Writing Your Way

Guiding us expertly and gently through writing exercises, Manjusvara (David Keefe) helps the writer in us to explore the complex relationship we have with the world. Whether through prose or poetry, whether for a new writer or one with much experience, this is an exploration that can lead us into regions that may change us deeply—even magnificently—forever.

So welcome that somewhat unknown, possibly wild secret world that is a part of every one of us, every writer. It is right outside the door and waiting for us to join it in exploring the imaginative, transformative and compassionate realm that takes us deeper, higher and more openly into life.

PRAISE
Many people say that imaginative writing can't really be taught, but all writers know that their work has been transformed by advice they have received. This book contains more good advice about writing than any other book I have read (and as a teacher, I have had recourse to many).
―Robert Gray, author, award-winning After Images

This is a jewel of a book, reflecting the art of writing as the pursuit of wholeness and integrity – the power within honouring the power of the word. Manjusvara evokes the nature and potential of the imagination with a deft clarity and intimacy, offering generous and inspiring guidance for all those willing to risk facing the blank page. Anyone who takes his advice to heart will come to understand the negotiation of writing as a verb and writing as a noun and the grace that act of balance brings.
―Linda France, Arvon Foundation

Writing Your Way is not only a smart, generous, imaginative, and encouraging book about writing. It's also a fascinating exploration of the relation between sentience and the act of putting words on paper. In the sea of how-to-write books, it's unique in its approach because it asks us to consider the whole experience of the work, showing in vivid concrete terms that what happens in writing and what happens in consciousness are intimately linked. Though unpretentious and straightforward in its approach, this marvelous, articulate book will help writers at every level to recognize, value, and further develop the kind of attention that will enrich their lives as well as their creative work.
―Chase Twichell, co-editor, The Practice of Poetry

Look around. Listen to the modern hum. Everyone has a busy and detailed creative life except that many of us use this talent to design phones, computers, meetings, errands, and other obstacles to personal freedom and discovery. I'm just too busy to be creative. But then this book invites you to honor your quiet, long-discounted skills of feeling, remembering, braving, and finding. Manjusvara takes you into a clean, swept room where your own voice can be heard first by you, and then perhaps by others. You become a child savoring words like bells. You walk in the woods chanting your own way of seeing the world. The talons and thorns of ambition are stripped away. Writing Your Way is your return journey, step by helpful step, to the creative life you have been obediently suppressing since your first helpless laugh or cry of amazement. Go live there with this book. Then look around again, and listen.
―Kim Stafford, director, Northwest Writing Institute

Here is a book about the Dharma of writing. It is full of Buddhist feeling and practice, yet Buddhism is only specifically mentioned once in the whole book (and once in the introduction) and that in a chapter on haiku. However, the essence of the Dharma as found in living the Noble Eightfold Path has - in one form or another - a place on virtually every page. As Ananda says in the Introduction, Manjusvara manages to communicate 'the secret life that all serious writers of necessity create out of their efforts to explore their complex and often challenging relationships with the world.' But it is not just the author who is part of this process. For the reader, 'the book is an invitation to share in that life and to commit oneself to a path which, though it may begin in familiar territory, will sooner or later lead us into regions that may change us deeply - even magnificently - for ever'…. This is more than a book 'about writing'. It is a book of doing, with exercises which are a guide to progress. However, it is being and not doing that is the ultimate goal. Try it and see!
—Pure Land Notes, Spring 2005

I have read a plethora of books on creative writing and how to teach it. There have been good ones, weird ones and bad ones. Writing Your Way is the best book I've read on the subject. I read it over a scorching week in my garden by the sea in Galloway, did the exercises and soaked in the ethos of this book. I say ethos because, as you will see, the author is a Buddhist. But the book is free from preaching or evangelising. Instead it takes you to the core of who you are in the process of getting you writing. This is important because getting to the core of who you are takes you to the most important point in writing. Your voice. If you are starting to write, already writing, or a world weary professional, here is a book to energise you, to rekindle your passion for the art. There are bonuses too. The spirituality you can take or leave. I took. The introduction to the author's work. I took. And a delight for me; the introduction to a brilliant minimalist poet, William Stafford. So hats off to Manjusvara . An inspiring book mentally, emotionally and spiritually. —An Amazon reviewer

When setting out to write this piece, I was reminded of one of the key themes of Manjusvara's book: the need to put aside the inner critique which so often stifles and inhibits creativity, or any act of self-expression. What sets this book apart from other books concerned with creative writing is a strong emphasis on engagement with a creative process, rather than technical aspects of writing. Fun, as well as thought-provoking exercises, accompanied by a brief discussion, encourages the reader to engage in creative writing.... It is suggested in the book that everything we do, from sweeping the floor to writing a poem, is a reflection of the essence of the individual and an act of self-expression. This ethos permeates the book and fits strikingly with the spirit of occupational therapy. —British Journal of Occupational Therapy, November

Foreword

The Swept Room
exercise: memory and imagination

The Things We Do Not Bring
exercise: distractions

A Wolf at the Door
exercise: a title for your autobiography

Change is Possible
exercise: developing loving-kindness

Ideas We Live By
exercise: list poems

Lower Your Standards
exercise: dialogues with the inner critic

Speaking Better Than We Know
exercise: timed writing

Reading Aloud
exercise: reading out loud

Memory Maps
exercise: mapping your childhood

The Curse of Originality
exercise: borrowed writing

Less is More
exercise: acrostics

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends
exercise: a short, short story

Chance, Magic, Luck
exercise: making new similies

Show, Don't Tell
exercise: building up pictures

On the Other Hand
exercise: opposite handwriting

Out of the Corner of Your Eye
exercise: peripheral vision

Space Around the Space
exercise: following the breath

Learning to Read
exercise: revising

Not Just Saying, But Saying Well
exercise: influences

Every Word Counts
exercise: haiku

Writing Like Your Talk
exercise: capturing the way you talk

Walking
exercise: writing and walking

Monologues
exercise: write a monologue

An Ever-Widening Circle

Rules and Rituals

Excuses
exercise: excuses

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
exercise: welcoming success

Car Mechanics

Notes and References

Sources Consulted

Index