SLANT LETTER: A Writer's Practice of Paying Attention

Some life + writing prompts for autumn

You’re reading SLANT LETTER, a monthly letter designed for writers like you looking to deepen your craft and practice soul care in the creative life. Subscribe to get it straight from this editor’s desk to your inbox, plus my free guide to crafting your unique writing angle. Also writing on Instagram.

Oh hi! I was in your inbox earlier this week, and while SLANT LETTER is usually on tap monthly, I wanted to share with you this impromptu reflection on the practice of paying attention.

Yesterday was the autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, the midway point between the longest day of the year (summer solstice) and the longest night of the year (winter solstice), when day and night are equal in measure. And so it is autumn. And the light begins its tenebrae of the sky, every evening dimming deeper into the long night of the winter solstice. 

This interests me as a metaphor because I am interested in paying attention to patterns, organic rhythms, and any wisdom that might be wrested from the natural world. And it interests me because I think of writing as the constant conversation between the particular and the cosmic.

One of the signatures of great writing is its ability to get as nitty-gritty detailed as the unrepeatable particulars of your life and mine, and as wide as the shared story of the universe itself. Particle to universe: isn’t that the journey?

And this interests me because I am ever intrigued by the parallels of the writing life and the spiritual life, one of which, of course, is the practice of paying attention. 

The turning of the seasons is perhaps a good time to do just that. So I thought we might explore one such practice of paying attention today. Maybe these are writing prompts for you, maybe they’re more life prompts, or prayer prompts, or all at once—you can decide. 

The Examen is a prayer practice emerging from the Ignatian tradition; it is simply structured with the heart of experiencing the presence of God in daily life. As such, it is traditionally an evening prayer, or perhaps we might also turn to it as we come to the close of a season and upon the threshold of another. 

This article “Rummaging for God,” by Jesuit priest Dennis Hamm, offers a lovely and accessible vision of this practice. In short, I find it to be a profound practice of paying attention, and am walking through my own autumn examen I thought I might also share with you. 

Welcome the presence of Love with you: 

No fanciness needed here. I like Anne Lamott’s, “Hi, God,” or Pádraig ó Tuama, “I greet God in my own disorder. I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble…” I also like, borrowing from Hagar’s ancient and radical prayer, “You are the God who sees me.”

Review the day, or perhaps the season:

June, July, August, and now September—they each tell a story. “Open the book of what happened” and honor what you find there. Maybe your summer, like mine, held both darkness and light, like the equinox itself. Maybe it held tiny victories or tiny frustrations, banner days or papercut griefs, hard edges or soft places to land. Whatever has happened, it is worthy of witness, and that is what Love always does.

Listen to the emotions that arise in your remembering:

Joy, uncertainty, pain, hope, fear—it is worthy of witness. 

Choose an emotion and pray from it:

Or write from it. Or both, as writing can be a prayer of its own. I like to think of our emotions as a heat map: if you were to overlay a heat map over your life right now, where would it go red? Where would it light up with joy, peace, or pain? What’s there, in that inner volcanic ring, that charge, if you were to say it? Can you feel safety in this moment to say it now? 

And finally, look to tomorrow, the coming season, and welcome God to walk with you into the new:

What does fall this year feel like for you? Maybe for you there is glamor in the green turning to gold; transfiguration. Or maybe there is only loss in the leaves’ letting go. Maybe the fresh wind is stirring a new thing, or maybe it’s stirring up old pain.

There’s no one way to live a season; there’s no one way to see a metaphor. You don’t have to let anyone tell you what falls means for you. It’s also true you that you don’t have to brave it alone. 

I’m not sending my usual prayer today to close out this letter, because, well, this is the prayer! Maybe one to bring into your weekend with a notebook, and see what you discover.

Until next time,

Take heart. Write on. You got this.

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