Mindful Picture Book Writing by Chitra Soundar

As a writer and with someone who learnt meditation as a child and had forgotten its benefits until recently, re-visiting the basic concepts of mindfulness has been very useful. Especially as a picture book writer – paying attention to the story and words, using a word with intent and not judging our own work critically until it is ready to be judged are all mindful things we do and we can do in our writing practice. 

So what does it mean to be a mindful picture book writer?

a) The first step is always showing up – setting aside a time for the writing and actually showing up. Regardless of the incessant chaos of our lives, we show up to write. 

b) The second step – especially useful for writers – is to be mindful of your own self and the surroundings. Most mindful practices start with mindful breathing. You quietly say In and Out as you breathe in and out deeply. Then observe the surroundings and try and write the five senses about the surroundings – from your noisy keyboard making clickety-clack noises to the smells from the kitchen or how cold or warm you are. What can you see – colourful posters or a bland white wall? Acknowledge all of those mindful observations.

You must wonder how this can help. It helps because the more you do this, the better you get at observing spaces around you and consciously remembering the five senses about those spaces. What can be more useful to writers than training your brain to consciously record details of life to use later in the writing?

c) The third step – is to imagine your characters mindfully in their space. Deliberately allow them to wander in their space. Even if you’re not an illustrator, you might have an idea where your character is at any point in time in the story – consciously wander and add sensory details that you have been accumulating by doing step (b).

It is easy to get distracted – your character might go off to different places, go with the flow. Perhaps the story might be led in a different direction. Or you might get distracted about what to cook for dinner or which book you’re going to read next. When that happens, bring your character back to where they were before your mind wandered off and start again. 

Step (b) and (c) are really hard to do when you actually begin doing them. Start with 1-minute exercises and build up your stamina to do longer durations. 

d) Now when you write your story or rewrite – channel all those experiences your character had with all their senses into the words. Because you travelled with your character into those spaces and felt what they felt, smelt what they smelt and tasted, watched and heard everything, perhaps your verbs will be active, your nouns specific and the emotion strong. 

Picture books especially with a smaller word count are acts of intention. 

You have a specific shape to the story. You have to choose precise words that invoke visuals and emotions in the editor / illustrator’s mind. And when you pay attention and do it with intention, you will slowly start seeing much stronger text on the page. But it is going to take time. Entering this space without judgement is the third aspect of mindfulness. 

Writing is often like the critic and doubter in us trying to wrestle control from our creative energy. As most writing books will say, and I can vouch for it as a writer myself and you can too, there is a place and time for everything. So when you’re writing mindfully, park the critic and doubter outside. Pay attention to the task, do it with intention and without judgement.

Then when you have got your draft on the page, bring the critic in and again pay attention, edit with intention and without judgement. Just because you can’t wrestle a story into shape doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, it means this particular story needs more time – thinking time, imagining time, resting time and maybe rewriting time. If you get judgemental about it, it will cloud your intention of making it better and try to reject the writing.

So, the critic must be mindful as well – they are critiquing the words, not you the person. They are doing it with intention – this morning they are only critique structure, maybe a few days later, the critic can return to review just the words. Put intention into your edits. 

And you will end up repeating this process of mindful writing and mindful editing over and over again for the same story. But as you keep practicing the mindful way, perhaps you might not need that many rounds. 

I first combined meditation and writing in 2010 when I went on writing retreat run by Natalie Goldberg because her book Writing Down the Bones had brought me back from “not writing at all” to writing. It had a profound impact on me and still is my go-to cure for I can't write conditions. 

Nestled in the mountains of New Mexico, inside a Buddhist monastery, we did silent practice, sitting for meditation and writing with intention. It may not be connected, but in 2012, three of my picture books got accepted. 

I don’t always remember to be mindful, for sure. Especially as a children’s author, I’m doing events, I’m writing and working on multiple things and I have 100 different new ideas I want to write. But when my mind is busy and I feel like I’m hopping from one lily-pad of obligation to another, I find a quiet day just to sit with myself and my notebook. 

Also, when we were all confined inside when the plague hit us again, I started Write30. A bunch of us gather together every Friday (most Fridays), virtually, for 30 minutes and write to a prompt. The writers who join have already done the first step – finding the time to write. Then we pay attention to the prompt and we write. We write with intention on the prompt – but still engaging our individual creativities. I’m sure that even with a single prompt, all of us would have come up with different stories or passages or poems. Then we are non-judgemental. We talk about the experience of that writing, but we don’t read anything aloud, we don’t mock ourselves, we don’t criticise ourselves if the prompt didn’t work. We just reflect. If you want to join our #write30 meetings, email me and I will add you to the invites. 

If you want to delve deeper into mindful writing, then I’d recommend another book that will guide you step by step through the process and also provide exercises. Check it out. 

I realise this mindful practice of writing is not just for picture book writers. But personally, I feel picture book writers have a bigger need to be purposeful and intentional with their words and pictures. They need to pick their words with intention to tell the story and what can be more mindful than that?

If this resonates with you or if you try mindful writing, then do share your thoughts with us in the comments. If you want to join the weekly #Write30 session, do message Chitra directly.

Chitra Soundar is an internationally published, award-winning author of children’s books and an oral storyteller. Chitra regularly visits schools, libraries and presents at national and international literary festivals. She often runs writers' surgeries, courses and teaches writing to writers, teachers and children. She is also the creator of The Colourful Bookshelf, a curated place for books for children by British authors and illustrators and a co-founder of SAIL Fest. Her latest picture book is Garland Of Lights (A Diwali Story), illustrated by Amberin Huq. Find out more at http://www.chitrasoundar.com/ and follow her on X (ex-twitter) here and Instagram here.