Since I was in my twenties, I’ve read the New York Times Sunday edition in a particular order: the style section is first, plus I read the modern love piece every time. I remember reading what Shamu taught me about marriage, and I remember reading, “Those aren’t fighting words, dear.” It didn’t take Laura Munson weeks or even months to write them either. It was less than an hour. Why? Because she had hit the vein of truth and it just poured out of her.
Her dreams of publishing a novel first were dashed because when that piece came out, it was a memoir that she sold. She had created a firestorm with her essay. Laura is someone I have watched for years. Now that I am in the publishing world, Laura and I are one degree from each other in several directions. What I have found in this new world is there are women like Laura who guide, lift, and build other writers up. That is what she does innately.
Her new book, the Wild Why is about honoring your creativity. Creativity is Laura’s core. She has written dozens of books, some that sit on the shelves collecting dust, but she is always creating. This conversation on About Your Mother touches on writing, but it is about so much more. It is about setting yourself free, finding awe, and living your truth. Here is a listen on what it means to honor what lives inside of you.
Cherishing the Fragile and Finer Things
Laura descends from hardy farming people who didn’t have a lot of money, but they still cherished the finer things, like the fine china they passed down through generations. Each piece has a story behind it that’s told every time the family sets the table. For Laura, becoming a storyteller was deeply ingrained in her DNA.
Writing as a Way of Life
Laura says that writing is her practice, her prayer, her meditation, and her way to life. She began writing fiction in 1988, shortly after graduating from college. Her first love was fiction, but it was her memoir that became her most successful publication. Her book deal was born from a Modern Love piece she wrote, “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear”, which is one of the most-read Modern Love pieces of all time.
In her essay, she wrote about finding emotional liberation in a time of rejection. Her words created a firestorm and held a mirror up to the fact that too many people prefer to play the victim instead of examining how their thought patterns influence their lives. From her essay, she got a book deal and became a New York Times bestseller with, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness
Laura never expected that writing about her own life would become so popular, but it has taught her to go with the creative flow. After facing years of rejection, she knows that success and failure are myths. The only real thing is doing the work with all your heart and in a healthy way.
How to Embrace the Work
At her Haven’s Writing Retreats and through her work as an editor, Laura teaches writers to decouple themselves from the idea of the tortured artist. She helps them embrace centering the work, not the accolades that may or may not come with it.
One of her key points is that writing isn’t just about writing; it’s about living in a way that helps you discover what you want to say. Taking an intentional walk, making soup, or playing with a child could be writing.
“It’s not about the words. It’s about what’s behind them, beneath them, and what’s left in their wake. Writers need to find the playful nature of writing and fall in love with the process.”
An important part of the writing process is listening to and trusting your intuition. For that, you need to experience wonder, curiosity, and awe. These are the secret ingredients behind intuition and creativity.
You have to make space for these ingredients. Laura does so by going on mindful walks away from her phone.
The Wild Why: From a Writer’s Retreat to a Book About Writing
Laura’s newest book, The Wild Why, combats the ideas that you’re not creative, you don’t have a voice, and you’re stuck. After speaking on stages in front of thousands of women and hearing these sentiments echoed over and over again, Laura decided to start a writer’s retreat in Montana.
The retreats became a safe place for women to discover their self-expression and explore the power they were giving to their inner critic. Laura has met several writers at the epitome of success, and what she’s realized is that they still don’t feel like they’re enough. She’s felt this way herself, despite her successes.
No accolade or award is ever going to make you feel like enough, so you have to confront the inner critic that’s telling you you aren’t enough in the first place. This is a significant component in Laura’s work with other writers.
Laura wanted to encapsulate the retreat experience into a book, which became The Wild Why. She believes that everything we do is an act of creation, and the root of feeling like you’re “stuck” or don’t have a voice is fear. The book explores how to cultivate introspection and address the thought patterns that are holding you back.
Society is Heavy on Curiosity, But Not on Awe
To cultivate wonder and creativity, you must experience curiosity and awe. Our modern society is characterized by a strong emphasis on curiosity and a lack of awe. The reason for that is that we take our curiosity straight to Google and find immediate answers to our questions.
“To have awe is to stop, observe, behold, and abide. Can you stop and look at a rainbow in utter awe without taking a picture of it to post on the Internet?
Wonder can sound like a silly idea, but without wonder, we don’t have empathy. Without empathy, we don’t have a thriving civilization.”
We haven’t lost our wonder, but we need to uncover it, and it starts with taking more time for curiosity and awe. If your ambition is telling you that you’re not enough, let go of it and start chasing wonder instead. Go slowly and rediscover the playful nature in your work.
Closing based on Jennifer’s closing.
Resources Mentioned
- Gertrude Stein: “There is No There, There”
- The Craighead Brothers
- Kelly Corrigan
- Naomi Shihab Nye
- Jim Harrison
- Brooke Warner
- Brené Brown
- Miami Book Fair
- Dani Shapiro
- Maria Shriver
