The relationship between a writer and his or her editor is a marriage that takes commitment, creativity, trust, care and honesty. One of the most profound and volatile relationships between writer and editor was between the Maxwell Perkins and the mercurial author, Thomas Wolfe. After working as a reporter for The New York Times, Maxwell Perkins joined the publishing house of Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1910. Perkins wished to publish younger writers. Unlike most editors, he actively sought out promising new artists; he made his first big find in 1919 when he signed F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its publication as This Side of Paradise (1920) marked the arrival of a new literary generation that would always be associated with Perkins. Fitzgerald’s profligacy and alcoholism strained his relationship with Perkins. Nonetheless, Perkins remained Fitzgerald’s friend to the end of Fitzgerald’s short life, in addition to his editorial relationship with the author, particularly evidenced in The Great Gatsby (1925), which benefited substantially from Perkins’ criticism.

It was through Fitzgerald that Perkins met Ernest Hemingway, publishing his first major novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926. Perkins fought for it over objections to Hemingway’s profanity raised by traditionalists in the firm. The commercial success of Hemingway’s next novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), which topped the best-seller list, silenced colleagues’ questions about Perkins’ editorial judgment.

The greatest professional challenge Perkins faced was posed by Thomas Wolfe‘s lack of artistic self-discipline. Wolfe wrote voluminously and was greatly attached to each sentence he wrote. After a tremendous struggle, Perkins induced Wolfe to cut 90,000 words from his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929). His next, Of Time and the River (1935), was the result of a two-year battle during which Wolfe kept writing more and more pages in the face of an ultimately victorious effort by Perkins to hold the line on size. At first grateful to Perkins for discovering and mentoring him, Wolfe later came to resent the popular perception that he owed his success to his editor. Wolfe left Scribner’s after numerous fights with Perkins. Despite this, Perkins served as Wolfe’s literary executor after his early death in 1938 and was considered by Wolfe to be his closest friend.

In the movie, Genius, which shines light on the relationship between Perkins and Wolfe, there is a small exchange between this bonded twosome that sheds light on a universal theme for writers. As in the life of all great writers, beginning writers or hopeful writers, we circulate a thought over and over again:  What if I am trivial?  What if, as the world burns down around us each day, while I labor at my typewriter, in my journals or on scraps of paper, what if what I do is inconsequential?

The story is never inconsequential. It has been that way for all storytellers from the moment we sat around fires, huddled in the dark, listening to the wolves outside the firelight, and one man begins to tell a story, simply so we are not so afraid of the dark.  What if one story is someone’s needed light?  What if your story is in fact just exactly what the world needs now?

An Editor is the most intimate relationship we can have as a writer.  The level of trust, sensitivity and ruthless honesty in this relationship has made or broken many a writer.  And a bad editor can pull the plug on passion, disrespect the author’s keen talent in the service of grammar or spelling, or hold you up and make your work even better, helping you hone your story, and ultimately yourself.

A good editor is a marriage partner and knows how you think, how you are moved, where your strengths and weaknesses are and makes you better, stronger and more publishable, even when you lose faith in yourself.

 The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.  Pablo Picasso

Ok, now that I have your attention I am going to launch out into the world of channeling. Maybe I will simply, first, debunk what is now such a common term that it is entirely misunderstood.  And before you say to yourself, “this is not relevant to me as a writer or even a person”  please keep reading.

For a hundred years or so the idea of channeling was associated with mediums who heard information from the dead. Our world was made better by people like Edgar Cayce, who was a groundbreaker and healer. Then thirty years ago people like Darryl Anka and Esther Hicks came on the scene and rocked the world with messages for interstellar beings and trans-dimensional beings. People all over the world now post greetings and information from aliens, angels, and even their version of God, as in Neale Donald Walsh. These “voices” are all talking through the individual and about the shift in human consciousness.

But, this is a rich a fertile discussion that I will not be having here. What I am talking about in this post is the link or the channel between our minds and our high self, our essential self. Shifting from thinking to feeling and realizing that feelings are the palette you create from is key to writing that is only good to writing that is timeless. And without that communication line open and flowing, a writer has a pretty tough time tapping into his or her muse. The mind is a steel vice to pure creativity. The heart is the bridge and the road to all-knowing, to endless creativity and to the world of feelings.

A work of art, which did not begin in emotion, is not art.
Paul Cezanne

Let’s rethink this idea of channeling. I think the best illustration is that if we can understand that as humans we vibrate at a certain frequency when we think, a different frequency when we are in love and yet another frequency when we are meditating, then we have choices about where we dial into ourselves.

Like an old-fashioned radio we have many channels that we can tune into within our own being.   We can choose lower frequencies, which are mind centered, about over thinking and worry, comparing and jealousy, mental agitation, over planning and over editing our stories as writers. But not one writer would say that these lower vibrational states makes writing good or even fun. It is a give away that we are in our solution based, over working mind if we have any of the following experiences when we write: Self-criticism, doubt, over-thinking our story, going back over and over to read the paragraph we just crafted, worry about edits, boredom. Oh, I can write a whole post on either boredom or getting up to do the laundry, the cat box, or needing a nap.

And here I am not referring to needed timelines, outlines, editing or the blooming second, third or tenth draft requirements once you get your story down. These are places where our left-brain is a mastermind. I am talking about the creative process that leaves a mark on what you write that lingers with the world. I am talking about tapping into the voice that is your true voice as a writer.

We can change the channel to a heart centered one, to an open flow of intuition, instinctive writing, allowing the characters to write themselves, the story to unfold and all we have to do is navigate the weather that higher vibrational frequencies offer us in the creation of art and story.

So, unlike the medium or the channelers of Angels like Doreen Virtue, of Abraham an entity group of souls who speak through Esther Hicks, or the entity called Michael who have been guiding me for thirty years through my friend Mary Jonaitis, we can channel our high self, our deepest knowing every minute of every day. We can each cultivate the skill of changing channels, thus changing vibrational frequency to allow the floodgates to the Universe to open to us as writers.

And just like a radio, when you change the channel to a new program the other programs are still there, still broadcasting, still entertaining other people in the world tuned to that channel. We are simply choosing to shift the channel out of the mind and the lower vibrational realms of the mind and elevate our frequency to the other voices in us that are there all the time: Intuition, Spirit, Past Lives, Inner Child, Spirit Guides and the Source of who we are. When we allow this shift to occur as a writer…well the story will write you so hang on to your hat.

And of course in the culture that is addicted to the “10 steps to our higher self” or the “4 keys to channeling”, there is no hard and fast answer to how to shift into a state of higher vibration and channel the innate knowledge and abilities that are part of who your are. Each of us has to come to the place of discovering what it takes for you to make the leap out of the mind as a writer to cultivating a heart frequency that will allow you to journey anywhere and hear many voices. Here are my three favorite practices in my life that reboots my creative juice.   These will help you find your own process of changing the channel as a writer.

Meditate – For twenty minutes before you sit to write, meditate. I don’t mean empty your mind I mean calm it down. Shift from left-brain planning to simply focusing on things you love. You can walk, garden, meditate in the shower for that matter. But make a conscious shift from the solution oriented brain energy to the love in you. Think of what you are grateful for, for the animals who protect you, the children that you either have or want and anything that stimulates your heart. Create your own spiritual practice to unleash the amazing writer in you.

Music – I posted about Beethoven last week and that 30 min loop of C sharp music will activate the right brain and the heart. But you have favorite music that puts you in a great mood, makes you want to dance, brings you to tears and fills you with joy. Joy is the love frequency, so crank up the music and dance. Then light a candle, say a prayer, pour a cup of tea and write.

Automatic Writing – This form of writing, which I will do an entire post on, is where you allow yourself to write about anything and everything and don’t stop to read, punctuate, edit. In fact you don’t stop at all.  Start with a question like: “How am I today” or “Where does my heart want to go in this next chapter I am writing?” Then let it rip. Don’t stop, allow the muses to do the work for you. You will be astonished at what your muse, your higher self, tells you if you only listen to the voice.

Ok, these are my top three favorite ways to start my day even if I am not facing a five-hour stent at the computer, a deadline or being seized by inspiration to write to you about channeling. We have a dozen channels to tune to in our life and most of us know two of them, maybe. Explore and find out how vast you are and how much support is in your inner realms for your writing.

This past year has been a remarkable year as a Ghostwriter and Writing Coach.    Two books I ghostwrote for have been picked up by both publishers and the film industry.  So I have branched out in my offerings and have started to represent authors as a literary agent and help to get the book in the hands of the right publisher.

The industry for writers has changed in an unparalleled way in just one year.   Mainstream publishers are nearly impossible to query with your book or writing, freelance writers are priced out by non-english speaking countries who charge 75% less than the states, and vanity press and self publishing options are dominating the market of publishing.  So in the next few weeks I am going to address how each of these changes affect you as a writer, as a freelancer, storyteller, screenwriter or editor.

“Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.” -Nicholas Sparks

I am always re-inventing myself, even against my will so many times. The adventure of life is so full of every possibility and for me, taking the risk of exploring everything I can in life, leads to all emotions: Love, heartbreak, fear, bliss, creativity and inspiration. This is the well from which all my writing emerges. Surrender to how the flow of life leads me is in fact my spiritual practice. And for these last few months I have been from Costa Rica to Alaska, jumping headlong into love, marriage, challenge, long days of 24 hours of Alaskan sun, learning more about commitment and devotion than I thought I already knew. And from this white water rapid life I have chosen I have found myself writing in the middle of the night as the sun blazes at 3am.

So, I am now back on Mythotherapy and re-inventing how I want to contribute to this site as a writer and a woman on the move in life and as a writing coach, unabashed lover of words, true believer in story and out here to help you put your life to words.

Please give me feedback as I creatively unfold this page on what speaks to you and what does not. There are tens of thousands of sites for writers, wanna-be writers,”afraid of words” writers and people who dream of writing for their lives out there and I would love this one to be one of your regular stops.

Blessings, Maya