Writing as practice is more similar to meditation, which requests nothing. There is the same silence and the waiting, but writers are notoriously failed seekers. We watch our thoughts arise and practice attachment, fascinated by the dance of the flames. There's a mystery to penetrate within that heat, one that defies boundaries. Writers grow up with permeable selves, and the very process of secrecy feels familiar.
Writers begin as readers, and words become a means of survival.
At some juncture deep within family life, the child sees in written language a way to embrace her own burden. When I was young, words themselves seemed secret because I read them in my mind and no one else could hear. And late at night the life of the house was magnified. Those books were stacked on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet, behind closed doors, out of reach. We kids weren't allowed to lock doors but we got around that rule in the bathroom by shutting the door and pulling out a drawer that in effect barred any entrance.