Having Faith Can Move Your Writing Mountains.

Becoming A Writer

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Having Faith Can Move Your Writing Mountains.

Episode 18 of Becoming A Writer podcast.

Rubina G Gomes

Jun 07, 2024

Transcript

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Hello, my writer friends! Rubina here. For our eighteenth conversation, we are going to talk about how having faith can move your writing mountains.

Adopting the pantser mindset was not an easy job to do. It's not that being a pantser is difficult; it's just that my logical brain wouldn't allow it.

My logical brain couldn't (wouldn't) accept the fact that we could write without knowing where we were going and with whom. As a person who had an unstable childhood and young adulthood, having an unknown and unstable plot made me nervous. My logical brain needed guarantees, and I could give it none.

But I persevered. I kept telling myself, "Let's see what happens," and kept writing. Initially, my writing flow was jerky, but then something strange and magical happened. I was having fun writing my novel. And I was able to see what was going to happen next. So, I followed that trail. As I kept going from one scene to another, I was presented with the next possible scene. Sometimes, I would even get a glimpse of a distant future scene that would perfectly connect with the one I am currently writing. Soon, I realised I was actually writing my novel.

Later, when I was introspecting about what was happening here, I realised I was doing something I hadn't done before. I had faith.

I had faith in the story to lead me and show me what happened. And I was having faith in my own capability to write it.

I now have so much faith in myself and my writing that when I spend time working on my other projects (like this podcast you are listening to) and not writing my novel, I know when I sit down with it, I'll find my characters waiting for me.

It doesn't matter if you are a plotter or a pantser. At some point in your writing journey, you will have to give the reins of your book to your book. You need to have faith in yourself and your words. Only then do they start flowing.

Having faith means trusting that what you write is not going to waste. You may not be able to see it at that moment, but having faith in your words always leads to a learning experience. Whether you end up with a viral post or a post that hears crickets, every single word you write is helping you write the next word.

Having faith is about knowing everything happens for a reason. I usually have a few bullet points when writing an essay or a scene in my short story or novel. But they are not set in stone. When I am engaged in the process of writing, I keep the bullet points in front of me, but if I go in a different direction, I let myself explore it. There is no harm in that. This is one of the blessings of writing on a computer. You can always go back and change things if you want to. When you write something completely different from what you had intended, that's what wanted to come out of you.

Having faith is in knowing that, eventually, the dots will connect. Sometimes, our logical brain doesn't know what it doesn't know. But our artist brain does. It knows where the story is going and how to go there. We have to just let our artist brain do its job.

The best way to have faith in yourself and your writing is to let the words flow unrestricted.

Just like you want your words to speak to your readers, the words want to speak to you first. Your words want to tell you how they feel, how they think, how they dream. Your words are like that adorable, chatty little toddler who loves you dearly and makes you feel special.

Now imagine if the moment your words started speaking, you stifled them by editing them, by forcing them in a different direction, by saying they are wrong, by telling them to shut up; what do you think will happen? It will cower in the corner, afraid of you. And since it fears you, your words will not come out of their shell.

But if you let your words do all the speaking they want to until they're tired, and then you explain to it a better way of saying the same thought, your words, being the adorable toddler who loves you unconditionally, will agree to hear your suggestions and make some changes. This time, both you and your words are happy.

Have faith in your writer self. It knows the way. You know the way, even if you can't see the whole path. Trust that.

Well, that's it for today. Next time we meet, we'll talk about keeping our brain out of our writing.

Until then, keep writing, my friend.