When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control – say what they want to say, break structure.
Finally, if you want to write, you have to just shut up, pick up a pen, and do it. I’m sorry there are no true excuses. This is our life. Step forward. Maybe it’s only for ten minutes. That’s okay. To write feels better than all the excuses.
Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.
Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure – just a big field to wander in.
Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.
To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.
Read books. They are good for us.
In writing practice, there’s no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.
I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.
We shouldn’t forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
It’s much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms.
The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind.
There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before.
It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don’t have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.
Writing is not a McDonald’s Hamburger...
When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind.
As writers we need to crack open language.
Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don’t make it any harder on yourself.
Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.
Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning. We should not be ashamed of this. It is good. It’s like drinking water.
Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths. To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life.