Writing For Pleasure
Pleasure requires presence, sensory awareness, and slowing down. In my experience, writing requires the same. The practice of writing helps me attune my senses toward greater awareness and pleasure. Writing also comes alive through the senses. We are sensual animals, after all.
But before I can drop into a deep space of sensory awareness, I have to do nothing. Author Jenny Odell writes that “To do nothing is to hold yourself still so that you can perceive what is actually there.” For me, this might mean meditation with no intended outcome, gazing at a tree and remembering our exchange of breath, or moving however my body wants and needs to move.
When I’ve been busy, this nothingness can be uncomfortable. Thoughts and emotions I haven’t made space for begin to emerge. But as uncomfortable as it can be, I’ve learned to be with what is and to feel instead of distracting myself. Often, the thoughts and feelings that arise are the same ones that enrich my writing and experience of presence. I can experience grief and pleasure at the same time. Tenderized, the touch of a late summer breeze or the scent of a wildflower moves me. Whatever the urge or reason I am moved to create, my mysterious animal body is the source, the container, the vessel for it all.
In my summer Rewilding Through Writing class we meditated on pleasure as an exercise of craft, presence and sensory exploration. As we all know, our experience of life shifts according to where and how we pay attention. Not only did the exercise shift our attention to pleasure, it also generated gorgeous writing and readings that dropped us into our bodies and were such a pleasure to listen to.
I invite you to carve out 15 minutes or more, find a quiet space where you can free-write,set a timer for your alotted time and explore: What does pleasure feel and taste like for you?
Pleasure/sensory awareness writing exercise #1.
Pleasure…
Tastes like
Sounds like
Smells like
Looks like
Feels like
Writing exercise #2: remember pleasurable experiences:
Is [an experience you had as a child]
Is [an experience you had as a teenager]
Is [a recent experience]
Is [an experience five years (or so) from now]
Is [an imagined experience]
Describe each experience through every sense. Bring yourself there. What are the colors, textures, and feelings within and around you? What does the experience sound like, taste like, look like? Make your environment/experience come alive, make it textured.
Do the same thing where you are right now. Look around you. Find the beauty and texture of your surroundings.
AN INVITATION:
For the next couple of days, use the prompt of sensory awareness and pleasure to attune to details around you: smell the flowers, notice the feeling in the air, play with words while walking, taking a shower, and any other moment of pause.
Enjoy your animal body and listen to what your creative-process needs. Some days, writing and creative space might look like a long walk in the woods, a long luxurious bath or curling up like a fox for an afternoon nap.
What does pleasure feel like, look like, taste like, or sound like for you? If you explore the prompts I would love to read what came up for you on the comments in this Substack piece. And if you’re interested in deepening or re-committing to your writing practice with small circle of women,the autumn session of Rewilding Through Writing has a few spaces left.🍁