In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently, there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is not possibility. . .of saying, I’ll do it if I feel like it. – John Steinbeck
Woody Allen [...]
Living in uncertain times, we need some kind of certain presence which is independent of our outside accomplishments, which is independent of any shallow definitions of what it means to be successful. – David Whyte
Albert Einstein said, The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created [...]
The fate of poetry is to teach us to fall in love with the world inspite of history.
– Derek Walcott
New England poet and essayist Donald Hall calls poetry, The Unsayable Said, referring the ineffable quality of poetry; the way it gives voice to experiences that are beyond words. I always think of poetry as [...]
. . . writing is the slow, cumulative way of accepting your life as valid, of accepting yourself over a lifetime, of realizing that your life is important. And it is. It’s all you’ve got. All you ever had for sure. – Richard Hugo
I first started keeping a journal in college and have maintained that [...]
I first encountered the concept of freewriting in 1977 when I found Peter Elbow’s book, Writing with Teachers. Elbow, who had been a professor at MIT, presented this way of working on your writing that is at once simpler and more powerful than any other way I know. I’ve come to believe that most writer’s [...]
Please get out of the habit of saying that you’ve got an idea for a short story. Art does not come from ideas. Art does not come from the mind. Art comes from the place where you dream. Art comes from your unconscious; it comes from the white-hot center of you. – Robert Olen Butler
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The imagination is not interested in two-dimensional reductionism or naively pitting one side against another, dark against light. It is interested in the place where the two sides meet, and what they give birth to when they cross-fertilize each other. That is the heart of creativity. – John O’Donohue
In memory of John O’Donohue, 1954 to [...]
On my most recent trip to Ireland, just before the New Year I arrived at the Green Door Hostel in Drogheda, a small city north of Dublin close to the sacred sites in the Boyne River Valley. In true Irish fashion, Norm the manager, made me warmly welcome. When I told him I was I [...]
Since all writers often experience resistance at facing the blank page it helps to find a pattern in the physical world that can assist you in crossing the threshold into the writing mind. Here are some the elements for you to consider.
Implements: People often ask me when they sign up for one of my writing [...]