Where do you find the inspiration to write? I encourage you to notice what is in front of you. The world will come to you with sounds and smells and images as you move more slowly through it. Pay attention to the details that surround you. Ask yourself: what have I noticed today?
A single word or phrase as a writing prompt can take you away. Let the mind go off leash. Trust first thoughts and follow them. Set a time limit. The pressure adds a sense of urgency, no more putting this off. Who doesn't have ten minutes for writing? Pretty soon you will be writing for fifteen, then twenty. Getting started can be the hardest thing, once you are off and running, the world goes away and all that is left is you writing.
A single word or phrase as a writing prompt can take you away. Let the mind go off leash. Trust first thoughts and follow them. Set a time limit. The pressure adds a sense of urgency, no more putting this off. Who doesn't have ten minutes for writing? Pretty soon you will be writing for fifteen, then twenty. Getting started can be the hardest thing, once you are off and running, the world goes away and all that is left is you writing.
Natalie Goldberg:
We have trouble connecting with our own confident writing voice that is inside all of us, and even when we do connect and write well, we don’t claim it. Everyone has a genuine voice that can express his or her life with honest dignity and detail. There seems to be a gap between the greatness we are capable of and the way we see ourselves and, therefore, see our work.
It is difficult for us to comprehend and value our own lives. It is much easier for us to see things outside ourselves. In the process of claiming our good writing, we are chipping away at the blind gap between our own true nature and our conscious ability to see it. It is not as important for the world to claim our work as it is to claim it for ourselves. We should acknowledge it and stand behind it.
We have trouble connecting with our own confident writing voice that is inside all of us, and even when we do connect and write well, we don’t claim it. Everyone has a genuine voice that can express his or her life with honest dignity and detail. There seems to be a gap between the greatness we are capable of and the way we see ourselves and, therefore, see our work.
It is difficult for us to comprehend and value our own lives. It is much easier for us to see things outside ourselves. In the process of claiming our good writing, we are chipping away at the blind gap between our own true nature and our conscious ability to see it. It is not as important for the world to claim our work as it is to claim it for ourselves. We should acknowledge it and stand behind it.
Mary Oliver:
Yes. Write first with a pen. It's too easy on the computer to change a word, then forget what it was. Also, don't get too social. Write for whatever holy thing you believe in, not for your poetry workshop fellows. And dare once in a while to throw a poem away. The main thing is to know that your craving to write is the big thing and will continue, and is more valuable than the finished poem. I do this myself, plenty.
-Mary Oliver
Yes. Write first with a pen. It's too easy on the computer to change a word, then forget what it was. Also, don't get too social. Write for whatever holy thing you believe in, not for your poetry workshop fellows. And dare once in a while to throw a poem away. The main thing is to know that your craving to write is the big thing and will continue, and is more valuable than the finished poem. I do this myself, plenty.
-Mary Oliver
Julia Cameron:
We all have time to write. We have time to write
the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a
dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the
hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.
The obsession with time is really an obsession
with perfection. We want enough time to write
perfectly. We want to write with a net under ourselves,
a net that says we are not foolish spending our time
doing something that might not pay off.
When we write from love,
when we let ourselves steal minutes as gifts to ourselves,
our lives become sweeter, our temperaments become sweeter.
We all have time to write. We have time to write
the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a
dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the
hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.
The obsession with time is really an obsession
with perfection. We want enough time to write
perfectly. We want to write with a net under ourselves,
a net that says we are not foolish spending our time
doing something that might not pay off.
When we write from love,
when we let ourselves steal minutes as gifts to ourselves,
our lives become sweeter, our temperaments become sweeter.