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Q&A with Elizabeth Andrew

Elizabeth Andrew is the author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir, as well as Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Spiritual Memoir. Here she talks about popcorn, the art of guidance and the three days she spent in a hermitage while writing.

Do you continue to practice writing as you’ve outlined it in Writing the Sacred Journey?
Writing has always been a spiritual practice for me; I can’t imagine otherwise! Over the past five years I’ve been working on a novel, although you could say it’s a fictional spiritual memoir since it’s written in first person and explores the spirituality of birth. No matter what I’m writing, be it memoir or fiction or a column for my church newsletter, the writing process is always rich with discovery and opportunities to grow.

What are your writing habits and rituals?
I’m the cliché of the early morning writer. First comes the pot of tea, my personal journal, and a bit of spiritual reading in my favorite chair. By 9 a.m. I move into my office to sit at the computer. I check my email, a habit I wish I could break, and then turn off the phone and internet connection so I can work uninterrupted until noon. On weak days I answer the phone—who doesn’t want a distraction? But generally I’m happier if I don’t. Writing is always a struggle between the creator in me who wants to lose herself in a story and the busy-body who wants to feel important and productive by cleaning the house, answering email, and activities that actually earn me money.

How did you create the exercises that appear in the book?
Most of the exercises in Writing the Sacred Journey are taken directly from my writing life or from my work with other writers. Sometime I want to create a workshop on how to write your own exercises, because I believe this skill has served me well as a writer. I think ahead to the element of craft I want to learn or teach and work backward, asking what task might help disclose this element to me. Or I look at successful passages from literature and recreate the scenarios that perhaps spurred them. For instance, you’ll notice that many good writing exercises begin with a sensory description of an object, person, or moment, and them move outward to encompass thoughts or emotions. Good writing happens when it’s grounded in particular details. Abstractions rarely spark our memory or our passion. So you can create effective exercises by paying careful attention to what works in literature you admire.

What is the range of student reactions to the exercises?
Initially, whenever anyone is first given a writing exercise, our inclination is to rebel. We don’t want to do it. Then the exercise sparks an image, memory or idea that horrifies us. We don’t want to write THAT! So we scramble around searching for an alternative. Invariably the first thought that comes to us on receiving an exercise is the best. It’s important to learn not to censor that knee-jerk idea; it comes directly from the subconscious and usually reveals something essential.

That said, some exercises fall flat for some people or during certain moods. When an exercise doesn’t work for you, I encourage you to try it again with different content.

What was the hardest part of writing Writing the Sacred Journey?
Keeping my butt in the chair! I much prefer doing my own creative work; writing a manual was not my first choice. I had taught spiritual memoir writing for years, so I had tons of lecture notes, exercises, and excerpts to draw from. But the prospect of putting all that information into book form seemed grueling. I asked myself a question I always ask students who are writing book-length works: What’s in it for you? In other words, what did I hope to discover in the writing process? All the information about spiritual memoir was old hat for me, but I was curious about why writing feels like a spiritual practice to me. So I explored that question alongside my presentation of spiritual memoir.

What was the easiest?
One weekend, a friend and I cloistered ourselves in a hermitage at a retreat center; she read books and kept me supplied with popcorn as I cranked out three chapters. The popcorn went down real easy.

Through your workshops and classes, have you become mentor to others groping with their own spiritual memoir? If so, how does that feel?
Companioning others as they give shape to their spiritual stories is one of my greatest privileges. I’m grateful to participate in such meaningful work.

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Last updated on Wednesday, June 2, 2010.

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