In Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality, Thomas Lynch describes the essential, exquisite calm that comes with a life of the mind, a life in books.

“I think about what I’m reading or writing… All you need is a little peace and quiet and the words will come to you—your own voice or the other’s. Your own voice or the voice of God. Perspiration. Inspiration. It feels like a gift.”

Thomas Lynch, Bodies in Motion and at Rest

The writer’s life requires patience. There is a peace to be found in the practice of patience, in the stillness that books and writing bring, in the act of waiting for words. It’s the patience all writers strive for, the stillness we crave. I think we crave it more in times of chaos. There is a place you go to in the mind, a cocoon of safety: books can be the vehicle to take you there.

As a writer you will have times of great productivity and times of nothingness, times when you can’t stop writing and times when you can’t write a word.

The writing ebbs and flows. You must make the most of it when it flows and, when it ebbs, have patience.

There are those who believe it’s all about habit: a writing habit, they believe, cures all writerly ills. But I think habit is less important than openness—be open to writing on those days when it comes, when it feels inevitable. Don’t feel that you must force it on days when every sentence feels like a chore. While habit can help you break through certain barriers, I don’t entirely believe in forcing the words when they aren’t there, when they don’t want to be conjured. The value of that kind of practice may be overrated.

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