Writing Inspiration

"Here's what happens when reading a great Stephen King book – you stop reading words and instead begin to see. It’s like a guided hallucination."  - Darragh Geraghty, The Irish Times

“Poems that spring out fully armed; and those that are the result of artisan care. The contrived poem, workmanship; a sense of achievement and pride of craft; but the pure inspiration flow leaves one with a sense of gratitude and wonder, and no sense of “I did it” — only the Muse. That level of mind — the cool water — not intellect and not — (as ro

“The hardest thing in the world to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings.

First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write.

Both take a lifetime to learn and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out.

It is too easy.”

— Ernest Hemingway, “Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba” (1934)

"In a time of destruction, CREATE something." – Maxine Hong Kingston

If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. Jazz comes to mind—though almost any established art form would do. So just do what you like, and let prestige take care of itself. - Paul Graham

https://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

“Be yourself. Whether on Substack or anywhere else, it helps immeasurably to be who you actually are, to let yourself be seen and heard for your true self, and, in that way, to write what only you can write. What does that mean? To write what only you can write? Well, only you can answer that. It is a question to dwell on, to enter into, to sit qui