writing

Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them.

Inexperienced writers tend to seek the recipes for writing well. You buy the cookbook, you take the list of ingredients, you follow the directions, and behold! A masterpiece! The Never-Falling Soufflé!

Wouldn’t it be nice? But alas, there are no recipes. We have no Julia Child. Successful professional writers are not withholding mysterious secrets

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A great part of the writer's problem, then, is how to catch the ideas that creep forth in the stillness, like magic mice, from their holes... It pays, I think, to meditate a good deal, both before beginning to write, and at intervals while writing. The process of creation may refuse to be bustled. The writer's reverie with a cigarette by the fire

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When you hit publish, you are far more likely to strive valiantly towards your deepest desires, and live in accord with the values you committed to the page.

The process of earnest striving, and living in integrity with your words, only feeds the fire, and attracts ever more people and opportunities into your world. Writing and publishing a... See more

You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write well without reading well.

An essay is not a vehicle of knowledge transmission; it is a landscape to think in, and a path to get there.

By pausing, opening an app or a notebook or pulling my sleeve up to write an idea on my arm (something I do a lot), and committing that idea to memory - that act itself breathes life into not just the idea but into my conception of self as an artist, a writer, a person who takes his own ideas seriously.

Writing things makes them real. The stuff of... See more