1.7 : How Can I Be in Community When I Write?

Transcript

Welcome to the Immovable Wisdom Writing Podcast. I'm Karen A. Parker, a Black, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent Buddhist layperson who's certified in fiction book coaching and holds an MFA in creative writing. On this podcast, I’ll be talking about how BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ fiction writers can build sustainable, decolonial, dharmic writing practice while navigating the predominantly white, cis-hetero publishing industry. And if you don't identify as either BIPOC or QUILTBAG+, but you wanna support underrepresented writers, don't worry. This podcast is for you, too. Make sure you subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Thanks for tuning in, and let's get into it.

How's it going, y'all? Welcome back to the Immovable Wisdom Writing Podcast. I am your host, Karen A. Parker, a Black, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent Buddhist layperson, as of this recording. 

And last episode, we talked about creativity and why creativity is important when being a writer. I mean, duh! But not the creativity that would elicit said duh from your mind or from your mouth. 

The creativity I am talking about here is the creativity of anicca, which allows you to understand that nothing is really permanent, that we don't have an unchanging soul, or that we don't have an unchanging self. And in the face of colonialism and systemic oppression, which wants you to be rigid and permanent and unchanging all the time so that you fit into the cogs of the machine that they put you in, that Buddhist philosophical principle is important to keep in mind. 

But this time, we're gonna be talking about community. And as I mentioned last time, or last episode, I am officially a Buddhist layperson. And that has, I feel like, instead of just being a person that meditates, I am now a person that exists within a community both online and offline of Buddhist practitioners, or even Buddhist monastics, if I so choose to engage with that path myself or to interact with other people. And to bring in the actual term that is used in Buddhism, the Pali term being sangha, I'm going to borrow from The Pluralism Project from Harvard University, when they mentioned that “[The] Buddha established the Sangha, which was originally a community of celibate monks and nuns who followed strict discipline and teach the Dharma to fellow Buddhists. Some consider the Sangha to include both monastic and Buddhist laypeople like myself.”

I am NOT a monastic. I'm not recording this from an abbot or a monastery. I think the proper word is a monastery here. But basically, those who follow the Buddha, still quoting from the Pluralism project Here, “Those who follow the Buddha came to be called the Sangha, who are the community of monks (or bhikkhus), and nuns, (bhikkhunis).” And those who became monks and nuns underwent ordination, they shaved their heads, they donned robes, they basically were like, “You know what, fam? You know, all the world is really good, but I don't need that stuff anymore.”

And so they would enter a life of wandering and maybe nomadic life and possibly only settle down in monasteries during the rainy season. And, you know, these monks would take the five precepts. They would, you know, embody the practices in their daily lives. And the relationship between monastic people and lay people is important because it kind of is a, like, not to not to bring in duality here or make it even more simplified that it that it needs to be, but the monastic and lay communities are interdependent. 

So the laity gives, you know, they give food and clothes and shelter to the monks, and then the monks provide, you know, teachings having, you know, stayed in this, this contemplative, like, very, very, you know, spiritual, deeply spiritual environment. And so there's, there's that sense of interdependency. And there's also a sense of merit-making when you when you help out these monastics. And it's all around just a good time. 

I also wanted to talk about, like, Wake Up International’s definition of a sangha. 

And Wake Up International is a, It’s a group that is dedicated to getting non-Buddhists and young Buddhist practitioners between the ages of 18 and 35, you know, using Buddhism to engage, to engage socially and to enact social change. And that was kind of started from Thich Nhat Hanh, who is, who, sorry, who was the Zen master and the founder of the Plum Village lineage. 

And so to quote from Wake Up International, who was quoting from Thich Nhat Hanh, who wrote a book called Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society, Thich Nhat Hanh says in this book that, “It is difficult to make a change alone. In the sangha, there is a powerful collective energy of mindfulness and concentration, it can help us make a breakthrough, it ignites our insight, our practice together of walking, sitting, breathing, eating is very important. When we practice with the sangha, it's easier than practicing alone. Sometimes something may carry us away, but thanks to the collective practice, we can regain our solidity. 

“Even if we're distracted, our sangha can help us remember to come back to the present moment to touch what is positive to touch our own peace to see how to undo the difficulty.”

I honestly, like, just to end the quote there, I need to read more of Thich Nhat Hanh's work, because I really just, I think his, I think his existence was profound. And just the time that he lived in, and the time that he lived through and how he made just the best lemonade out of the best lemons that he was given to him. And also just the the clarity of his language. 

Anyway, I'm totally, this is not a Thich Nhat Hanh fan gushing fest. This is my podcast. 

So what does this all mean for BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ and marginalized and historically underrepresented writers of fiction or nonfiction? What does this, how does this all sort of connect? And I'll tell you how it connects, as I've done in so many other episodes. 

Colonialism doesn't want you to have communities. Colonialism, for so long, has broken up Indigenous communities, forced them to assimilate, has made politeness politics the default among African American communities. And it's, you know, community is like, everyone, everyone kind of like throws around community these days. It's like, “Oh, we need community, we need collective action, we need this, that and the other.” But like, some people don't understand or like, maybe like, people don't really understand like, why it's super important to have community, like they kind of take it for granted. 

And, you know, you've probably heard the saying so many times in so many different forums that writing is a “solitary act”. And yes, the act of writing can be solitary, you can be sitting at your desk or sitting in your cafe with your laptop or your iPad or whatever. And sometimes you do need some solitude to kind of, like, come back to who you are as a writer and to like, the message that you're trying to get across for your writing. 

But writing does not exist in that little hermit cave. Like, your reader is a part of your writing community, your fellow writers are a part of your writing community, as they give you critiques, and they give you support, and they, they, they give you reviews. And, you know, for systemically oppressed storytellers, community is huge. 

Community is like, I know I keep saying all the pillars are important, but all the pillars in the Immovable Wisdom Writing Framework, they kind of mash together in some ways. But community is a big one. Because if you don't have community, then you're just going to be wandering around like a chicken with its head cut off. And you're going to be wandering blind, and you're not going to see those blind spots. And it might take you, it might take you a lot longer to get wherever you were trying to go, than if you had just gone with someone else. I think that like, there's some, there's some African proverb, but I don't, I don't even know if like, it has a source or if it even is an African proverb. But like, if you want to go fast, go together. That's the, that's really the basic idea. 

Because we are not designed as human beings to go through this life alone. On principle, we were not designed to, to have these little nuclear families. Like, that was not the default thousands or hundreds of years ago. We would have villages, and we will be close to our elders, and we will be close to our cousins and close to our neighbors instead of in these, you know, in these, in these houses with nuclear units with the mother, the father and the children. The elders are sent away to, to, like, assisted living facilities and such, like, that's, there's a lot of just separation that, I mean, on a personal level and a political level that's happening, and a lot of it is getting filtered through colonialism. 

And so community, and, you know, what that looks like can be—There is no, I don't want to say there's like a right or wrong way to form your communities, but just having a community is, is important, whether that's, you know, your, your writing buddy, or an Accountabili-buddy, as I like to talk about my list of people that I talk about my writing with, you know, just having someone to talk to and having someone be like, you know, “Am I crazy? Am I not crazy? What am I doing here?" Is this working? Like, it's, I mean, I can't put it much, much clearer than that, y'all. I can't, I really can't. And so it's, it's so, so underestimated.

Like, I mean, just to just to keep going on my rant here, like I, being in Los Angeles, and just, like, trying to make friends in a huge city in general, whether that's Los Angeles, New York, I don't know, Houston, Texas, but like, we have Facebook, and we have all these social media platforms. And we, you know, list people as our friends or followers. But is that really community? Is it really community if I just have you as a list on a, on a server somewhere? Is it? Are you really my friend if I just have your phone number and I never contact you again, years later? Like, the hustle and grind culture of big cities like Los Angeles and, and just Western culture in, in general, and in the writing community in general, we see each other as competition. And we're not seeing each other as, you know, partners in this endeavor or people on the same ship. 

That was another thing that I should have kind of mentioned up front, like, in the writing community, we see other writers as competition. Instead of being in community, we, we see their, like, we're taught to or encouraged to see them as competition, because capitalism encourages us to see fellow writers as competition, like there's not enough pie to go around. 

But what I'm saying is there is enough pie to go around. We have the capacity to make more pie, we have the capacity to educate people, we have the capacity to comfort them when they get a rejection from from a literary agent, or, or something. And like, if you can't, you know, if you're not in a place emotionally to do that, there is no shame in that. But like, I'm, I'm saying to to those that like, you know, “Writing should be a solitary act or writing should be like, we should be alone in our little like pods in our little echo chambers and stuff”? To that I say, “You know what? No, yhat's not, that's not gonna cut it anymore.” 

And so whether you join a writing group at your local school or university, whether you join an organization such as Shut Up and Write!, which I'm a member of, and I've joined a few sessions, and just to like, help myself get some some writing done when I don't feel like doing any writing by myself. And, you know, making your own Discord, whatever that, whatever it looks like, have some people in your corner, and try and talk to those people. 

Like, try and actually talk to those people frequently, because it's one thing to have a Discord server. But it's another thing to have a discord server with a repeating recurring event that people can come to and people can gather and create rituals around. That's powerful. 

And that's, it's sorely needed in the writing space, especially for systemically oppressed storytellers who've had to navigate this, the publishing world and academia and felt isolated or felt like they were the only, the only Black person or the only Latina person or the only whoever person in, in their classes or their communities. Like, we're not there, there is no, we're not the only one anymore. Not in my book. I'm, I'mma find you. If you're listening to this, and you're a BIPOC QUILTBAG+ fiction writer, or speculative fiction writer, I will find you. I will, I will make a community. I will make it happen. 

But yeah, that's, that's it for me. Take care, y'all, and find your people. And do not let them go. 

Thanks for listening to the Immovable Wisdom Writing podcast.

You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at karenaparker.com/podcast. 

Special thanks to Pop Villains for the cool theme titled “The Usual Suspects” and to Amelia Hruby from Softer Sounds. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast via your favorite listening platform. Also, please consider donating to the Captured Phantoms Pay It Forward Scholarship Fund at karenaparker.com/forward. Every donation helps subsidize the cost of coaching and editorial services that I provide for BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ speculative fiction writers.

Anyway, that's it for me y'all. Stay cool out there and keep writing.