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We’ve started filming a documentary about the mud and roses writing circles all around the world, starting with us here in New York.
So the question for a writer is first what do you see, and then what do you say you see - based on what is your purpose. So we need to see first, some thing many people can’t do, and then we choose whether to report accurately what we see or not.
Other writing groups exist to help you be the best writer you can be.
We don’t. I don’t want us to focus on being writers. I want us to focus on being beings.
What kind of being? Moral being? No. Happy being? No. Successful being? No.Mindful being. The watcher. To write well you need to see more. You need to see yourself. You need to see the world.
That’s why the meditation, the exercises, the homeworks, the field trips, the experiences. Why? Not to make us pure. Not to make us more creative. Simply to make us present so we walk in here and we say it’s called a circle but I see a rectangle. And then to ask why and to think about what we are going to say about it on paper. So objective #1 is not to help you be the best writer you can be. Simply to be mindful, present, observant. To see, To ask, and then if you want, secondarily, to write.
Many writers are great observers and their stories are accurate reports – even if the characters are invented – they “ring true” they show how life is in America or whatever country and whatever time period – they stir emotions. This is what most writers are striving for, and the book stores are full of that, and if that’s your goal, more power to you – but our goal is deeper. Second objective is originality. They say there are no original ideas and maybe they are right, but our theory is that if we live first and write second, something unexpected will arise on the page.