When Writing, Look at What You Are Trying to Describe More Than at Your Words

Taste requires originality. It invokes an aspirational authenticity. Writer George Saunders calls this “achieving the iconic space,” and it’s what he’s after when he meets his creative writing students. “They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their “iconic space” — the place from ... See more

Ray Bradbury talks about the importance of not thinking when he is writing. He says that when he arrives at the typewriter, his task is to be living. To let his soul pour out onto the page. To quiet the mind and let his body do the talking. Then, he checks his work afterwards using the mind as a ‘corrective force’ to refine. But he uses the body to... See more

Let’s say we create a sketch. It’s really exciting, and then we think, “OK, this is going to make a great oil painting.” And now we spend months working on the painting. Many people find it hard, after putting months into a painting, to look back and say, “You know what? That first five-minute sketch is actually better than the painting. That’s the

... See more

The feel of things vs the think of things.

My mentor John Borthwick recently turned me to the phrase: “The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it.”

I’m thinking about how the only way to get better at making things is to make things, and to let the thinking happen inside the work – where you can judge a thing based on how it feels –... See more

Author and writing instructor Natalie Goldberg on how to improve your writing (or anything else):

“In order to improve your writing, you have to practice just like any other sport. But don’t be dutiful and make it into a blind routine. “Yes, I have written an hour today and I wrote an hour yesterday and an hour the day before.” Don’t just put in you... See more