Quotes about writ
writing mind cracks
Writing is the crack through which you can crawl into a bigger world, into your wild mind. Natalie Goldberg
writing discovery mind
Ultimately, writing is about trusting your own mind. It is an act of discovery.
writing compassion fields
Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure - just a big field to wander in.
writing practice pages
I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
writing thinking mind
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.
writing shut-up ends
In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.
writing offering political
In writing with detail, you are turning to face the world. It is a deeply political act, because you are not staying in the heat of your own emotions. You are offering up some good solid bread for the hungry.
writing world steps
In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.
writing dignity speak-the-truth
Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth ...
writing use shut-up
Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
writing mcdonalds hamburgers
Writing is not a McDonald’s Hamburger..
writing mind taste
When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind
writing artist ideas
Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
writing thinking mind
The aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what you mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel.
writing cutting darkness
The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...
writing hands feel-good
First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don't want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen. A ballpoint, a pencil, a felt tip, for sure, are slow. Go to a stationery store and see what feels good to you. Try out different kinds. Don't get too fancy and expensive. I mostly use a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen, about $1.95.... You want to be able to feel the connection and texture of the pen on paper.
writing self ego
We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.
writing care nobody-cares
Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it
writing world junk
I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
writing uptight tables
Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.
writing
I consider writing a legitimate Zen practice.
writing
When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.
writing failing
The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself.
writing energy direct
I don't know anything but writing practice, and so what I really do is direct that energy as if it were flowing down a river.
writing thinking soda-pop
We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing.
writing house chocolate
It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you can have if you get over there." And usually if I got over there, I would start writing. Sometimes I need get out of the house and go to a café and write. Sometimes I'll write with other friends to get myself going. And sometimes I just say "Ok, Nat, enough. Go one hour. Keep your hand going." I'll do whatever it takes.
writing want firsts
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.
writing voice people
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.
writing goal anxiety
My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal.
writing acceptance order
We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.
writing quality doe
The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
writing way
When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
writing discovery
Writing is the act of discovery.