On Saturday, I’ll have the pleasure of participating in the Hockessin Book Shelf’s Local Author Showcase. I will be signing copies of Into The Woods, the charity anthology compiled by the Mindful Writers Retreat Authors.
I’ll also be happy to chat about mindfulness and how it has benefited me as a writer and as a human being.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the practice of living with awareness. Mindful living means that, rather than channel surfing through your day, you live each day with purpose, even the mundane of days of work or rote activities. Mindfulness means you pay attention to the world around you, whether it’s your home office or a place you have never seen before. Mindfulness means raising your head and looking around at the world and all of its colors, smells, sounds, and sensations as you journey through it.
From a physical perspective, mindfulness encourages familiarity with your body and acceptance of its quirks and wonders. A mindful person learns to breathe one breath at a time and to recognize that each new breath brings fresh energy to the body. A person breathes 12 to 16 times per minute. Shouldn’t you pay attention to something you do so often?
Mindfulness might mean learning the practice and benefits of meditation. There is nothing tricky or hard about meditating. One way to meditate is to listen to a guide’s voice as it takes you on an imaginary journey through a wood or along the ocean, or through the energy points of your own body. Another way to meditate is to sit, be still, and notice the silence around you and in your mind. Silence allows your mind to empty so it can become free and calm. A free mind is open to self-exploration and new external ideas. A calm mind makes it easier to find focus.
Mindfulness might mean learning a mantra—a comforting word or phrase—to repeat over and over during a meditation session or during times of stress. The repetition of a comforting phrase helps re-focus your energies to where they can be relaxing, rewarding, or healing.
How does Mindfulness help writers?
A calm and free mind is open to creativity. A routine of meditating for a few minutes followed by a writing session allows you to write when you are relaxed in body and focused in mind. A daily habit of meditation followed by writing means you will be more productive.
Each fresh breath you take with mindful intent brings new energy to your mind, your body, and your writing. Fresh energy brings clarity that you can apply to investigating new story ideas or tinkering with current ones.
Questions? Stop in at the Hockessin Book Shelf and let’s chat!
In every career, there is a project or a contact or a conference that is a game changer. For me, a professional boost came in 2010, with the offer to edit the first Guppy anthology. 
A few days ago, I wrote a year in review post. I listed my 2016 accomplishments (Masters Fellowship in Fiction!), raved over writing retreats (all 6 of them!), and boasted about organizing a literary reading series that placed poets and prose writers in historical sites (5 venues and 22 artists—argh!)
I intended this to be a 2-part series, but after I began answering questions, I saw the need for three parts. Today is a history and culture lesson. On Wednesday, a lexicon of Louisiana and Cajun French phrases and words.
Ramona DeFelice Long 