Still Writing (book notes)
The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro
For those of you who aren't aware: I have found that reading books on the writing process (since artists don't typically write about their art making process) have COMPLETELY supported my creative process. And there are SO MANY I have read. Scroll down to view a few.
"If you're waiting for the green light, the go-ahead, the reassuring wand to tap your shoulder and anoint you as (a creative), you'd better pull out your thermos and folding chair because you're going to be waiting for a good long while."
"If I don't sit down, if I'm not there working, then inspiration will pass right by me."
"There's nothing wrong with ambition. We all want to win Guggenheims and live and write in the south of France...But this isn't the goal. If we are thinking of our work as a ticket to a life of (creative) glamour, we really ought to consider doing something else."
"We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. What we're doing isn't easy. We have chosen to spend the better pare of our lives in solitude, wrestling with our deepest thoughts and observations and concerns."
"So what is it about (creating) that makes it - for some of us - as necessary as breathing? It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, alive."
"You may think this requires fearlessness...I am anything but fearless...But when I'm alone in a room...I am compelled to take risks. Because, there is no point, really, in spending one's life alone in a room, out of rhythm with the rest of humanity, unless the stakes are high."
"I prefer to think of it as rhythm rather than discipline...Discipline has a whiff of punishment to it...Rhythm, however, is a gentle aligning, a comforting pattern I our day that we know sets us up ideally for our work."
"Outlines offer us an illusion that we are in control, that we know where we're going. And while this may be comforting, it is also antithetical to the process of making work that lives and breathes."
"My job is to DO, not to judge. It is a great piece of luck, a privilege, to spend each day leaping, stumbling, leaping again."
"It's so easy to forget what matters. When I begin the day centered, with equanimity, I find that I am quite unshakable. But if I start off in that slippery, discomforting way, I am easily thrown off course-"
'If it's a good review it will ruin my writing day, and if it's a bad review, it will ruin my writing day. Either way, I intend to have a writing day.' - Joyce Carol Oates
"Once you've acclimated to cave life, stumbling toward the light may have lost some of its appeal...Savor it - this hermetic joy, this rich, unexpected peace. It's hard-won, and so easy to lose."
"The mess is holy. What we inherit - and how we come to understand what we inherit - is all we have to work with. There is beauty in what is."
"It's a matter of discovering what works for you and eliminating the shoulds."
"(Creating) itself is primal. It's the way we've always come to understand the world around us...we tap into something beyond the intellect-"
'Know your own bone,' Thoreau wrote, 'Gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, gnaw it still.'
"The (creative) life is full of risk...We don't get brownie points for trying really hard...we are staking our future on the contents of our own minds...We have nothing but this. No 401(k), no pension plan, often no IRA...We have to accept living with profound uncertainty."
to be continued... (hopefully) I am not finished reading yet.
In the meantime, OTHER books on the writing process I highly recommend:
On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
Manifesto on Never Giving Up, Bernardine Evaristo
If You Want to Write, A book about Art, Independence and Spirit, Brenda Ueland
Thank you for reading!
Contact me anytime via email at karimaxwell@mac.com
post script: Word of mouth is my most successful form of advertisement to date. Always feel free to forward my work along to those who may enjoy or be interested in collecting. Thank you.
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