To Write, We Need to Listen

This past week, I was mostly offline and unplugged. It was a good reminder that sometimes taking in less can clarify what matters more.

Studies show technology/the amount of information we are being asked to process is making us listen less. In other words, we may engage with more information but we aren’t taking it in as well. 

It only takes one scroll through social media to see this in real-time.

Are you really reading?

Probably not because our minds are usually more focused in the past or in the future and rarely engaged in the present. We consume so much information but we rarely ask if what we are taking in is really helping our creative process?

I bring this up often in my lessons because listening—both internally and externally to sources that inspire us and make us think—is such a vital skill when it comes to writing.

Deep listening is an immersive experience. You can’t be distracted. You can’t be thinking about how you need to buy milk or what you should make for dinner or that someone got a book deal and you didn’t.

This means consciously allowing yourself to be in the moment. It means following the writing seeds that hit you at unexpected moments. It means kicking out all the thoughts about what happened this morning and what might happen later today. 

This means consciously allowing yourself to be in the moment. It means following the writing seeds that hit you at unexpected moments.

External Listening
I’m not even going to get into social media here because mindlessly scrolling through content generally isn’t time well spent for a writer.

Instead, I’ll give this example …
In my workshops, we do a lot of readings, where writers share their latest work in a safe space. I think this can be one of the most impactful tools for writers but only if they allow themselves to fully participate in it both ways.

What do I mean?

Many times, as one writer bravely shares their work, I can see at least one person in the class who isn’t really listening at all. Instead, they are focusing all their energy on thinking about reading their own piece. As others share, they squirm. They look bored. They glance down at the paper in their hands. The only thing on their mind—when is it my turn?

And, I get it, sharing your work is vulnerable. It’s scary. Reading a 1500-word piece you concocted out of thin air (and edited and re-edited again), can be downright terrifying.

But, and it’s a big but, you can gain just as much from listening to others sharing as you can from reading your work because every piece you hear can teach you something. 

Don’t like a piece? Ask yourself why. What is it that you don’t like? The subject? The language? The voice? Does something about your own experience get triggered by the content the reader is sharing? Identifying what you didn’t like can help inform what you do and also spark an idea for how to shape your own work. (NOTE: That doesn't mean giving the brave reader a list of issues you had with the piece but it does mean paying attention to what they are and why you felt the way you did.) 

Loved a piece? Why? What elements worked? Why did it feel different than a piece that didn’t resonate as much? Was it your relationship with the subject? The way the writer laid out the story? The language? 

Internal Listening
Listening is not only an important external skill for a writer, it is just as essential for the writer to listen to themselves, to begin to trust the voice inside them. To trust that their version of what happened is the truth. That kind of listening comes without judgment. It allows the story to be told the way it wants to be. 

Remember this: We take things in so we can write them out. Every idea is a seed that may turn into something worth using but you need to collect the seeds to find out. Just as many writing blocks are formed by us not really listening to our own instincts. We need to be open to write. We need to be in the moment and let the story be heard. 

I’ll leave you with these quotes from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg:
“Writing too is 100 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you.”

“You take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are.”

Darcey Gohring is a freelance writer and editor. She is a writing instructor, specializing in memoir and personal essay. To learn more, visit darceygohring.com.