Melissa Wiley

But love and passion are not the criteria; good reasons are. A productive obsession is an idea that you have good reasons for pursuing. It is the way you use your brain to handle the business of life, do the next right thing, make meaning, and make yourself proud. If genuine love, passion, and interest are fueling the idea, consider them bonuses or

You are agreeing to bleed for your art on days when your ideas torture you. Do not nod and agree to risk your equanimity and to live tumultuously unless you mean it. Maybe you didn’t quite understand what was being asked of you when, previously, you casually agreed that you were willing to take some risks for the sake of your writing. I hope that

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.

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

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.

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.

Make a list of the things you will never do in your writing space. Keep that list handy, right beside your computer. 2. Make a list of the things you will only occasionally do in your writing space. Keep that list handy, right beside your computer.