My writer friend: Just how serious are you about it?
"It is not enough for a man to feel the divine flame burning in him; unless he goes into the concentrated, slogging business of learning the techniques of expression, his genius will be of no use to anyone." —Oswald Chambers
My writer friend: Just how serious are you about it? "It is not enough for a man to feel the divine flame burning in him; unless he goes into the concentrated, slogging business of learning the techniques of expression, his genius will be of no use to anyone." —Oswald Chambers
“If he who is organized by the divine for spiritual communion, refuse and bury his talent in the earth, even though he should want natural bread, shame and confusion of face will pursue him throughout life to eternity.”
Austin Kleon • You’ll be miserable if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do - Austin Kleon
“A real writer (or artist or entrepreneur) has something to give. She has lived enough and suffered enough and thought deeply enough about her experience to be able to process it into something that is of value to others, even if only as entertainment.”
Steven Pressfield • Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It
sari and added
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
phoebe and added
having an idea is not enough; that you must work until you are able to recreate your experience effectively in words on the page.
Ryan Holiday • Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance. ...If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you’re not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let y... See more
Rolf Potts • 9 Outtakes from James Baldwin's Paris Review interview - Rolf Potts
sari and added
Writing is active. It requires your fully conscious self. You need to show up and show us your gift. Until you do that, you’re just practicing in private. Playing around. Kidding yourself. Don’t do that.
Jeff Goins • You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One)
The primary task of a writer is to write well. (And to go on writing well. Neither to burn out nor to sell out.) ... Let the dedicated activist never overshadow the dedicated servant of literature — the matchless storyteller.
Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
Kojo added
Mind you, hard work guarantees nothing in realms of creativity. (Nothing guarantees anything in realms of creativity.) But I cannot help but think that devotional discipline is the best approach. Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that—whatever the outcome—you h
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