This is a little exercise from my workshops and retreats. I don’t always do it. And I only do it with people who won’t think it’s really silly. But if people are prepared to go with it, then it can be interesting. 

So what is it then? Well, I sometimes ask people to pause and take five or ten minutes to write a letter to themselves from their writing. Yes, that’s right. A letter to the writer from their writing.

I ask, What does your writing need you to do? What does your writing want from you now, at this minute? Sometimes I also ask if the writing has any advice about how to proceed.

OK, this sounds dopey. But there is a kind of method in its peculiarity. Switching your headset to become your writing is also often a switch to a more distanced perspective. And /or a more wholistic perspective.

You may be sitting feeling blank, or feeling guilty that you never get around to finishing off. Maybe you keep adding and fiddling because you think you can never get the writing quite right. In these situations, your writing will probably tell you to get on with it, to pay attention, to spend some dedicated time with it. Or maybe it will urge you to let it go and do its work in the world because it will never be absolutely perfect. And it just needs to be good enough.

Maybe the writing tells you to leave it alone for a bit because you clearly don’t know what’s going on and you need to sort yourself out before you come back to it. Or maybe the writing says that what you need to do now is to do another section rather than the one that’s giving you grief because that might help you get the current one sorted out.

In retreats and workshops, people who write a letter from their writing often find that their writing is sad, or very cross, or frustrated. And the writings clearly says why this is so and what the writer needs to do. The letter can be a bit of a wakeup call. or it can be highly supportive, a cheer squad for the writer.

Ok, so it still sounds totally dopey to you. That’s fine. This is not a compulsory exercise.

However, if writing a letter from your writing doesn’t sound entirely silly, then maybe you might like to try it out. The exercise is simply, and I am sure that you can see this, a means of shifting you from composing mode to a reviewing and diagnosing mode. In order to review and diagnose your text and to write the letter from your writing, you have to draw on what you know about writing and writing processes in general, and your own writing processes in particular. You also have to acknowledge the complex mix of emotions that are often part of writing.

The letter from your writing exercise is also of course a little reminder that the texts that we write will have a life of their own. We send our writings out into the world to take their chances with readers make their own meanings from our words. We thus need to exercise care as we are writing, we need to make our texts as strong and independent as they can be, able to stand up to the scrutiny of readers.

Want to have a go? Just start. Dear (your name), I am (whatever you are writing at present.). 

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash