reminders for the soul

But the process of writing — especially writing a first draft — should resemble quickly sketching what’s inside your mind, not squeezing words out of yourself.

The irrationalist • Writing Hack: Write It Just Like That

Good writing is specific and concrete.

William Zinsser • Writing to Learn

Flaubert famously said, “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

"I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen, but as the years wasted on, nothing ever did unless I caused it.”

—Charles Bukowski

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

Stephen King • On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue))

Only silence enables us to say something unheard of. The compulsion of communication, by contrast, leads to the reproduction of the same, to conformism:

So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop

Byung-Chal Han • Vita Contemplativa

"E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This... See more

Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play.