Grounded & Weathering // 2 book babies, 9 creative life lessons

reflections on the learning journey between books for other writers and creatives

Both of my books are March babies. I’m a writer well suited to Spring it seems, but this is no real surprise. I generally have a lot of growth energy and lots of drive (Hello Aquarius!) I’m all about emergence and favour a figurative process of delivering a hopeful spring from the clutches of winter. Perhaps this is also my flavour as a therapist too.

Released on World Book Day 2021, Grounded was/is a Piscean book, make no mistake. It’s an empathetic and understanding book, kind, patient and adaptable; a gentle reference for many aspects of life and nature connectedness. Pisces personalities are ocean-associated, which is where life began, and Grounded too is where my book journey started. It is three years old this week.

Arriving at the end of the month however, Weathering is much more Aries. It has a good heft of Big Ram Energy, and is a little bit braver by my standards (though still with my companionable voice I hope!) It is an altogether more driven affair, with more passion and more conviction. It is a risk-taker of a book in many ways, offering up a new way of thinking about geology and therapy and bouncing around fringe ideas made manageable for the mainstream. It refuses to conform into a set category and makes few apologies for it.

I have been revisiting Grounded this week for the purpose of writing this post, and I suppose it has come as a surprise to see that the two books do fit together. When asked, I imagine Weathering is a more ‘advanced’ book, but on a re-inspection I’m not sure that’s true. It might be a little more literary or determined, but clearly I am still busy with the same ideas and preoccupations, just to different depths. It is still my sentiment in both. And fun fact: both mention ants*.

A few weeks ago my good friend Adam left me a voice note. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was about, and then as I became more attentive to its cadence and vocabulary, I realised he was reading me an extract from my first book which he had taken away with him to northern Sweden where he is spending the winter soaking up some wild nature. No words preceded the recording and none followed. Just a strange sort of echo coming back to me.

It would be easy to dismiss an illustrated first book such as Grounded when you have followed up with something more ‘literary’, but I have decided to resist this pull. I have always viewed Grounded as my way in to publishing despite its very different origin story (Grounded was commissioned after I was approached at a festival, but Weathering was pre-empted and sold off proposal). It established something of my voice, something of me as a person (and my work), and something of my worldview. It was as much a chance for me to show something of myself, as it was a chance to become familiar with, and get realistic about, the world of publishing. It laid a bit of groundwork that I could continue walking on, solid ground as a foundation to dig deeper around me. Grounded had a lot of fans and was critically well-received and I still think it goes beautifully at bedtime as an introduction to my work today. 

So, that’s the relationship between these two books, but here are some other things I have been reflecting on recently as I consider the journey made with and between both. I hope they offer some useful insight:

1. After each book a fertile gap opens that you write the next one from - writing a book both empties you, and fills you up with new skills. With the first you realise, knackered, you are capable of a long writing project, and once it’s done you notice how far you’ve come. It is this skill development and awareness that you take into the fertile gap after publication, when you set out to do it again. Though you are wrung-out, it is inevitable that you end each book more competent than you started it and so the desire to translate this improvement into something else feels natural and inevitable. You want to make good on that improvement; you want to translate it into a new level of craft. Because of this, I wonder if I will ever want or be able to stop? Grounded made me an author, but Weathering made me a more skilful writer. What Weathering has made me (other than an anxious mess at times) is still to be revealed.

2. I write more often, more widely and more honestly now - I take it seriously as part of my work in the world – I write all the time now. Every day, one way or another. This is in large part because I have given myself permission for this to be part of my work in this strange, miraculous and battered world. For many years, writing was something that happened around the edges and in the margins of my life but it suits me much better to centre its practice in my days and let other things occupy the edge-spaces. I have a lot of words in me at the moment, and even now have no time to service them, so writing requires a continual letting go of other things. Honest writing requires relinquishing of even more. I take ‘paying attention’ seriously at this point in my life as an ethic of interconnected care-taking, and a core part of the writing process.

3. Writing is not the whole conversation - Though I write all the time, and take it seriously, I also know that in the written form there are limits. I am interested in relationship with ourselves, each other and the natural world, and so it’s also true that not everything that is important can be mediated through the page. Some of it has to be in contact, and non-verbal. If writing is part of the conversation, then so too is developing my movement practice and work, and exploring voice and orality. Taking both into the world, not shutting myself from it (which is always tempting). Moving outside puts me in conversation with the rest of the world that operates beyond the verbal. Likewise, I can read to rock and connect with e.g. the wind, through the musicality of voice or the rhythm of my body, but neither rock nor wind can pick up my book. I want to be in conversation with my place and this means I must also show up beyond the page.

4. I am finding my way back to old loves in new ways, and also becoming more focused – I care for so many things, but I can’t care for all of them with equal energy and attention. I don’t think it’s my job to take responsibility for the whole world, though I would sincerely have told you it was before a lot of deep inner work. Over time, I see myself circling back to things I have always loved, only with each rotation I grab a new truth, a deeper permission, or come at the interest with fresh insight. This is a good way of working for me. We all have our preoccupations and central story – I see it in therapy all the time – and I only have so many years left to do the work of my heart. I’m not prepared to mess around with things that aren’t really mine, or on ground I can’t move on. Between Grounded and Weathering I learnt to focus without guilt, and I’m still enjoying the outcome of that attention. And when my cares move again? I will travel with them into other terrains.

5. I’m worrying less about who I’m not as a writer and trying to focus on who I am – I’m a writer of colliding worlds and big ideas braided together. This isn’t an easy task, let alone translating two domains full of their own jargon into something a general reader will enjoy, but it’s what I love to do. I’m interdisciplinary with an academic’s mind and a sensitive relational heart. I’m also writing, in at least one instance, into a male-dominated field. I write lyrically yes, and from the ground of my own experience, but I’m not going to win awards for edginess. I’m just once voice among many (in a still-relatively small nature-genre) and I’m comfortable with that. It’s nice to stand out a little, but also nice to blend in. I’m a creature of the herd grazing at the edge of the field. This pleases me. I no longer have anything to prove. I write books of gentle challenge and solace and take the long-view. Trying to be someone I’m not is a doomed and sad expedition I’m not willing to make anymore. Besides, writers can become very concerned with writing as if it was the only thing that mattered. Spoiler, it isn’t. Writing is only part of my being in the world and I hope that whatever you create, is only part of you too. Let us cultivate wholeness on and off the page.

6. I’m defining my own metrics of success – It’s no secret (because I have made it pretty clear) that the demands of PR and marketing can exact a toll. I listened to something recently that suggested women are withdrawing from the online sphere in these times of increasing disinformation and deep-fake. More than men, women are afraid of being trolled, targeted and taken apart. I can relate to this. I love writing, but I don’t love the idea of review and criticism and opinion. I create to express myself (and extend resonance) not to open myself to ill-informed opinion. Publishing is cut-throat and oversaturated, and I’m under no illusions that if Weathering tanks then my publisher may lose interest before it even comes out in paperback. All authors have heard the horror stories. I hope this won’t be the case - and for the record I have had a wonderful experience with the amazing team of people at Ebury/Penguin Random House who love Weathering! - but things can change. I had a pretty underwhelming time with Grounded, so I’ve seen both sides. My way of dealing with this is to be who I am and do the best that I can with the capacity I have. Say no thank you to the rest. But also, be clear on what success is beyond the numbers. For me, this has to be writing words that I’m happy with and can stand alongside without cringing too much. It means reaching a few of the right people and meeting them, signing their books and having good chats. It means making time to connect in real life not in anticipation of far reach, but of deep reach. I have got braver in the last few months – emailing people that I admire and saying ‘hey, this is what I’m up to’. Some of those people have got back to me with mutual excitement. Some of them are inviting me to speak into places I would never have dreamed possible. I hope the book is a success, but more than that I hope it’s a catalyst for other interesting opportunities. This for me is exciting and reparative. My heart-metrics of success might mean nothing to others, but they don’t need to. Can I ask for more? Why would I need to!

7. Your voice will evolve and become emboldened, even if there are core themes - Your voice changes overtime in sync with both your evolving preoccupations and the encounters you have along the way. Our voices are not static monoliths to be excavated, but are animal and multitudinous in their nature. My voice three years ago was different to my voice on submission of Weathering a year ago. And it is different again now on release. Heck, it is different from last week. Everything we see and do should impact us and change us. It’s not our job to stay fixed. As writers - humans - we simply explore what’s unfolding. As we open our voice with new audacity we grow in confidence. And in my experience practice emboldens you to become more specific, more niche, more weird. Oh, and less apologetic. You begin to build a sense of safety within yourself that allows for outsider thinking. You find community that can support that too. Another facet of this evolution is that you don’t always get to control the process of continually becoming. As a writer your words will go where they go, and will sometimes open doors you didn’t expect. Weathering is part of an ongoing experiment of showing up in the world – but I won’t know until it lands where I might be pulled towards next, and by whom. I am open to all possibilities and don’t want to over-engineer things that might lead me to miss new openings. Let yourself be impacted is my advice.

8. Publishing is their business, but words are your art - There are going to be ways that the publishing industry lets you down, because they are trying to make money and you are trying to make art (and perhaps also money). The mismatch often comes from romantic expectations on the author’s part. Writing a book is a Big Dream for many people. But somewhere along the line you have to become clear-eyed about the way the industry works, play the game if you want to (because you alone probably won’t make it operate differently) and find additional ways to satisfy your creative, artistic needs. The field of trad publishing is still fairly conservative, and loves an expert. I’ve benefited from this because I spent the first few decades of my life studying and learning and centring knowledge-acquisition and developing research-lead, practice-based expertise. But there are plenty of types of expertise that don’t get platformed. This isn’t reason to hide your ideas though, and publishing is not the only way. This is why I keep writing for myself and others here on Substack and continue to nurture my own creative projects. At the fringes of my mainstream projects, is a whole bunch of stuff bordering on the arcane. But I indulge them too. I have learnt that it works a whole lot better when you don’t confuse success in publishing with the worth of your work (or yourself!)

9. Your joy matters more than their bottom line - Whoever ‘they’ are, your pleasure in your own work matters more than their gain. This may be a customer, end-user, a publisher, a shop, a magazine, a commissioner and so on. Every human alive is creative and we are all creating consciously and unconsciously. Offering that abundance to others is a gift that we can all enjoy and partake in. In some cases your work will be useful, help others, help ideas move forward, further the conversation on important topics. But creating to please the crowd is also perilous. Tastes change. People-pleasing beginnings can end up in disappointments. Better instead to do your work in this world, invite people along, explore how it all fits together, but ultimately do work that brings you pleasure and satisfaction in the deeper meaning and purpose that maybe only you understand. Remember who you serve and orient to that with joy everyday.

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*I am so curious about the ant thing and how they are becoming a persistent book motif. It would be easy to dismiss this as simply the result of there being a lot of wood ants where I work outside. But there is something else. As a child their presence on a summer’s day in the kitchen used to trouble me. In the 80s movie Honey, I shrunk the Kids, it was the ‘giant’ ant marauding the garden and threatening the kids’ safe return that gripped my imagination. They were also a theme in Salvador Dali’s work - my first fine art love. Today, the seeming futility of their busy lives both haunts and inspires me. I can’t seem to do without them.

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