“Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.”
Drum roll, please......You Have A Process is LIVE! 🙌
For a long time now, I've been building a body of work which many of you have been witness to: one that pokes at our assumptions about what the writing life is or should be and the culture of writing and publishing. A body of worked geared toward wholeness and balance, worthiness and the grit to "dismiss whatever insults your own soul." I've sometimes used the language of self-development ("mindset," "personal power," "boundaries," "burnout"), but more often than not, I've used the words of mindfulness ("waking up" "attentive" "silence"). I've culled the liturgy of the spiritual and divine feminine ("worthy" "source" "connect" "sovereignty" "inter-being"). Always, always I'm seeking the way of Beauty, Truth, Love - I never could shake off my obsession with bohemians.
I now have a finished Thing that brings all of these ideas together in one place, but in a way that is meant to be wholly yours - not mine:
You Have A Process
While I've been doing this work one-on-one with writers for a long time and have occasionally taught workshops on how to discover and trust the process you already have, I wanted to create a medium through which this work could be accessible for any writer who is ready to trust themselves and step into the fullness of their writerhood.
This on-demand course can be done in one nice, long day with a cuppa and a notebook, but you could spend weeks, months, and years with the materials as you explore, deepen, amplify, and revise your writing process.
It seems fitting that You Have A Process is out in February because it has been a labor of love, but--even more than that--I can't wait for YOU to fall in love with your process. You have one and if you know that, but you "loathe" it (one of my writers said this, and I hear it all the time)....then get ready to rediscover it and get downright smitten by your big, beautiful, quirky, fabulous creative self.
This is not a course so much as a living space to continue exploring your process.
I've become a collector of processes - it is utterly fascinating to discover and delight in how many different ways each of us enters into story depending on if we're visual or auditory, if we're Capricorns or INFJs or Enneagram whatevers. All the quirks that work, all the wildly different ways thoughts can be organized and applied.
There are so many ways in - and, even if you don't know it yet, I bet your process is intriguing and unique and effective and the right kind of wacky.
This is what one of the writers I work with had to say about our You Have A Process work - and, trust me, she has SUCH A COOL PROCESS:
I will carry forward with me forever the process that we uncovered. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Things I thought were hurdles turned out to actually be steps in my own process that I wasn’t valuing (and therefore working against). It was sort of like she helped me co-author the book of Kirsten, the writer.
Heather’s work helped me see the positive in all of the steps of my personal writing process AND taught me how to leverage them to my benefit.
Now when I am stuck, I can look at what is going on, and figure out where I am indeed in my creative process, and then go back through the tactics we developed for me, to either push forward, or get back on track.
...for the first time in a long time – the writing is my focus – not all of the BS I did before that was keeping me from the actual writing.
- Kirsten Bischoff
Here's just a few of the gifts I've received from the other side of discovering, articulating, and refining my own process (and seeing other writers I work with do the same):
Trust in myself and my work
Autonomy and personal power: I'm not trying to fit myself into someone else's process (especially the patriarchy's!), so I approach the page with authority and confidence
Freedom: Getting to lean in to how my mind works, how I learn best, and what supports me
Getting unstuck faster
Less panic and lots of spaciousness in the writer's seat
Enjoying my time with a book more
A calibrated inner compass that helps me know what the book wants (the book is the boss)
Grace: for myself, the book, my life
Game changer! When Heather asked me what my process was, I answered something like, “I grab a cup of coffee, sit at my desk and stare at my computer until the words magically come to me.”
Instead of laughing at me, she asked poignant questions about the times I was most prolific, those seemingly spontaneous visits from the muse that I thought I couldn’t control. Through her questions and insight, we discovered what truly fueled my muse and came up with several methods and practices where I could recreate that scenario, over and over. This discovery opened the flow!
In 3 weeks I wrote almost 30k words - good words, not empty calories. One of those days, I wrote 10k!!!
Understanding how you tick as a writer is the key to unlocking your flow.
Heather has a keen insight on helping you drill down the parts to your process and creating multiple plans to access that flow. So eye-opening once she helps you figure it out. Definitely a course all writers should take.
Dana Elmendorf
Click below to receive a peek at the process mind-map and access an audio lecture where I walk you through my favorite step of the You Have A Process exploration.
“That’s all magic is, really:
the space between what you have and what you need.”
My oh my did I have FUN recording this You Have A Process sneak peek for you!
The quote above felt just right for today: I think a lot of people are under the impression that the space between what we have (in our heads, hearts, souls) and what we need on the page and in the writer's seat is magic. It is and it's not. It's practical magic. It's a magic you can absolutely do if you've got the will and the ways. Your "way" is your process. Your will is your desire to write your heart out. Combine the two with intention and you've got magic. (By the way, I love The Once and Future Witches and highly recommend it).
I hope you're ready to be a process detective! You're going to have a chance to look at your relationship to the page on a granular level. Whether you believe you have a process (you do), or you hate your process (get ready to fall in love with it), I can't wait to share this transformative work with you all.
This program is so much fun, so empowering, and it's just the thing we need in a world that feels like it's all gone to hell in a hand basket.
There isn't much we can control, but wouldn't it be nice to feel like you weren't riding a wild unicorn stallion every time you sat down to work? I don't know about you, but I don't like being knocked off my writer's seat on the regular.
If you can't make the workshop for the pre-order special, don't worry: it will be recorded, so be sure to pre-order.
This is a really nice way to experience going through this work in real time and hearing what comes up for others, which increases your own Aha! moments. I've adapted this course so that it can be done alone or with a writer friend (the dialogue about your process is key), but 1:1 or in a group is my favorite way to work through the material. It's juicy either way, but let's say it's a smoothie if you get to do it in community of some kind.
If you want to do this 1:1, grab the course, then schedule a few Breakthrough calls with me and you'll be sorted.
But! You can absolutely do this on your own - you know you. If you're the kind of person who buys courses and never finishes them, then get this course and either come to the workshop or book some calls with me.
Is being an empowered writer who knows, owns, and wields her own process like a magic wand worth it? I think so!
I leave you with a treat. The quote below is from a recent interview the Zen poet Jane Hirschfield gave in an On Being podcast episode.
It is such medicine in these times.
As much as we talk about process and practice, this is what it's about:
I have been given this existence, these years on this Earth, to accept what has come into my lifetime--wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness. I must take them. I must find a way to live in this world. You can't refuse it. And along with the difficult is the radiant, the beautiful, the intimacy with which each one of us enters the life of all of us and figures out, what is our conversation? What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed? How can I meet this in a way which both lets me open my eyes the next day and also, perhaps, if I'm lucky, can be of service?
To your process and meeting our work with open eyes,
