goals cease to work, they need to change. In the past, word count goals served me fairly well, but now, writing a solid 200 words in thirty minutes is more fulfilling than forcing myself sit for 2 hours to type 1000 words that I’ll never use anywhere. Last year, I started tracking the time in my seat, focusing on creating quality work rather than hitting an arbitrary number of words. I’m not sure how I’ll keep myself on track in 2024. My other methods served me when I needed them, but it’s ok to switch it up.

My creative needs have also changed as I’ve gotten older. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a famous writer. I dreamed of writing books that sold well enough to let me earn my living creatively. When I was older, making a lot of money didn’t matter as much, but I still craved the validation of being published.

These days, neither of those are important to me. I still want to hold books in my hand, but I no longer need anyone else’s approval of what I write. I may publish traditionally someday, but I’m not counting on it nor spending a lot of effort pursuing it. When I do publish, I’d like to sell a few books, but again, not a priority. If my books pay earn enough to pay for my website and the costs of design and printing, that would be satisfactory. If it turned into a side income during my retirement, that would be a bonus. But I’m not relying on my creative work to provide my living. At the moment, I’m not in a position where I’d have to turn what I do for love into a grind. I hope to keep it that way. If that means I never write a bestseller or buy a fancy house or win an award, so be it.

The only reason I ever wanted them in my youth was due to what else I lacked. I’ve found and healed a lot of those missing pieces over the years, and discovered that the work is more joyful the less I expect any outside reward.

I’m late to the lesson, but if I can spend the next 30 years living closer to the moment and engaging in fulfilling creative work, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Today is a day of giving and receiving gifts, and though we often focus on having the newest, the biggest, and the best of something, we acknowledge that the most important gifts in life are intangible: time, love, attention, respect, encouragement, friendship, security.

Our creativity is another intangible gift that we cannot live without. I’m grateful for mine, and I hope you appreciate and celebrate yours today and throughout the year.

Throughout the year, and especially over the last few days as the year draws to a close, I’ve been writing about finding a sense of ourselves and our place in the creative world.

Finding this place requires that we resist competing with and comparing ourselves to other creative people and their journeys and successes. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Who wouldn’t want to be as prolific and acclaimed as Joyce Carol Oates? Wouldn’t it have been great if our parents had formed a company for the sole purpose of publishing the first novel we wrote when we were 15 and then sent us on tour to promote it? I might wish I had 100,000 Instagram followers to feed my ego. I don’t write screenplays, but I’d be a lovely Oscar winner.

Comparing and contrasting is one of my toxic traits. Some writers have gifts of talent, time, and support I can only envy from a distance. And I don’t mean polite, quiet envy, but blood-curdling, apple-poisoning, ride the dragon into King’s Landing-level jealousy that may come off a tad unhinged if I spoke of it aloud.

At the same time, I regret to admit I look down on a lot of writers who put out work I consider shoddy. Looking at the free e-books available for download from Amazon is almost enough to make me quit writing out of sheer shame at the association.

But ultimately, we are neither more than nor less than any other writer. We bring forth what we have or we don’t. That’s it. No matter who I admire or disdain, that writer cannot write what I write, because that writer is not me. While our circumstances may be different and our challenges unequal, at heart every writer faces the same choice: to bring forth what is inside you or not. If what’s inside you is Reverse-Harem Hentai Alien Polycule Book XIV, well, ok.

In the end, publishing doesn’t matter. Sales don’t matter. Readers and critics don’t matter. The people who want to bully us away from certain stories or shame us for not writing to their desires don’t matter.

Joy matters. Having fun matters. Your journey through whatever we call this mess matters. Each of us is making our way from A to Z, and if along the way, you let out what’s inside you, that’s all you need. We’re all in the same river and we should enjoy being part of it.

If you’ve been reading this blog the past year, I don’t have to tell you about the importance of fostering creativity in your life. I’m pretty sure most of my readers are also writers – bloggers, memoirists, novelists, and storytellers.

While embracing your creativity, don’t forget to let it loose as well. Cultivate the habit of running with your craziest ideas, even if they seem unworkable or impossible to bring to light.

Go wild once in a while. Brainstorm your craziest notions. You may not be able to use your wildest ideas, but the freedom to think with abandon may bring you to other thoughts, connections, and ideas that you can realize. Don’t hold back.