finding your lane as a heart-centered writer

tips and resources (and a book giveaway!)

Today’s post is full of resources for the path of heart-centered writing.

(If you’d like to skip ahead to the book giveaway, scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment to enter.)

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

“Why write stories? To join the conversation.”  - Dorothy Allison

Many of the writers and creatives who follow my work have secret, suppressed, or hidden creative callings. They don’t tell anyone that they write or want to write. They don’t feel comfortable owning their creative identities, and the fear of vulnerability shuts down their creative urges.

Expressing yourself creatively, especially when you’re out of practice, is a super vulnerable experience. You’re likely to discover aspects of yourself that you’re not even fully aware of, and you might be self-conscious about revealing yourself.

You realize that you’re opening up a sacred part of yourself, and you don’t take this lightly. You feel resistance. When you find the courage to share, you want to trust that your voice will be treated with care and respect, but you know that’s beyond your control.

You have to give yourself permission to join the conversation. 

I left corporate America intent on becoming a writer, and it led me to find an unexpected career in coaching, facilitation, and community building. A career where I write from my heart everyday and create tools to help others reclaim their stories and share them with courage. Through this work I have been a grateful witness to storytellers finding their voices, owning their truths, and opening up new possibilities for their creative lives.

I help writers and artists go from aspiring to activated by focusing on self-discovery and the creative process. When you put the inner work first, you build courage, and progress happens naturally. 

If you have a creative calling, you can’t skip working on your courage and vulnerability muscles. The self-discovery work allows you to get clear on why you want to tell your story (or make your art or express yourself in that new way) and learning the creative process helps you build the courage and confidence to do it. 

You need an authentic WHY. You need compelling reasons to work through the fear.

You’re baring your soul for what reason? What do you expect to gain as you venture outside of your comfort zone? Why is it worth it? What story are you being called to add to the conversation?

Every writer starts somewhere, and every writer has a special journey ahead of them. Your writing journey doesn’t have to follow a specific course for you to feel valid in your artist identity. Have you allowed yourself to imagine all the places that writing could take you? The following tips, resources, and reflection exercises will help you lay a strong foundation that supports your unique writing journey. You can also download a google doc of this guide here.

Finding Your Lane as a Heart-Centered Writer | Tips, Resources, and Exercises

Ongoing Self-Reflection

1. Embrace being a beginner. Approach your writing journey with curiosity and a commitment to being a lifelong student of the craft. Living a creative life requires courage, self-trust, humility and the willingness to be uncertain, unpolished and awkward at times.

2. Identify your reasons for wanting to write. If your reasons are unclear, contradictory or superficial, your motivation will not be sustainable long-term.

   1. Storyteller Types. Each of us have special knowledge and lived experiences that shape our creative callings. These eight personal storyteller types can help you get clear on why you want to write. Make a note of which ones resonate with you.

   2. Desires and Doubts. Reflect on your Desires and Doubts about writing and how they contradict each other. These inner conflicts cause creative blocks. For example, if you desire to share your story to help/inspire others, but you have doubts that tell you that you can’t handle judgment and criticism, you will find yourself stuck in this inner conflict. If you have a desire to spend more time working on your writing practice, but you doubt your ability to make sacrifices and maintain boundaries to create this time, you will find yourself stuck here, too. This exercise can help you identify your inner conflicts, so that going forward your progress will depend on how much you align your actions with your Desires and not your Doubts. 

3. Identify your expectations. If you go into this expecting immediate praise and validation, expecting to go viral or blow up right away, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. (You might get these things right away and that’s great, but when you have them in mind while you create, you’re not doing your most authentic work.) Journal truthfully about what your expectations are, then observe what you wrote to become aware of any narrow or all-or-nothing thinking. Make your expectations more about the attitude you want to have, the promises you want to keep yourself, factors that have to do with your own alignment and that are within your realm of control. 

Seek Creative Alignment

3. Values and Themes. Starting with your journal, develop a consistent practice of writing about the values and themes that matter to you. By sticking to your interests, passions, and obsessions (no matter how niche they are) instead of following trends, you will stay in touch with your ‘Why’ which needs to be the source of your motivation. Try this exercise to get you started with identifying life themes and here is another list.  Keep in mind that your themes will likely change as you evolve through different seasons or your life. For each theme, make a list of the memories, situations, and anecdotes from your personal life that connect to that theme. 

4. Ideal Audience. Speak directly to the audience you want to serve. This will keep you in alignment with your intentions for writing. When you’re writing, think only of this audience and keep everyone else who might have an opinion out of your mind. Your work is not for everyone. Focus on the audience you can speak most naturally to and find the sweet spot between what you want to write about, what they need, and where you can find them.

Research the Landscape

5. Research to explore the work that you are drawn to do. What do you visualize yourself doing with your writing? If you had no fears or limiting beliefs, what images and dreams come to mind? When you reflect on this, keep your storyteller type in mind from #2a.

   1. Find examples. What creatives do you follow/support/admire who are currently doing this kind of work or something similar? Observe how they move in their career, and reflect on ways you could put your own spin on it. For example, I always loved how Leo Babauta had such a calming, simple writing style and approach, and his words are the fuel for a huge, thriving community. This resonates with me because I have a gentle, quiet approach, and I want to expand my reach without having to be loud or unlike myself.

      1. Ask yourself: What kinds of products and services does this person offer? How do they share their work? Where do they share their work? How could I apply the qualities and characteristics that I admire in their work to my own approach? What will I do differently? 

   2. What else comes along with this? When you think about what you visualize yourself doing, you might only picture the highlight reel. Research to find out what else comes along with that role. For example, authors also have to know how to build a community and engage with that community. Freelance writers have to know how to write to editors and pitch their work. 

Develop Your Craft

6. Show up consistently. Writers write. If you are not making time to work on your craft, you need to go back to addressing your inner conflicts (#2b) to discover what’s keeping you from making the sacrifices needed for your creative development. This is the responsibility that comes with being self-taught.

7. Learning curves. Get to know your learning curves and find ways to educate yourself through classes, workshops, books on craft, and plenty of practice and experimentation. Don’t run away when you discover something you don’t know how to do. Either research it yourself on Google or YouTube (you can learn so much this way!) or find a class to help you.

8. Prepare samples. Write samples based on the type of writing you want to do and have them ready to go when opportunity knocks. (Opportunities like writing contests, calls for submission, job opportunities, etc.) Don’t let perfectionism stop you here. Keep in mind that every piece you write is a version that can be improved upon later.

   1. Examples of samples include: artist bios/artist statements, query/pitch letters and cover letters. I also suggest working on at least one piece to represent your stance on the main themes you identified earlier. For example, if I want to write essays about mental health, I need to make it my business to have a piece of writing on this subject ready to go.

   2. Foundational Content. This resource includes ideas for pieces of foundational content that every creative should have.

9. Give yourself projects. Make your writing journey a fun, enjoyable part of your life that keeps you inspired and challenged. Give yourself personal projects designed to build consistency and courage. Check out this list of writing projects for more ideas. 

   1. For example, if you want to publish a book, you can start a blog or an account on a platform for writers like Substack or Medium. You can start by documenting your creative journey and sharing what you’re learning, you can share your writing samples, etc. This will give you practice, build an audience and help you find creative peers.

   2. Find ways to get experience. Can you offer your writing services in exchange for a testimonial? Can you offer to guest post on a peer or fellow creative’s blog? Can you volunteer to write a newsletter for your church or community organization? Brainstorm and keep your eyes open for opportunities. 

Making Money from Your Craft

Build your creative life on a financially stable foundation so you don’t feel the pressure of your art paying your bills just yet. A stable life allows for creative risk. How do you see yourself making money from your writing? (Ignore any limiting beliefs that come to mind!) Starting from that end point, work your way backwards and develop a plan of what actions you need to take to get there.  As you take these steps, you will make discoveries that will inform your next decisions.

10. Develop your Dream Offerings. For example, if you want to create courses or start a group then start with a beta offering that you can try out on a couple people from your audience or creative community, accountability partner, or some other trusted person or group. Get feedback from them, make improvements, and build confidence during your beta offering. 

11. Find adjacent work. If you want to create income more quickly, consider what else you can do that is close to the work you want to do. In my creative journey, I did ghostwriting, freelance writing, technical writing, blogging sponsorships. Coaching and facilitating started out as side jobs to keep me afloat while I pursued my writing goals, and now they’ve become a central part of my writing life.

12. Self-publishing. Being an independent author is a great way to generate passive income, serve an engaged audience and get experience publishing with full creative control. I self-published three books through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). You can publish fiction and non-fiction books and eBooks.

13. Where to submit. You can pitch online and print media by finding their submission guidelines on their website or tracking down editors on social media. You can find journals and publications that publish short stories, personal essays, and narrated pieces across all genres, from love writing to sci-fi on Submittable. Once you create a free account, you can browse opportunities daily. Some pay and some don’t. 

Build Resilience

14. Find and build community. You need a place to share, connect, and grow with other creatives. A place where you can practice together, talk about challenges, share resources and feedback. Make sure the community culture suits your temperament and your unique needs.

    1. Online — research social media for groups, blogs, forums and communities where your desired audience and/or peers may be active

    2. Offline — get involved with writer groups and associations in your local community

15. Practice mental hygiene and self-care. Self-care helps you respond mindfully instead of reflexively to creative blocks. Being consistent with self-care will feed the creative mindset you need to keep going when distractions and obstacles come up. It helps you find a rhythm, be consistent, and avoid being tricked by excuses + limiting beliefs.

    1. Daily/Weekly/Monthly check-ins. Do daily check-ins to make sure your heart and mind are in the right place and that you are taking action according to your desires and not your doubts. Practicing mindfulness techniques like meditation will help you be more present which allows you to pause and make different decisions when you face fear and resistance.

    2. Vulnerability aftermath. Prepare yourself for the discomfort of vulnerability aftermath by creating emotional rewards for yourself after you take a risk or do something new. For example, you might plan to treat yourself to lunch with a friend or to binge your favorite show after you do something creative that is outside of your comfort zone.

    3. What self-care activities nurture your creativity and recharge you?  Know the supportive behaviors (lifestyle habits) that keep your creative energy flowing. Reading books and articles, listening to certain music and podcasts, moving your body and staying hydrated, resting and daydreaming, setting boundaries...just to name a few. To ignore these things is to keep pouring out without pouring back in. 

coming soon:

The Art of Writing Rough Drafts (starts tonight at 6 pm et!)

Do you ever think to yourself:

“I have many creative ideas and stories to tell, but why is it so hard to get my ideas out of my head and onto the page?”

In this three-session workshop, you will learn the difference between the mindset needed for idea and draft generation and the mindset needed for organizing and editing your work. You will learn various approaches to each step of the writing process: idea generation, prewriting, outlining, drafting, revising, and finishing. Writers will come away with full drafts and a new appreciation for the early stages of story development. You can learn more here.

Book Giveaway and Author Chat w/ Javacia Harris Bowser on February 28 at 12 pm et

In the Inner Story Writing Circle, we have author chats each month and next up we are excited to welcome Javacia Harris Bowser. Javacia is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and educator. She’s also an author and we’ll be discussing her book, Find Your Way Back, a collection of essays that demonstrate how she’s used writing to achieve some of her wildest dreams such as being a public speaker, having her own column, and being her own boss. The book also explores how writing, self-love, and faith helped her overcome her worst nightmare: a cancer diagnosis in 2020.

Javacia’s goal is to show readers how writing can transform their lives as well. The book includes prompts throughout to help readers start their own writing journey.

How to attend this author visit:

If you’d like to attend this session and join our all-access writing group to support your personal story work & creative development, you can learn more about the Inner Story Writing Circle here.

You can also attend the session by purchasing a copy of Find Your Way Back and sending me proof of purchase. Proof of purchase can be a photo of you with the book, a picture of your receipt, etc.

Everyone who comments on this or any post that goes up between today and Monday, February 26, will be entered to win a copy of Find Your Way Back and access to our visit with her on February 28.