Mantras for Writers

This is my response to Magpie Girl's call for 8 Mantras for Writers:

Mantras for Writers (for getting through resistance)
1. This will pass.

2. Give Resistance a name and a face. Invite him/her to sit down and have a cup of tea with you. Ask him/her why he/she is bugging you. Write down your conversation.

3. Resistance is a sign that you’ve hit a nerve. Decide whether you want to face it today or not. Accept whatever your decision is with kindness to yourself.

4. Resistance is part of the process. Recognise it but don’t dwell on it. Get up and do something else.

5. Resistance is part of the process. Recognise it but don’t dwell on it. Think of it as a cloud on the horizon. Let the cloud pass by. Then start writing with the thought that you never know where it will take you. Write anything, even if seems like rubbish or complete nonsense. It will make you feel better just to get something on the page, and what may seem like crap to you now may actually become valuable to you later on.

6. Write a list of reasons why you can’t write today. Make the list as long or as short as you want.

7. Read Natalie Goldberg’s chapter on “Fighting Tofu” in Writing Down The Bones.

8. Resistance is a state of mind. If you dwell on it, you give it power. Just let it be what it is without attaching fear to it. For inspiration, repeat these lines from Rudyard Kipling’s “If”…

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…"

For the complete poem, click here:
http://www.businessballs.com/ifpoemrudyardkipling.htm