Need a Safe Space to Write a Book? 5 Great Tips to Create a Haven to Write a Book

If you want to write a book, chances are you know that safety plus writing are two words that don't rest side by side in your mind as you sit down to write that book – or anything else.

Writing a book is about taking risks, trashing the comfort zone, escaping boundaries and letting out the words that need releasing.

Writing a book goes against the very nature we have to survive at all costs, to protect ourselves, to feel comfortable, find our safe spot in what often seems like an unsafe world.

And yet, what you find as you do write a book is that when you let go and stop resisting the freefall into the writing process, the creative flow feels like the safest haven on the planet. Why? Because you know when you write the book you want to write, you are in the truest place you can be, the place of grace in your life.

In this moment, space, place of writing a book, you sense nothing can truly harm you as you live the truth where you can touch everything and give it expression, a name, a face, a form, a story, a description.

But how can you get to that starting point where you feel safe enough to plunge from resisting writing a book in order to stay safe into the zone where you feel safe enough to write the book you are called to write?

Here are five easy tips to carve out your safe haven to write a book:

1. Create a safe space to write your book.

This will be different for everyone. For some, a.k.a. J. K. Rowling, a safe space to write a book will be in a café, surrounded by people and activity - anything but being alone with the blank page. The bustle of activity and background sounds, you discover, supports you to tap your creative flow.

For others, a.k.a. Virginia Wolf, you need a room of your own to write a book - at the very least a space of your own, a place you can close the door, turn off the phone, shut down email, give yourself a set time where writing is your number one priority (and you will not even peak at an email). Put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on your door, or wherever you write your book at home, and stick to it.

Clearly define for your family and friends what "Do not disturb" means - that this is important for you and you will not be talking to them, answering questions, responding to text messages or emails during your book writing time, except for emergencies. Define emergency, i.e., "You have broken a leg" is an emergency while "you cannot find the mustard in the fridge" is not.

2. Perform a writing ritual each time you sit down to create.

I do a process where I call in my muse and the writing guides and ancestors who come to support a particular book I am writing. I light a candle and ask that the book I write serve the highest good of all, that it serve love. I imagine a circle of love and light surrounding me as I write.

3. Ground yourself before you write.

First, take a few deep breaths. Next, feel your connection to your heart and reach from your heart into the earth. Draw the grounding of the earth energy into your heart. Then, imagine reaching with that heart to the sky and bringing the expansiveness of the sky to join with the earth in your physical heart. Feel those energies of earth, sky and heart intermingling and expanding to fill and surround your entire being.

4. Before you dive into writing a book, write freeform for 5 minutes.

The point is to keep pen moving on the paper (or fingers on keyboard) and write anything without censorship and without stopping. Words and sentences can be disjointed and out of any coherent order. Letting go to write like this frees you from the "need to be safe" and in control and drops you into the book writing zone of truth-telling and creative expression.

5. Stretch your risk-taking muscles daily.

Once a day, do something out of the ordinary. Break your routines. Drive to work or to shop via a different route for five days in a row. Howl at the moon. Dance naked in your living room. Walk in the spring rain without an umbrella. Skip down the street or hiking trail. The point is to do something out of character, that's not controlled or protected or limited or safe.