Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Elizabeth: Hello and welcome to the Intuitive Writing Podcast, a production of the Intuitive Writing Project, a writing-based empowerment program for girls and gender-expansive youth. My name is Elizabeth Perlman, and I created this organization because it was what I wanted and needed when I was young, a safe, supportive space to speak my truth and have it heard. Since the girl inside of us always needs to be heard, we also have writing classes for women, and this podcast will feature one of our amazing Gen-X writers.
If you are a woman who would like to try writing with us, know that the first class is always free just to see if you like it. There's so many things we have to do. We want this to be something you choose to do purely for the joy of it. Also know that we use the Amherst writing method, one of the most nurturing and empowering writing systems I know of. You can read more about the Amherst method on their website and in Pat Schneider's groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and With Others. But the basic principles and the ones that guide all our classes are these: 1) everyone is a writer with important stories to tell, 2) everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard and 3) our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed.
And so we invite all women-identifying people to try one of our women's classes, which help fund need-based scholarships for our younger writers. On behalf of all the young writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, thank you for listening.
May you always speak your truth and know that it matters.
[00:01:54] Elizabeth: Today, I am so honored and grateful to be talking with one of our brilliant women writers, Christina Butler. Christina has been writing with us for a while now. Actually, I wanted to ask you, I think it's been maybe a year by now. I wanted to ask Christina to introduce herself. Start with your pronouns, how long you've been writing with us in the women's program, and then I just wanted to have you tell us a favorite book or books and then your favorite kind of writing to do, like the genre that you most enjoy writing in.
[00:02:31] Christina: Wonderful. Hi, my name is Christina. My pronouns are she/her, and I have been writing with you guys for a while. I think it's been almost a year. There was like that weird period kind of around the holidays where we took a little break, but happy to be back. It's always a lovely time. As for my favorite book? Of course, this is always the hardest question, right? It usually always ends up being whatever I'm reading at the moment. So right now I'm reading a book called H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald. It's beautifully written. It's like a memoir, but it's got a lot of birds of prey. I think they're amazing. So there's all this falconry in it, which I find very fascinating. And there's a lot of nature stuff involved, which, for me, is great. And then I guess I always have one all time favorite book, and I think that book will always be, Are You There, God, It's me, Margaret…Growing up, you just want to be heard and seen. And I feel like that's such a powerful book and the way it still holds up. I think I read it recently as an adult, and I was like, oh, my God, this is still so amazing. And then I do absolutely love to write poetry. I would say that's my favorite genre. I feel like it's very forgiving.
[00:04:20] Elizabeth: I love that you say that and we share that in common. I also love writing poetry, but I never thought of it like that. That it's forgiving, that it lets you really express whatever your truth is in your own way. There's fewer rules. In fact, poetry, you can break the rules.
[00:04:36] Christina: Absolutely.
[00:04:37] Elizabeth: So I also wanted to ask you. I'm going to have you read a beautiful, powerful, incredible piece that you wrote, actually, just last month in our women's class. But first, I wanted to ask you if you remember, because we always start this with our young writers, too, an anecdote from when you were younger. It could be childhood, adolescence, 20s, whatever, that you just remember first really realizing how much you loved writing.
[00:05:08] Christina: Writing has always been something I've done. It's kind of been like a private entity, a solo mission. But in 2018, I went back to school, and because I hadn't gone to school in decades, I had been doing. A totally different life. I had to start at the very beginning of school. So I was like, okay, these are words. This is how you make a sentence. And I had this amazing professor, Dr. Ott, at Los Positas College, and he made us write a personal narrative. And I wrote something that I took kind of what I had been in my previous life, so to speak, as a hairstylist, and what that was like, and then what it would be like in this new life. And he had so much good feedback. It really made me feel comfortable because we had to share it, or he shared it. And he encouraged me to submit it to. They have a literary mag. It didn't make it, but that's okay.
[00:06:34] Elizabeth: That's amazing. So what I'm hearing you say is that it was not just the experience of writing, but the experience of having it read and appreciated by somebody who got it—instead of usually most people, we get criticized when we share.
[00:06:50] Christina: No, he was really great, actually. He did some editing and gave me some feedback and offered some suggestions on how to make it more powerful. And when you have somebody take an interest in helping you with your writing, especially if you don't have a very good grasp on how to do it, and it just makes it that much more encouraging to keep going.
[00:07:22] Elizabeth: I think it's so powerful. And this is, of course, why The Intuitive Writing Project exists and why I needed this program when I was younger, when I didn't have it, is we need to be mirrored. We need to be heard and mirrored and have our words reflected back to us by people who care enough about them to. Like you said, he gave you good feedback. He had great suggestions. Like he cared enough to help you develop it further, which that in itself validates that your words matter. It's so important. I think you and I are similar. That writing was very solitary and still is a little bit for myself for most of my life. I just did it for me to keep me sane. But if you only write by yourself and you don't share it, you don't really know. You don't have a good handle on whether or not it's great. Most of my life, I've written just for myself to get through things, and it's definitely been necessary and essential for my sanity and my survival. But I never believed I was a writer, even. It was just this thing I did. And I certainly did not think I was a great writer. And I think you can't really understand the beauty of your words until you share them and somebody else mirrors back. Oh, my gosh, that's beautiful. We need to be witnessed.
[00:08:44] Christina: Yes.
[00:08:45] Elizabeth: So thank you for being brave. And you're always brave in what you write. And this piece, I think it's going to resonate to a lot of women. Definitely. When I heard it, I wanted to just stand up and cheer the whole way through. It's so empowering. So I'm going to have you read. I love the title of this piece, Womanifesto. It's manifesto. But wo in the front, like, whoa, how do you say it?
[00:09:16] Christina: Woman. Womanifesto.
[00:09:19] Elizabeth: Womanifesto. Okay. I love it. If you would honor us by reading your piece.
[00:09:28] Christina: It’s time has some weight to it. In movies, there's always a pregnant woman uttering those words as a man runs around with a suitcase its time can mean so much more if we remove motherhood from the equation. As my kids need less of my time, I am left with too much freedom, which I am unsure what to do with. So maybe it's time to take off the masks and hats you wear to be accepted in this world. It's time to peel off the layers of armor you have donned to protect yourself from cruel intentions. It's time to remove the cloak of invisibility you have buried yourself under to prevent eyes from catching any bits of you. It's time to open your heart to the affection that is aching to be accepted by you. It's time to be content with the wrinkles and creases that line your face. It's time to wear the lipstick you bought, yet continue to wipe off your lips. It's time to embrace the curves of your body and drape it in the rich textures you have waiting in your closet. It's time to tell people how you feel and not expect anything in return. It's time to embrace trust and compassion for how far you have come. It's time to walk with your shoulders back and your head up. It's time to dance. Whenever a song moves you, it's time to listen to the little girl inside who wants to write her name in the sand and make flower crowns. It's time to be grateful for the gifts you have received and return the ones you are done with.It's time to burn the candles and do the spells. It's time to seek out your guides and get into the business of magic. It's time to stop wasting the days and nights with inner turmoil and self-inflicted fights. It's time to slip out of the dark and get into the light. It is the least you could do. It is time.
[00:11:30] Elizabeth: That is such a magnificent poem. I love listening to you hear it. I've reread it many times by myself and every time I'm so excited. But hearing you say it is the most powerful part. This is an anthem, it feels like. And I love how the writer. Well, first of all, the repetition of “its time” is always powerful in poetry. When you have that, there's a word for that. When you repeat a word at the beginning over and over. Can't remember. It starts with an a. But anyway, what is it?
[00:12:06] Christina: Asonance.
[00:12:07] Elizabeth: I think that might be it.
[00:12:09] Christina: I think so.I can't remember.
[00:12:11] Elizabeth: This is the beauty of, the beauty of poetry is you don't have to know the names for things, you just do them. The repetition is exquisite, but what happens that I think is so powerful in this piece is that the writer takes us deeper into their own transformation. It starts at, I mean, the very first piece, the very beginning of it is funny because it's playing off of our society's general, generic reaction to that phrase. A pregnant woman saying, “it's time,” and a ferhoodled husband running around with a suitcase. And then it goes deeper and deeper and deeper from there. And I think it's interesting how the writer talks about their own children have grown up. And so when you're able to just start going deeper as a woman into your own experience, that's the magic of this piece. Time to take off the masks and the hats. I think that was interesting because we hear masks, but hats is interesting. Different way of talking about all of our layers of armor that we've done to protect ourselves. I also love, because I personally relate to this, the line about removing the cloak of invisibility you have buried yourself under. So relevant. I think a lot of women, we do this because it feels safer.
And then as we go down, the writer brings up all of the ideas of society about that we're not supposed to age, and we're also not supposed to be seen. Like, embracing and being content with our wrinkles increases. And also wearing the lipstick you bought yet continued to wipe off your lips. I remember when you first read that, it made me laugh out loud, because I do that. I've never talked about this with anyone else, but it was like feeling so seen. When I read this line, I was like, the writer understands me.
It's part of that invisibility cloak idea that it's like, oh, I love red, and I'll buy red. And then I'm afraid for anyone to see me wearing red lipstick. So relevant. And then we get deeper and deeper, embracing trust and compassion for yourself.
Dancing when a song moves you. This one I love, especially to make time to listen to the little girl inside who wants to write her name in the sand and make flower crowns. I love that so much. And then, of course, we've talked about this before, but I love the end, the last few lines about reclaiming our magic. And I really feel like this is what is sort of happening, not just individually, but collectively for women right now, is we're reclaiming our magic. And magic is one of my favorite words, but it has so many different layers of meaning. The way I heard it described recently is magic is when you just understand that you have creative power and you consciously use it. And I feel like that's what this writer is talking about their creative power to stop wasting the days and nights with inner turmoil. And I love this phrase, self-inflicted fights. Oh, that's such a great line. And then the very last two lines, “it's time to slip out of the dark and get into the light. It is the least you could do. It is time.”
I love this piece so much. I want this to be on my wall. I feel like we need to turn it into a poster. I know I've said this before, but it reminds me of that very famous poem that I think it was… I’ve got to look up when it came out. I feel like it was sometime in the 90s. There's that famous poem, “I shall wear purple.” The poem is called Warning and it's by Jenny Joseph. Anyway, it was very famous and very beloved. And I feel like this piece has that same kind of timeless, universally appealing, universally resonant quality to it. So I hope that after this podcast, everyone is going to read your piece and we need to start making material, putting it in cards and posters so people can buy it.
It really speaks to, of course, those of us at a certain age, but I think any woman at any age can relate to this. So I wanted to ask you, when we started out, I know we always, in our classes, I always bring in some kind of inspirational quote or poem, and then we have suggestions of what we call them prompts. If you want to use one of these ideas to get started, that's great, but we always say write whatever comes up. So I was going to ask you about your creative process with this piece. Did you have a clear sense before you started that this is where you were going? Just tell us about how it started. And then what point where you kind of, something else kicked in. You obviously stepped into the flow of the meaning and it just poured out of you. So tell us about that.
[00:17:32] Christina: Yeah, it's weird. I don't know if it's because I know on these days I'm going to be asked to be creative.It's already on the calendar. Today is going to be a day for writing. So I don't know if just having that booked in my mind as that really helps to kind of get “my spidey senses” up in a sense, I'm not sure, but whenever we look at the prompts, it's almost like instinctual. That is what I'll be writing about or utilizing. And then there's that moment where I'm like, am I sure? And then it's like, oh no, this is happening.We go dark for 30 minutes and I just start writing. It just kind of blows out. I wouldn't say that there's any processing or preparing, except for that I know on Thursday I'm going to write.
[00:18:50] Elizabeth: That's interesting. That's interesting. So what I'm hearing when you say that, which I have never heard anyone else say this before, but I feel like I have the same experience: It's your intuition, your higher self, your subconscious, unconscious self, has been primed by you telling it, “okay, at this time, we're going to be writing.” And so I always talk about how intuition does this, that you have asked yourself a question, or you're riddling over something, and then I say, you let it go and your intuition is going to just go to work and start trying to solve it. So it feels like your intuition. As soon as you say, “we're going to write this evening,” your intuition starts, the wheels start turning and they're like, “oh, all the things that we can process” so that when you sit down, the pump has been primed and you can just sort of like open the faucet.
[00:19:45] Christina: Yeah, I love that.
[00:19:48] Elizabeth: And I think that happens for me as well, with writing. And I also notice it happens when I know I have a therapy appointment coming up. My unconscious starts processing the thing that I want us process so we can be very focused.
[00:20:02] Christina: Right.
[00:20:03] Elizabeth: Our intuition is so brilliant. And I think what you just said and what you have written, and you always write, you embody intuitive writing.
[00:20:14] Christina: It just feels right.
[00:20:16] Elizabeth: Right. And it's your own wisdom. That's the other thing. I always am amazed by this. Before you wrote this, I'm sure you had some level of awareness of all these things, but you didn't have the tapestry completed out in the world until you wrote it. It was inside of you, but it was latent. And then when you wrote, it becomes tangible, real, shareable. It can change people once you put it on paper. And that's like, oh, my God, what if you hadn't written it? It wouldn't exist.
[00:20:52] Christina: Right?
[00:20:53] Elizabeth: It's so interesting. I feel like that's what writing is. It's absolutely making magic. And we've talked about this before, but many people say this, there's so many memes about this now, but words are spells. Funnily enough, I always thought that was ironic, that I can't spell. I'm a terrible speller but it's spell casting… because when I hear this piece, I am transformed in how I think about myself and how I think about the world. It's so uplifting. It makes me want to embrace my life, to embrace my magic, to live. I think that's the feeling of this piece. It's like “carpe diem.” It makes a woman want to claim her magic and her life. That's absolute spell-making, to be able to write something that changes these words. We talk about this, talk about this with the girls all the time.
How weird is it that language is just weird sounds and lines and shapes that we string together and they have meaning, meaning that we've all agreed on. We all agree that the tree is tree, and we all know what tree looks like. We all have this. It's just a symbol system, and it's totally abstract. If you say the same word over and over, it sounds like goobly-goop. But because we've agreed to this simple system, we're able to transmute symbolic ideas that absolutely change other people's lives. That's amazing. And that's what you've done.
So I wanted to ask you about your writing process, because we talk about this all the time. Writing is hard. But the hardest part, it's not writing. I think it's that sitting down and letting yourself bring things up, trusting that there's going to be something there. Sometimes it feels like I've been writing for my whole life, and I still sit down sometimes to write and think I have nothing more to say, that I'm empty, which is never true. I've always got a million ideas, but it feels sometimes like there's nothing left. The cup has been drained. So I wanted to ask you about first, where do you look for inspiration? Not just in our class, but anytime you sit down to write, looking at the blank page, which is always the most daunting thing, how do you get started if you kind of feel blank or stuck or you don't particularly have an idea yet, what gets you over that hump to get started?
[00:23:38] Christina: So there's a couple of things I do. I always listen to music. Spotify is great because they have a million playlists for writing. So listen to one of those. And then sometimes if I'm stuck, I'll think about a word, like just a word that I would like to integrate into writing. And then that usually will jog something. Sometimes, if it's just not happening, I will abort the mission and go walk outside, get into nature. And I usually use no headphones and really try to absorb what is happening around me. I will bring my phone because often I will find myself getting some sort of download of information or ideas and I will voice note them to myself. Because I know, and I'm sure a lot of people have this problem, if I don't record it, it's gone forever… I do find myself waking up in the middle of the night to either click away on a keyboard or jot something down and don't force it. I'm not really into forcing the work to come.
That's why I kind of don't really have, like, at such and such time I have to sit down and do this.
It's usually something that I do every day, but I don't make it a point in having it at a specific time. I love that I could wake up in the morning and fill something really deep and write 2000 words. It hits you when it hits you. And the creative process is a process. I'm also a firm believer in: you write something, you walk away, you come back to it. I like to give it 24 hours and then reread it and see, is this really what I want to put out there into the world. And I feel like that helps. And also reading it, reading it out loud is very helpful. We all go through that point where it's like, okay, what's going on in my throat? Is it going to fail me? My eyes are getting weird. Am I not supposed to read this? And then it's like, okay, take a breath. Here we go. And a lot of what I write usually has some sort of connection to me. It's like something that's coming from deep within, and there's an emotional connection there. And having that emotional connection to something that you create makes it really hard to share. But in the space that you have provided in these groups, I feel like every time I share, it's a safe place. And so I would assume that having people to share with or to write with that you feel comfortable is very helpful.
I've taken creative writing classes, and there's like 25 people in a class. And that can be extremely scary and isolating and maybe not the greatest feeling, but when you're in a space where you feel comfortable with the people you're writing with, it feels right. And you have to trust yourself. There is a great deal of trust in what you put together that other people would want to hear it.
[00:28:15] Elizabeth: Yeah. I love how you're, again, such an embodiment of intuitive writing. So at the very beginning, you talked about the whole thing is being open to the process. But I love how when you're inside, it's listening to music, which puts you into a different space. I so agree. Music puts you into a different kind of mindset, altered reality. But when you're outside in nature, you don't need music because then you're in that magical reality. And I totally resonate to that idea of a phrase, a line, an idea pops into your head when you're not thinking about it, when you're hiking in nature, when you're leaning against a tree or something. And these ideas, if you don't write them down, they'll be lost. And also they'll be maybe lost to you, but somebody else might get them and be the one who's meant to write them down. I love this idea that ideas and stories are sort of in the air and each of us are really destined to write. Certain ones of certain stories are ours to write, and if we don't write them, it's okay because somebody else will write them. It's like this beautiful buffet of creativity all around us, and we just pull things down from the cosmos.
But I love how it's just letting it come and not forcing it. That's, I think, the biggest thing. And that's where I feel like English class does the greatest disservice, especially when we're young. I see that so many times with young writers where they feel like they can't write or they're bad writers because they weren't able to just writing in school, you have to push and force and fight to get the words on the page. It's the opposite of intuitive. And then people criticize you and tell you all these things you've done wrong, whereas this is letting things come in their own time. And I like how you said sometimes you walk away from it 24 hours and come back and see if it still feels like something that you want to share. Because would you say, here's a question for you, when you give yourself that 24 hours, that most of the time it still holds up? Or are there things that you come back to and you're like, oh, no, I'm not going to share that one.
[00:30:32] Christina: I think it's kind of a mixed bag. I think sometimes the idea or the concept of whatever the piece is will hold up, but there's something that needs to be tweaked. Or changed. And then, like I said, with poetry, it's very forgiving. So you can take something that you may start at the same, but it goes in a completely different direction.I feel like you can always use your own writing as a source of inspiration. You can go back if you're stuck, go back and edit something that you've done. Maybe there's something that you can change to make it better, or you find something new about it and it sparks a different idea. So I feel like, yeah, going back, there's always merits to it.Even if you don't use it, you're still using it.
[00:31:38] Elizabeth: You're still using it even if you don't use it. I love that. And I do find that for myself, my first draft is never the thing that I am able to share with people. And our young people are, I mean, I think partly because they've gotten so skilled and they have less baggage around creativity, they're able to generate these first drafts that are publishable. I mean, a lot of times they don't even have to tweak their first drafts. They're so pure. For myself, the first draft, when I go back, I feel like I'm carving with clay or something. “Actually, we don't need this sentence. This word could be replaced with this word.” There's like a sculpting quality to poetry that seems to take a long time for me. I have to keep working it. But that first version is, what is the foundation? You have to have the first version. Like you said, you're using it even if you're not using it.
I also wanted to ask you, and this can be our big final question, and this is advice to anyone of any age who loves writing, but feels like, I don't know, they're just blocking themselves through self-doubt in terms of not being afraid to start or thinking that they can't, or whatever. We all have so many fears around writing. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
[00:33:07] Christina: I feel like writing, you're never going to be successful at it if you're doing it for the wrong reasons. So having an intention is really important.I find that having a reason why. What is the point of doing this? I'm currently working on a couple of different projects, and it's taken me a lot of time to kind of really fine tune and narrow it down because, yeah. Oh, I want to write a book. Okay, well, that's a huge undertaking. Why? What? So I think having intention and for anybody who wants to just start writing, do it for five minutes.I love that it's an exercise. You're not going to sit down the first time you do it and do it for hours. That's not realistic.
I say, personally, if you're new to it, get a new notebook. Brand new, never doesn't have any other notes pages. It's just dedicated for writing. And a pen in a color that makes you happy and go somewhere other than where you're comfortable. Step out of your comfort zone.
I love to take writing on the road, so I will go to a different location. Anywhere near the beach or water is always fabulous. I get a cup of coffee and I sit there and I write. Another thing you could do is something that I did recently was I went to Chinatown and I got a bag of fortune cookies. And every day I used the fortune as a writing prompt.
[00:35:09] Elizabeth: Oh, my.
[00:35:13] Christina: Great fortune cookies are very anecdotal. It can be really good and helpful because it can boost your self-esteem and your confidence. So there's just a lot of different things. And the other thing is, don't take it so seriously. It's designed to be if you go into it thinking this is just for me and no one else is going to hear it or see it, it might take some of that scariness away. But just know that if you can get it out of you and onto paper, it doesn't have to live inside you anymore and it frees you up for new and more exciting things to come through.
[00:35:58] Elizabeth: That is so inspiring and so beautifully said. We're going to have a transcript of this so people can read your words as well as listen to them. But I couldn't say it better than what you just said. I think it's just like making it pleasurable, making it comfortable, taking all the anxiety away, like, you don't have to share it with anyone else. It's just for you. And sit someplace beautiful and drink something yummy and have a beautiful notebook and a beautiful pen. I love the sensory aspects of this, which we all know, like the best writing includes sensory details. So you should be in a sensorially pleasurable setting, which is, of course, that helps get you out of the when you're writing for work, you're sitting at a computer. When you're writing in school, you're sitting at a desk. So we're talking about intuitive writing is someplace comfortable and lovely and relaxing, and there's no expectation. I love that.
It has been truly an honor and a joy to talk with you about your writing. Christina, I feel like we're going to be seeing a lot more of you out in the world because I have no doubt you have many books that are going to be coming out in the next few years, and I'm here for all of them. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I hope everyone has been so inspired.
[00:37:24] Christina: Always lovely, Elizabeth, thank you so much.
[00:37:27] Elizabeth: Thank you.
