This essay is part of a series about how understanding the ‘three states of writing’ can help us write fearlessly. You can find Part One here (which includes an introduction to the ‘three states of writing’)
Writing is a way to excavate and express our truth. In order to get to that truth, we have to loosen up and let go of what we think we should write in order to allow what we know, deep down, we need to say. But this is difficult if we are so hidden from ourselves that we don’t actually know what that is. When we are heavily influenced by the noise of the modern world, bothered by what other people think, concerned about how we measure up, and attached to what might happen to our words afterwards (even before we have written them) it can be hard to hear what we truly want to write. That’s why we have to learn to listen to what wants to be written.
When we are little and caught not paying attention, we are sometimes told to ‘use our ears’. But that is just one level of listening. We can concentrate our awareness on our heart space and imagine physically listening from there. For me this is a little like sending out a sonar signal from the heart and picking up on echoes where it touches something deep in the world. To listen even more deeply we can bring our awareness to the largest organ in the body – our skin – feeling out into the world in every direction, allowing the utterances of the world to enter us.
Many moons ago I spent a slice of summer learning papermaking at the Awagami Factory in Tokushima, where the Fujimori family has been making washi paper by hand for eight generations using centuries-old techniques. Among artists and interior designers worldwide, one of the most popular of Awagami’s papers is Asarakusui – a fine, near-transparent membrane with organic holes, run through with long hemp fibres for strength. Hold it up to the sky and the light pours through.
At the other extreme is the museum-quality Hakuho – a heavyweight art paper. Almost impenetrable to light, it lends visual depth to artworks and can be used as a printmaking surface, or even sculpted. Both are washi paper, but their appearance, properties and uses are vastly different.
This is how I imagine our writerly skin. To truly listen to the world, and write about it from a place of truth, we have to thin our skin until we are almost porous so that the light can penetrate deep within. Later, when we want to share our words with the world, we will have to thicken our skin once more so that we don’t absorb everything that comes at us. But for now we need to thin it, so we can feel our way towards what we really want to say.
In deep meditation, when the attention and sense of self merges with the experience, it is known as absorption. Thinning our skin to write can have a similar effect. We go deeper and deeper in our writing to the place where we can hear what wants to be written. This is liquid-state writing. As soon as you realise you are in it, you aren’t in it any more, but if you look at the evidence on your page, you’ll know from the wildness in your words that you did indeed venture there.
To thin our skin so we can enter liquid-state writing, we have to listen deeply. This begins with a practice that shifts us into the body – breathwork, meditation, yoga, ceremony or a simple ritual. Then we need something to focus on – a question, a physical object, a poem, a memory, a writing exercise – and we listen.
We abandon surface description in favour of feeling towards meaning, allowing words and ideas, memories and imagined scenes, to swell and crash onto the page in waves. With liquid-state writing we reach towards all that we know without knowing how we know it, uncovering the great truths swimming in our bones. Conscious writing gives way to spontaneous writing. When we forget that we are writing, we are in the liquid-writing state.
We listen to the world, and it listens through us. The words behave like water, running deep, carving their own channel, flowing around obstacles, and joining us to the sea of everything. Sometimes the lines on the page feel utterly of us, and at other times as if they came from somewhere else.
You can try this using my original ‘Skin Thinning’ meditation offered at the top of this essay.
Liquid-state writing directs our awareness at the utterances of the heart to reveal truth, insight, and wisdom.
The words left on the page are often unexpected and unexpectedly potent. The more you do it, the more familiar the written words become, and in time you realise that their rhythm is the sound of your real voice written down.
When you go deep into liquid-state writing, the judgement filter is dissolved, so you write what you really want to write without any attachment to the idea of who the ‘you’ is, which renders unnecessary any worries about what ‘you’ should or shouldn’t say. It’s as if we become formless, no longer a person thinking about the writing. Instead we become the writing in its liquid state and the words simply flow.
The greatest threat to liquid-state writing is the urge to rush. We have to take our time, and trust. We may recognise the wild beauty of our words and be tempted to share them too soon, but in my experience, almost all words written in the liquid state benefit from marination time and often some shaping too.
Don’t expect flow in your writing to mean flow in the reading. Flow in the reading is actually a product of solid-state writing, which I’ll talk about in Part Three of this series next week. For now, we are only interested in spilling fluid pieces of a watery jigsaw. This is not even a first draft. If you have to think in terms of drafts, think of it as a pre-draft, but the most forgiving treatment is to not think of it as a draft at all.
Liquid-state writing flows from the depths. It is unexpected, and unexpectedly potent. Poetry can be spontaneously created this way, as can entire profound sentences. Whatever the topic, liquid-state writing can help you get to the root of an idea before self-doubt kicks in.
Tune in. Go deep. Write it down.
Every now and then, when we open our hearts to write, and dissolve the walls that keep us blind to the great mystery, we get a glimpse of it.
I believe our burning desire to write books and compose poetry is connected to that glimpse, not being able to unsee what we have seen when we have opened to the world. When we have entered liquid-state writing, and the mechanised world has dropped away, things are shown to us and poured through us onto the page. Things we may not even remember having written, but we recognise like an ancient truth when we read them back. This sounds like some kind of hallucination. It isn’t. It’s just writing. Isn’t that wild?
Keep reaching, without forcing. Keep writing. See what comes.
Beth Xx
PS If you want to build your confidence in writing and sharing in a supportive environment, you might just love my private writing community SoulCircle, hosted here on Substack. With weekly writing inspiration, bi-seasonal Live Writing Circles, quarterly Q&As on all aspects of the writing life and twice-yearly virtual writing retreats, as well as access to a gorgeous community of writerly friends from across the world, it’s the loveliest place to spread your writing wings. To join just upgrade to paid or click here and choose Monthly to try it out or Annual to get a lovely discount.
NOTES:
This is an adapted extract taken from my book The Way of the Fearless Writer. All editions (hardback, ebook and audiobook) come with access to a complementary album of meditations to inspire your own writing. The meditation offered at the beginning of this essay first appeared on that album. May these offerings help many words to flow from deep within.
The audio at the top of this essay is a meditation to accompany this essay. It is not a voiceover version of the written text. Please do have a listen and enjoy it.
This essay is part of a series about how understanding the ‘three states of writing’ can help us write fearlessly. You can find Part One (which includes an introduction to the ‘three states of writing’ here and Part Three here.
