For creativity, health, and more, slow down to the pace of living when you write.

We are trained to see ourselves as less than fully alive, less than made up of life. So we push ourselves around (I know I can), we try to make ourselves accomplish things, we judge ourselves for being too much of this and too little of that. All this creates a chaotic arhythm rather than a steady, supportive rhythm in the breath. And this affects our writing.

There’s lots of advice about when to write, and how many pages to write per session, and other writing-practice to-do’s. But have you realized that you are perfectly equipped to design a writing practice that actually fits you?

Inspiration may sound far-off, but it’s really close to home. Here are 12 natural ways you can cultivate to help you love writing a book.

Have you given up on some old book ideas? Are they living inside a closet (literally, or in your mind)? Maybe it’s time to bring them out of the closet, and remember what you saw in them in the first place. . . .

Do you remember learning the language you speak? All children are born with the potential to speak any language at all — from highly structured grammatical languages to clicks that Westerners couldn’t easily duplicate — but from the great width of this potential, the sounds narrow down to emulate what the parents and other adults in the vicinity speak.

But what about the world we inhabited before learning our “native” language? What about our truly native language? How much of that has had room to persist and be known and made use of?

Writing a book to please readers may mean you’re not  really present for yourself in the writing. But when you truly please yourself, your readers will feel what's behind your presence on the page and resonate with that same presence in them.

The more you can be aligned within yourself, the more natural — and enjoyable — your experience of writing a book will be.

In writing a book, it's not just about getting words down on the page. It’s about listening to yourself, and seeing what rises up to meet your invitation -- in other words, receiving. Then, the words give themselves to you.

Your job is to stoke the desire to write your book, and to be alert to what comes to you as a response. When you say “yes” to it and breathe it in, its gift will show up as your desire to start writing. Even an angel-shaped carrot can teach us this.

Some books act as good medicine for writing your own book. Sometimes because they address the craft of writing directly, but also through the slantwise gifts they make available to you. Creativity is an inherent and spiritual part of our makeup, but we don't always get encouragement or validation for our own creative ways. Here are two books worth your while.

Your Muse can show up with you sit down to write a book and call it in. But it also can show up anywhere, even when taking a breather at a park where families congregate.

There’s no point in writing a book because someone else told you you should. The only real reason to do it — and the only thing that will sustain you through the journey of chapter after chapter — is the knowing that you are called to do this from within. Then, writing a book becomes a gift to yourself, from yourself.

Entering into an inspired place to write from often is helped by something prior to the words. Making this shift in consciousness may be the most valuable thing you can do for your writing, because when the inner environment is in place, you basically have everything you need to ease into yourself and bring forth the infinite treasures that await within.

Whether writing a book or birthing any creative form, your soul wants to be heard. The movement towards the unknown is the nature of our soul’s emerging becoming, much like a plant seedling indicating what its true nature will look like after the first, generic leaves have come. Can we trust that the falling away of what we have known opens the opportunity for something more true to arise?

Chaotic times are frequently an intrinsic opening to a new creation of some kind. Yes, chaos is the parent of a more cohesive form, opening a door into something else you may find you want.

Knowing your own natural creative pathways lets you work with yourself instead of against yourself, and write as yourself.

A clarifying excerpt from my book, Starting Your Book: A Guide to Navigating the Blank Page by Attending to What’s Inside You (on the “Books” page of this website)

Just because we have been trained to write outlines doesn’t mean that this the only way to discover the your book’s trajectory. You may be a perfect candidate for a more organic, right-brained approach to structuring your writing — easy to do, and fun in the bargain!

I know cooks who swear by having a recipe to follow, which they do the the letter. I’ve done that too. But what I really enjoy most is seeing what ingredients I have on hand, and then putting them together in an appealing way.

But there are times when only a recipe will do. So here is a “recipe” for writing a book, which you can follow to the letter or improvise with as you are called to. It takes a week to get your book started. After that, the book itself may tell you how to proceed.