“hint of fall” by devi laskar

Happy December!

Today I want to talk with you about clownfish. Clownfish? Yes, like Nemo, with orange and white stripes. According to one of my kids’ books, clownfish live in sea anemones (which I still want to spell as if I were five, with consonants reversed). Each fish goes through a process of exposing itself bit by bit to the toxins in the anemone, and thus becoming immune to them. This immunity, however, is only to the one specific anemone—not even to others of its kind. And worse, the immunity will vanish after 45 minutes, and the clownfish will have to begin the process of exposing itself to the toxins little by little in order to develop immunity again.

Why do I bring this up here? You’ve already guessed, haven’t you?

The relationship between the Clownfish and the anemone parallels in key ways the relationship between the writer and the writing.

Here are five ways to learn survival strategies for writers from the clownfish and sea anemone:

1)   The power of writing comes from its potential to poison, its wily tentacles. Yes? You are going to take on something dangerous. The kind of stories that matter to us—whether fictional or drawn directly from life—require risk to approach. This is going to be where we make our home, crazy as it sounds.

2)   Start slowly. Regular exposure in small amounts to a writing habit, as I’ve discussed here and here, will prepare you to take up residence at the heart of your project.

3)   It gets easier. Once you’ve acclimated yourself to your writing project through regular, increasing contact, you will build immunity. The potency of the project will not have decreased, but your habitual contact with it will render you immune to the danger!

4)   Don’t lapse. It’s always harder to get going again. If you do stay away from your writing for too long, give yourself the chance to establish contact slowly, as you did at the beginning. Remind yourself that it’s the power of the project that you are after, and that your writer superpowers, like those of a clownfish, have to be developed little by little.

5)   Everything you do helps. The clownfish gains protection inside the anemone, and the anemone is fertilized by clownfish poop. There’s a lesson in this for writers, too. It’s a bit obvious, but important: even writing you think of as crap, or do not think of at all, helps the symbiotic system you are building between your writing habit, your project and your bright, orange-and-white stripped self. Enjoy!

Need your own anemone with no toxins? Join the Book Writing World for the New Year!