Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

  Writing this book was particularly powerful because for the first time I had to say what I thought, saw, and felt. And I had to stand up behind it with no encouragement. It was my first book. No one but me cared if I wrote it. After you write one book and it’s successful, you feel a little more confident that even though people might think you’re an idiot, they’ll listen—at least for a moment. I’d been put down a lot in my life and I wasn’t cheered on as a kid. And so I had to stand up behind this book. It was very scary. I had to say the way I saw things. And I didn’t know if people would think I was crazy. There’s a skin or membrane in society that you have to pierce, and you pierce it with your effort. I had to get behind myself, break through, and finally I was listened to.

  Q: How did you develop that kind of confidence?

  I have tremendous confidence and trust in my own mind. Now what does that mean? That I’ll be brilliant? No. Most people are smarter and much more talented then I am. I’m not putting myself down. When I say, “I trust what I say,” I mean that I give it value and I listen to it. I believe in the integrity of my mind. And the other thing that has given me great confidence is that if I say I’m going to write three hours today, I will write for three hours. Now that seems very simple, what’s the big deal? But in other areas of my life—for instance, I’ll say I’ll stop eating chocolate, but I don’t stop. I have no confidence in myself there. But in writing I have confidence. Because I say I’m going to do it and I do it. That’s all. Writing is the one thing in my life I continually show up for. I have given 100 percent to writing practice. That’s what builds confidence.

  But with my Zen practice, I think it’s a little different, not as muscular, determined, forceful. I have a quiet noodle way in Zen practice. But I do keep in there. You don’t have to be a bulldog or a shot out of a cannon. Just noodle your way in. Find your way as a noodle. That noodle way might be smarter as a writer, too.

  Q: How do you build this confidence in your students?

  I am their cheerleader. Go, go, go, you can do it. When I step into that role as a teacher, I see their greatness. I don’t pay attention to all of their “I can’t do it because of this or that.” I pay no attention to it. I see all of their greatness. I care about the whole health of a writing life, how we continue. Not just one magnificent jab.

  Q: What does “Don’t be tossed away” mean?

  Don’t be tossed away by your monkey mind. You say you want to do something—“I really want to be a writer”—then that little voice comes along, “but I might not make enough money as a writer.” “Oh, okay, then I won’t write.” That’s being tossed away. These little voices are constantly going to be nagging us. If you make a decision to do something, you do it. Don’t be tossed away. But part of not being tossed away is understanding your mind, not believing it so much when it comes up with all these objections and then loads you with all these insecurities and reasons not to do something.

  As I got closer to finishing this book, I had tremendous fear both of failure and of success. I stopped working on Bones for almost six months and became a baker at a restaurant on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. One day during a break I took a walk by the acequia, and I fell down sobbing, and I said, “Nat, you have to do it for Katagiri, forget about yourself.” And that gave me the drive to do it. In my mind I grabbed on to Katagiri and told myself, “I’m doing it for him.” I have as much insecurity as anybody else, but I don’t pay attention to myself so much when I’m in the process of doing something that I really want. I don’t think, “Natalie, do you want it? Don’t you want it?” Because that fear of success and failure stops me. If I think of myself, I get caught in myself, like everyone else. First my insecurities, then my overblown idea of myself. I swing from one extreme to the other. But if I forget myself, then I can do it. Don’t be thrown off by yourself or anyone else. Let your big mind move forward.

  At the time I was writing this book, I felt this tremendous love for Katagiri Roshi. When I say love, I mean beyond anything I’d ever felt. And maybe I needed to share that with readers. But that great love was something bigger than good or bad. He had pulled true Natalie out of me. So, big Natalie wanted to do it for big Katagiri. And now what I understand is that big Natalie and big Katagiri were never separate. But that’s not psychological. That’s the truth. It was my idea that I was less than him or different from him. Even many years later, long after his death, I was tortured. You know, I lost the great being of my life. He died. The great freedom for me came when I understood that we were never separate and that I was him and he was me. That huge love helped me not to be tossed away. In completing this book, I felt a willingness to step up to the plate. It was my time to stop clinging to myself, to take deeper vows. To take on this writing life, and practice was for me to realize that I was capable of what Katagiri Roshi was capable of.

  This afterword is adapted from an interview with Tami Simon of Sounds True. Used with permission.

  NOTES

  1 William Carlos Williams, “Detail,” in The Collected Earlier Poems (New York: New Directions, 1938).

  2 Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964).

  3 Cesar Vallejo, “Black Stone Lying on a White Stone,” in Neruda and Vallejo, ed. Robert Bly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971).

  4 Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow,” in The Collected Earlier Poems.

  5 Marisha Chamberlain, ed., Shout, Applaud (St. Paul, Minn.: COMPAS, 1976).

  6 Russell Edson, With Sincerest Regrets (Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 1980). Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

  7 Williams, “Daisy,” in The Collected Earlier Poems.

  8 William Blake, “The Auguries of Innocence,” in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970).

  9 Interview with Allen Ginsberg and Robert Duncan, in Allen Verbatim, ed. Gordon Ball (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974).

  10 Both from Carolyn Forché, “Dawn on the Harpeth,” unpublished poem given to the author. Printed with permission.

  11 Richard Hugo, “Time to Remember Sangster,” in What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975).

  12 Richard Hugo, “Why I Think of Dumar Sadly,” in What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American.

  13 From Kate Green, “Journal: July 16, 1981,” in If the World Is Running Out (Duluth, Minn.: Holy Cow! Press, 1983). Reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher.

  14 From Anne Sexton, “Angel of Beach Houses and Picnics,” in The Book of Folly (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972).

  15 Poems by Shiki and Issa from Haiku: Eastern Culture, vol. 1, trans. R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hoku-seido Press, 1981). Poems by Basho and Buson from Haiku: Spring, vol. 2, trans. R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1981).

  BOOKS AND AUDIO BY NATALIE GOLDBERG

  Books

  Chicken and in Love

  Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life

  Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America

  Banana Rose: A Novel

  Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft

  Top of My Lungs: Poems and Paintings

  Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World

  The Essential Writer’s Notebook

  The Great Failure: My Unexpected Path to Truth

  Old Friend from Far Away: How to Write Memoir

  For more information, visit www.nataliegoldberg.com.

  Audio Resources from Sounds True

  Writing Down the Bones

  The best-selling guide to writing as a spiritual practice, read in its entirety, with additional commentary and an interview.

  7 CDs / 8 ¾ hours / $44.95 / Order #W409D

  The Writing Life: Ideas and Inspiration for Anyone Who Wants to Write

  An instructive conversation between Julia Cameron (author of The Artist’s Way and Natalie Goldberg on the writer’s craft.

  2 CDs / 2 1/2 hours / $19.95 / Order #W443D

  Long Quiet Highway: A Memoir on Zen in America a
nd the Writing Life

  A heartfelt memoir, read aloud and including an interview unavailable elsewhere.

  Digital download only / 8 1/2 hours / $48.97 / Order #W403W

  Old Friend from Far Away: How to Write Memoir

  Learn to write vivid, naturally structured memoirs using Goldberg’s favorite exercises for connecting with the senses and making memory vibrant.

  2 CDs / 2 1/2 hours / $24.95 / Order #W598D

  Zen Howl: Revealing This One Great Life

  Goldberg joins a Zen teacher to explore the surprisingly close connection between writing and Zen, and how this understanding can strengthen both practices.

  2 CDs / 2 1/2 hours / $24.95 / Order #W683D

  The Great Failure: My Unexpected Path to Truth

  A candid exploration of Natalie Goldberg’s life, making sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student. Read in its entirety, concluding with an exclusive Sounds True interview.

  6 CDs / 6 3/4 hours / $29.95 / Order #W873D

  To order any of these programs, call Sounds True toll-free at 1-800-333-9185, or visit their website, www.soundstrue.com. Many of these programs are also available as digital downloads from the Sounds True website.

  For more information please visit www.shambhala.com.

  CREDITS

  The poems “Give Me a White,” “The Stone and I,” “Maple Leaf,” and “Everybody” first appeared in Shout, Applaud © 1976 by COMPAS. Used with the permission of the publisher.

  “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “Daisy,” and “Detail” are from William Carlos Williams, Collected Earlier Poems. Copyright © 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

  The line from “Angel of Beach Houses and Picnics” is from The Book of Folly by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1972 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

  Lines from Richard Hugo’s “Time to Remember Sangster” and “Why I Think of Dumar Sadly,” from What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), are reprinted with permission.

  Poems by Shiki and Issa from Haiku: Eastern Culture, trans. R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1981), and by Basho and Buson from Haiku: Spring, vol. 2, trans. R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1981), are reprinted with permission.

  Excerpt from The Writing Warrior by Laraine Herring

  eISBN 978-0-8348-2322-8

  Introduction

  To change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard. If one changes internally, one should not continue to live with the same objects. They reflect one’s mind and the psyche of yesterday. I throw away what has no dynamic, living use.

  —Anaïs Nin

  I taught writing long before I truly believed I was a writer. Fortunately, I learned a few things quickly in the classroom. One: teaching is hard. Two: teaching keeps you in the moment. And three: I love to teach. These three pieces of information begged the next logical question: did I have anything to teach? most of my students were decades older than me. I had some publishing credits, but not many. I was young and looked younger. I had enough arrogance and ego to act like I’d done it a million times before. And, fortunately, enough awareness to know I had no idea what I was doing.

  During my second year of teaching, I taught creative writing classes during the evenings, while still working full time and attending graduate school. I had learned early, thankfully, the first rule of effective teaching: talk less, listen more.

  I didn’t yet know that was a foundation for writing as well. I began to notice that even though I was teaching fiction, my students were writing their lives, loosely disguised with fictional places or times. They were writing their fears, their obsessions, and their wounds in black and white on twenty-pound bond paper, but many of them didn’t know it. Many of them believed they were indeed making everything up. They believed there was nothing of themselves in these men and women who peopled their work.

  For the first time, I began to understand the courage and absolute vulnerability it took to put words on a page. It was no more or less courageous if the author didn’t know what she or he was doing. The work knew what it was doing. The more their work came from their brains, the less effective it was. The more they planned, the less they grew. Students outed themselves in their stories. They wrote themselves into their own sexuality without trying. They longed for the absent love of a mother or mourned the loss of a child. They wrote and rewrote mistakes of their past trying to find a different ending. They showed me that writing is not a series of ingredients (character + plot + dialogue + setting + conflict) placed in a particular predetermined Aristotelian order. Writing was alive. Through writing, the writers became electric.

  “You are writing warriors,” I said one day in class, and we growled and made warrior sounds until we laughed. “You have no idea how brave you are.” And they looked at me with open, surprised eyes, their brains not quite grasping what I was saying, but their hearts responding. Message received.

  In Writing Begins with the Breath, I wanted to give people an opportunity to view the writing process as something more than a series of steps one could cross off a list. I hoped to expand writing for the reader. Put it on a cellular level. Expand it like the belly on an inhale. And most of all, I hoped to surprise people by the ease with which they could contact themselves through writing if they opened up channels within themselves to listen.

  When thinking of the next step after Writing Begins with the Breath, I returned to that first moment of bravery required to expose yourself on the page and the first moment I learned not just what was at stake for those who choose to write, but what was at stake for those who choose to guide people into those hidden places. I returned to the writing warriors I met in my classrooms, the writers who showed me what it takes to be authentic. And I learned that unless I remain a constant student, not just of the craft of writing, but of its process and of myself, I will quickly become a fraud. I will turn into the didactic, rigid writer who speaks more than she listens, who rants more than she questions. I didn’t want to be that writer. I didn’t want to be that teacher.

  I continue to learn something new about writing, the role of writing, and myself as a writer every day. If I pay attention. That’s the anchor beneath it all. Pay attention. Notice what is, not what I want something to be. I must remember I am always a beginner, always a student, of the art of writing and of life. If I forget that and believe I have mastered something, I inevitably fall on my face and have to start again.

  Throughout the book I will talk about the importance of letting something go. When I bring this up in workshops, students often ask questions such as:

  Do You Mean Something Emotional or Spiritual? Or Something Physical?

  What Does This Have to Do with Writing?

  Do you really mean every day?

  Here are the answers:

  Yes, yes, and yes.

  Everything.

  Yes.

  And here’s why:

  We don’t write in a vacuum. Our work comes from us, and we inhabit a space. The most intimate level of that space is our body. The next level is the house where our body lives. Then our neighborhood. Our town. Our state. And on and on. If we purge something from our homes, we’ll likely notice that we’ve purged something on an emotional or spiritual level. For example, the tightness over the loss of a lover may vanish when your last pictures of him or her find their way out of your home. Conversely, doing emotional and spiritual clearing will frequently result in a cleansing of our physical space as well.

  Let it go. Don’t overidentify with either material things or emotional matters. And don’t classify one type of healing as more valuable than the next. Donating a pair of shoes to Goodwill is no more or less valuable than doing personal grief work. Resist the temptation to operate from a place of dualism, to say, This matters; this does not.

  Let it go. Cluttered writing is writing
that is simply carrying too much. It’s overladen with adverbs or adjectives. It restates itself over and over again. It tries to tack on too many phrases to modify a noun or verb. This leaves the reader hacking her way through your brambles to find out what you meant to say. Pare down your work. You don’t have to develop a minimalist style like Hemingway if that doesn’t feel natural for you. Find the simplest, most concise way to say what you want to say in the way that you need to say it. This style will be different for every writer. Just check every word. What is it doing? is it serving the sentence? The paragraph? The chapter? How? if you can’t figure out how, cut it. If you notice five words doing the same thing, cut four of them.

  When you let go of what is no longer necessary, the authentic essence of yourself and your writing bubbles up. This is freedom. This is flexibility. This is being utterly, completely alive. Are you ready? Take a deep inhale. Expand your belly. Now, let it all go. Hold nothing back. Relax your jaw. Elease your shoulders. Soften your gaze, and step into yourself, one warrior word at a time.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Way of the Writing Warrior

  If true freedom is going to survive within you, you have to be willing to fight for it. You have to have a sword in each hand at all times. One sword is for your own mind and the other sword is for everyone else’s mind. You must be ready to use them. Anyone who wants to be truly free must be willing to stand alone in the truth.

  —Andrew Cohen