Get to the question behind the question, get to the heart of the thing

a little experiment in questions, a little writing, a simple post to kick off week 3 in a creative new way

I recently reread Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. The new edition has a lovely introduction by Levar Burton, who helped to nurture my own love of reading when I was a child. (Reading Rainbow, anyone?) Sigh.

Butler was prolific in many ways, and she predicted what has been too often predictable: the way an inquenchable hunger for power by some can cause good people to suffer. What inspries me about Butler, however, is the lighthouse she offers within her dystopic tale.

Her young protagonist rejects her father’s religion and instead creates one—a new paradigm of ideas based on accepting change as the inevitable recipe for life and working for and with community, rather than power, in order to face change.

She distils this in the very open with a few lines from our protagonist’s new-world views.

All that you touch

You Change.

All that you Change

Changes You.

The invitation is to not accept the rules of those who are trying to pull us toward stagnancy and the past. The invitation is to instead bend to the larger natural order, which is a moving and inexplicable pattern.

I love Butler’s philosophy and also the way she navigated her own life and connected with her readers, whose lives she touched to no small impact.

If you’ve worked with me, you may know this, but Butler was known for her personal mantras. Phrases she wrote to assert that she would not let the limitations of the day keep her from being seen and changing the narrative through her stories.

Octavia E. Butler, Image Credit: National Women’s Hall of Fame

When we look to the larger story that is not distilled and exploited by tech bros but consumed conscientiously and carefully, honestly, ours, we seek individual wisdom and the threads that make up the larger tapestry of our own influence, and we find beauty and true inspriation.

I believe it’s time to explore new ways of living and creating. Not to appease our endless bucket lists. Not to impress anyone. Not to post redundant AI bullshit for likes and hearts the algorithim rewards.

Let’s dig deep into ourselves. Let’s write from the heart, with a desire to connect, and see what happens. With a desire to hold a vision for something very old and ingrained in us that will feel very new.

“I was weeding the back garden and thinking about the way plants seed themselves, windborne, animalborne, waterborne, far from their parent plants. They have no ability at all to travel great distances under their own power, and yet, they do travel […] I am Earthseed. Anyone can be. Someday, I think there will be a lot of us…” (Parable of the Sower)

Now that it’s week 3, open your notebook.

Take a minute to think about the change we initiate by looking to those individuals who inspire us and deciding what idea you want to focus on as we move forward this year.

Aim to write the question that drives, disturbes you, excites you right now. Then write the question that lives beneath that. Keep going until you get to the theme that is calling you right now.

Once you have your theme, write it down. For instance, Butler’s question may have been why people try to stop change and amass power at the expense of others. Her theme was that change is inevitable, and if we do not get in its way, it offers us everything.

Once you have your theme, like Butler, write down a few affirmations; that is, reasons you should keep going with your project this year.

Recap:

• Listen inward

• Steady your intention and ask questions that get you to your theme

• Craft a simple mantra that meets you exactly where you are

Let me know how it goes.

Invites

Subscribers: If you want to join a community of like-minded writers and creatives in partnership with Unleash Lit to discuss how we do what we do, join me on at the Creative Resiliency Circle in February. Details and RSVP here!

If you’re struggling with a book-length project and want to find your creative people, join “Finish Your Manuscript” with me at Thurber House this spring.

Next week, we’ll discuss genre and I’m going to share a very short post about my Vicky book journey (it’s been a wild one so far).

On defiant joy