29. To be silent (Or, turning creative enemies into allies)

Writers tend to have a mixed relationship with silence (either literal or more internal). On the one hand, we sometimes crave more of it, as a way to make space for the words we’re trying to coax onto the page. When those words don’t flow, though, silence can feel more like an enemy—like a space filled with nothing but our own hypervigilant expectations about our work.

But what if you could make silence a true ally and co-creator in your creative practice? What if instead of having to fill the silence (or avoid it), you just needed to meet it, with no expectations?

Maybe that sounds easier said than done. But this month, some insights from a memoir about life in a convent are giving me a few new and surprisingly simple ideas to reshape the role of silence in my writing—and I think they might help you, too.

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Episode links:

The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong

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