Writing
The antidote to envy is one's own work. Always one's own work. Not the thinking about it. Not the assessing of it. But the doing of it… [T]he work itself. It drives the spooks away.
-Bonnie Friedman
Marianne Williamson
open.spotify.comBut for me, as a person for whom narrow focus is against my instincts, the most remarkable thing about it is how rich it feels. My life these days is small and boring. I bicycle across the same fields every day, I notice how the wind turbines turn to face the wind, I rarely travel, and I spend my spare time staring at a Word document. Annie Dillard... See more
Henrik Karlsson • Almost Everyone I’ve Met Would Be Well-Served Thinking More About What to Focus On
First, take a few deep breaths into your belly. No work of genius can come from shallow breathing. Secondly, set your intention to receive and you will. I promise you will. Trust these two steps as you trust yourself when you’re in love.
Gabe Berman • The Complete Bullshit-Free and Totally Tested Writing Guide How to Make Publishers, Agents, Editors & Readers Fall in Love With Your Work
But busyness has a way of stealing creativity from you. Generative work, like art and writing, requires long periods of nothingness: it’s only in that wide empty space that ideas emerge. Long runs, hot showers, commutes that don’t involve harried Slack messages and listening to podcasts at 2x speed. Sitting at the edge of a dock, listening to the o... See more
Jasmine Sun • the scenic route
cities need more cozy enchanting late night cafes to work & read from til 1am
Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:
- Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read th
Substack • Notes | Substack
It reminds me of writing and how I wake up week after week and get stuck on the blank page again and again. How I always despair that I have no more good ideas and, even if I did, not enough eloquence to convey said ideas. But I love it still. I love how writing brings everything to the surface, how it generates and absorbs my attention. How it tap
... See morein praise of slowing down
When it happens, we feel as if we’ve found a secret, peaceful path to the top of Everest. And when we’re not-writing—figuring out what not to put on paper—we feel as if we’re stuck in a storm, doing nothing at base camp. It feels unproductive. You can almost hear your life passing by.