Stormy Petrel
The Writing Life - Annie Dillard
> One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal
Who knows how many other writers that idea had visited over the years before it came into my care for a while, and then finally shifted over to Ann? (Boris Pasternak described this phenomenon beautifully, when he wrote, “No genuine book has a first page. Like the rustling of the forest, it is begotten God knows where, and it grows and it rolls, aro
... See moreElizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Musicians ‘hear’ a tune in their heads and rush to get it down before it fades away. Some writers are invaded by a phrase and follow it like a trail of breadcrumbs to wherever it takes them. I have spoken to distinguished painters who told me that some of their work just poured out of them onto the canvas in a manic rush they found it hard to keep
... See moreRichard Holloway • Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe
I feel a rising euphoria. I recognize this as the aura that precedes the work of writing, like the aura that precedes a seizure or a migraine. An idea is hovering before me, spectral and electric. The idea is just slightly out of reach and I will spend hours at my desk before I can grasp it, before I can work it on the page. But it is here now in t
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