Writers on Writing is our regular conversation with a writer or industry professional about the writing craft, industry insights, and their own practice. This week, we spoke to Natasha Rai about reaching a flow state when writing through nervous system regulation, exercises and tactics to build a writing routine, and the best industry advice she’s heard.
In your other professional life, you are a somatic counsellor. What have you learned about the body and emotional reaction that provides particular insight into the hurdles of the writing journey?
There is the common misunderstanding that if you change your thoughts or repeat affirmations, you can change your internal experience. While this may happen in the short-term, a cognitive lens is limited and doesn’t lend itself to lasting change. Most of the communication happens from the bottom up, so your body will react first, and then we make meaning of that experience via our thoughts. When it comes to writing or creative flow, if your body is experiencing symptoms of stress (racing heart, short breath, lots of energy), it’s really challenging to just tell yourself to calm down or force yourself into flow. A flow state is a beautiful balance of energy and meditative calm so you can access all parts of self – thoughts, feelings, sensations. In order to leap over those hurdles to sit down and write, it’s useful to know what your particular response is – some people will be more familiar with a feeling of stress and anxiety, while others may experience more of a shutdown, hopeless feeling. Once you know what your go-to response is, you can then work on shifting out of that.
How do you integrate nervous system regulation into your regular writing routine?
I know what my typical response is – my body has a long history of shutting down and feeling hopeless. I’ve also become familiar with times that it’s laziness or something else. Most of the times, I don’t bother asking why (FYI – why questions are always cognitive questions and asking these kinds of questions can keep you stuck in a never-ending loop). I go inside to determine what I’m actually feeling/experiencing. If it’s laziness, I’ll set a timed writing goal (the pomodoro method or some variation on that). The experience of having a time-limited session usually ignites the spark once I sit down.
If the response I’m having is deeper than that, there are certain exercises/practices that help shift me out. I look for the opposite. If everything is feeling hopeless, I look at all the evidence that things aren’t that bad. If I’m feeling like I can’t move, I’ll stretch, even getting up from the chair and walking into another room can make a huge difference. Most of the time, these things are intuitive and automatic, so I don’t need to spend a lot of time getting out of a response that isn’t working for me.
On some days, it’s a clear no and I can’t get into any kind of flow state to write. On these days, I respect my body and go with it. I’ve learned there’s not much point in fighting it, and there’s always a new day to return to the work.
What was the creative journey in writing your debut novel, An Onslaught of Light?
I remember moments of transcendent joy. I would write a scene, or a sentence and I felt ridiculously happy because the words on the page reflected the vision in my mind. I also remember when I could harness the creativity, I could write for hours without stopping. I didn’t feel the need to check social media or distract myself with chores.
I also remember thinking about the story, about the characters, imagining their lives when I wasn’t actively putting words down. This felt (and still does) like a really important part of the process for me. Yes, you have to actually write words down, but daydreaming, thinking and imagining your characters’ lives is part of it. I love thinking about the work when I’m not writing. I often find the solution to a plot problem or character motivation in these times – as was the case with An Onslaught of Light.
Part of the creative journey was also the doubt and the despair. I doubted, right up till publication, that I had a story worth telling, that my prose was any good. Then, there was the despair of rejections. Initially, each one hurt me deeply. After a while, I became much better at dealing with them. I could genuinely tell myself to keep going after the tenth, twentieth rejection. What kept me going were those beautiful moments I described. When the doubt and despair grew, sometimes reaching the point of crippling me, I changed my goals. I told myself I just wanted to write a novel that I want to read and not to worry about publication. I wasn’t lying to myself, it was the way to make sure I didn’t stop just because someone else wasn’t ready for my work or wasn’t the right reader for it.
In your spare time you co-host the The Book Deal podcast. In interviewing countless authors and industry experts, what is the best advice you’ve heard?
I’ve been given so much good advice by all the beautiful, generous, kind creatives and writers out there. A few have stuck with me and have become part of my practice now.
Keep going – don’t worry about how it reads or sounds when you’re writing that first draft; just keep going.
Give yourself time – this has been the BEST lesson for me. I tend to give myself at least six months to a year on a new manuscript between writing the first draft and actually reading the whole thing. It is amazing how much I can work on and find when I return with fresh eyes. I often don’t even remember writing some of it, so it’s like reading someone else’s work.
Editing – when editing/rewriting your work, there’s no point in being critical for the sake of it. Read with an eye of making it the best possible version of itself. If there are points in the manuscript that don’t feel right, make a note, but don’t stress about fixing it if you don’t know how. Just mark it, and time, thinking, reflecting, other experiences will lead you to the answer, so I suppose the advice there is to trust the process.
Natasha Rai is a writer and somatic counsellor. She is also the co-host of The Book Deal podcast, exploring writers’ publication journeys. Her debut novel, An Onslaught of Light, published by Pantera Press, was longlisted for the 2017 Richell Prize, 2018 KYD Unpublished Manuscript award, and highly commended for the 2022 Ultimo Press/Westwords Prize. Natasha’s nonfiction appears in anthologies on gender violence. Her short fiction appears in Mascara Literary Review, Overland, Verity La, and StylusLit.
Join Natasha Rai for Fight, Flight, Freeze: Get Out of Your Own Way and Write, Saturday 21 March 2026, 10am-4pm at Writing NSW.
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