Thursday, January 17, 2008

Writing and a Spiritual Life

Madeleine L'Engle (author of 62 books and this month's No Shame Novelist featured author) did not separate her spiritual life from her creative life. I think she would say they are inseparable.

I think about this in terms of inspiration when I'm writing. I don't want it to be a purely rational process where I think about options, choose some and reject others, and write from an unchanging plan. I've been reading L'Engle and C. S. Lewis and Louisa May Alcott all my life. Out of many influences, they were the heaviest on my love of reading and writing. Each of them had strong spiritual or moral beliefs that affected their writing to the point that their works would never have been written without those beliefs.

Writers don't need to go to church or profess faith, but I think we do need to tap into something outside our normal experience in order to do the best work we're capable of.

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