Story is a State of Mind by Sarah Selecky

I have the great fortune of buying donated books at a modest price from my local public library. I was browsing April’s offerings when I came across a particularly well-stocked shelf of books on writing. Titles like The Writer’s Mentor, Write Away, and my favourite, Writing Down the Bones, took up at least half the shelf. Although I’ve been writing, on and off, for at least ten years now, the genre of books on writing remained relatively new to me. How lucky then, that my introduction to the genre came not from crouching down to consider the library’s bottom shelf – though I did leave with a copy of Writing Down the Bones – but from Story is a State of Mind, a crucial reference guide on what it means, and what it takes, to be a writer.

In this thoughtful and expansive text, award-winning author and celebrated writing teacher Sarah Selecky mines over 15 years of experience writing and teaching to produce an intertextual resource that combines thorough research with her own developed perspective on what it takes to keep writing.

For writers seeking guidance on the specific stages of the writing process, much of this book offers tangible and intuitive advice for drafting, editing, and even sharing new work with first readers and editors.

Following the wisdom of Eastern religious traditions and contemporary neurological research, Selecky foregrounds meditation and mindfulness exercises as pathways toward writing; toward the creative, attentive state of mind it requires. In my copy of the book, almost a dozen pink tabs mark the writing-focused meditations I’ve found most resonant. Echoing the popular anxiety management technique of listing things around you based on the 5 senses, the exercise in the “Deep Noticing” chapter, for example, proposes writing a list of 10 things you’ve noticed in your day so far. The exercise challenges writers to do this without assigning meaning to the items on their list. The practice reminds us to trust the patterns of our own awareness; to follow the trails of our creative consciousness, even if we don’t yet know where they will lead.

For writers seeking guidance on the specific stages of the writing process, much of this book offers tangible and intuitive advice for drafting, editing, and even sharing new work with first readers and editors. But the book’s first 100 or so pages may be its most vital. It is here that Selecky establishes identity as the non-negotiable first step to making writing a sustainable practice. “When writing,” she explains, “when being a writer is who you are, it becomes easier to carve out space for your writing.” Indeed, Selecky’s advice for managing a writing life amidst life itself is unapologetic: cancel plans, reclaim your time. While this advice may seem jarring, it is also deeply sound. It seems to me that the problem with most writing lives these days is how very difficult it is to have one without also having a day job life, a family life, or a home life, not to mention any other number of responsibilities or commitments. The nuance of Selecky’s advice lies in its insistence that writers must return to writing, just as they must return to their worlds, in an endless, non-linear cycle that, with any luck, will be in constant negotiation.

In recognition of this non-linearity, Story is a State of Mind underlines measurable, tangible progress as crucial to maintaining a writing practice. Selecky recommends starting small, by blocking out specific time for a few months, or the duration of a project. What matters most, she reminds readers, is taking manageable, measurable steps toward forming habits. To that end, Selecky urges writers to devote two separate notebooks to their writing: one to free-writing, and one to track progress, set goals, and gather inspiration, especially from other writing. For my part, learning about Selecky’s approach has been formative. In the time since I read the book, I’ve become more intentional about writing in response to what I’m reading, learning to gather ideas as they come, and to look back at the patterns of my interests.

Like so many things, my thinking around what constitutes a practice of writing is a perpetual work in progress. But heeding Selecky’s advice on the importance of white space – time that is left purposefully open for the creative mind to wander – shifts my thinking. It allows me to move away from feeling like writing is only about words logged, to recognizing that it is also about the space we give ourselves to be in the world, to immerse ourselves in our thinking, and in that of others, without a particular agenda. For writers and readers of all sorts, Story is a State of Mind is a book to come back to, again and again.

Sarah Selecky is the author of Radiant Shimmering Light and This Cake Is for the Party, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Carribean and was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize. The New York Times called the stories “utterly fascinating.” She also runs the Sarah Selecky Writing School, a creative community of over 10,000 writers from around the world. Raised in Hanmer, Ontario and Evansville, Indiana, Selecky now lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Publisher: Assembly Press (January 7th, 2025)
Paperback: 8″ x 6″ | 304 pp
ISBN: 9781998336012

Catherine Marcotte

Catherine Marcotte holds a Master of Arts in English Literature and Language from Queen’s University. She is a contributor at the Miramichi Reader where she writes about Canadian literature and publishing. Her essays, translations, and editorial work have been published in local and academic venues.