Melissa Wiley
@melissawiley
Author of The Nerviest Girl in the World & other books for kids
Cohost of the Brave Writer Podcast with Julie Bogart
Melissa Wiley
“Write early in the morning, cultivate memory, reread core books, take detailed reading notes, work on several projects at once, maintain a thick archive, rotate crops, take a weekly Sabbath, go to bed at the same time, exercise so hard you can’t think during it, talk to different kinds of people including the very young and very old, take words an... See more
if their obsession takes them no further than wringing their hands and spinning their wheels, it is not productive. Their obsession, as excellent as it might be if they genuinely embraced it, is as negative as any other unproductive obsession while it remains a fantasy shrouded in worry.
Eric Maisel • Brainstorm
Because you have shielded your writing time, you just need to sit down and open a new document. All of the mental energy you would have used to figure out when and where to write can be saved for the actual writing.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff • How to Build a Better Writing Habit
IF WE BETTER UNDERSTOOD MEMORY AND IMAGINATION we might discover that memory is in part the way that persistent productive obsessions recombine instantly and that imagination is our repertoire of persistent productive obsessions dynamically recombining.
Eric Maisel • Brainstorm
You do not want to go too long without a productive obsession in place, since that will mean that you won’t really be thinking.
Eric Maisel • Brainstorm
You aren’t famous. Anything you do or create will probably receive little to no attention, so stop optimizing for a non-existent audience and instead focus on what makes you enjoy the activity.
Want to try a craft or artistic hobby? Focus on mastering the skill and enjoy the variety it can provide. You don’t need to build a personal style. No one w... See more
Want to try a craft or artistic hobby? Focus on mastering the skill and enjoy the variety it can provide. You don’t need to build a personal style. No one w... See more
Stop Acting Like You're Famous
See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write — on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage... See more
Joan Didion • On Keeping A Notebook
The only sensible course, with respect to each new potential productive obsession that you field, is to pause and think.
Eric Maisel • Brainstorm
they would like to do for its own sake and not because their fathers did it. Most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within as the first tr
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