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142d236
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Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
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writing
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Natalie Goldberg |
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98a4102
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We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance agai..
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writing
inspiration
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e409109
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If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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6184d7f
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I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have.
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writing
inspirational
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Natalie Goldberg |
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18b757b
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Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.
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writing
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Natalie Goldberg |
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bfb8ea0
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No matter what a person does to cover up and conceal themselves, when we write and lose control, I can spot a person from Alabama, Florida, South Carolina a mile away even if they make no exact reference to location. Their words are lush like the land they come from, filled with nine aunties, people named Bubba. There is something extravagant and wild about what they have to say -- snakes on the roof of a car, swamps, a delta, sweat, the sm..
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writing
southern-literature
southerners
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Natalie Goldberg |
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0a80fc2
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I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.
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writing
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e18ba41
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Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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6aa8e03
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Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That's how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand how the writer moves, pauses, and sees. That's what being a lover is: stepping out of yourself, stepping into someone else's skin.
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writing
love
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Natalie Goldberg |
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0c496bc
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After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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fa2ba92
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Every moment is enormous and it is all we have.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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72eae8c
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Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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ffc8fb3
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I remember a friend many years ago who had taped a sign to his refrigerator: There's a dream dreaming us. If you try to think about what that means it makes your mind silly, but that silliness is good.
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inception
silliness
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e23794c
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keep your hand moving
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Natalie Goldberg |
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befcf8a
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The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...
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honesty
truth
raw
memoir
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Natalie Goldberg |
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53fbe91
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Writing is the act of discovery.
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writing-life
writing-advice
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Natalie Goldberg |
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16ac8fd
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I think talent is like a water table under the earth--you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.
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writing
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Natalie Goldberg |
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71c5163
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It's okay to embark on writing because you think it will get you love. At least it gets you going, but it doesn't last. After a while you realize that no one cares that much. Then you find another reason: money. You can dream on that one while the bills pile up. Then you think: "Well, I'm the sensitive type. I have to express myself." Do me a favor. Don't be so sensitive. Be tough. It will get you further along when you get rejected. Finall..
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e8df210
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First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don't want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen. A ballpoint, a pencil, a felt tip, for sure, are slow. Go to a stationery store and see what feels good to you. Try out different kinds. Don't get too fancy and expensive. I mostly use a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen, about $1.95.... You want to be a..
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Natalie Goldberg |
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192fef3
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To encounter a fine book
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Natalie Goldberg |
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d4cd5ee
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poems are small moments of enlightenment
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poetry
writing
poetry-life
writing-craft
poetry-quotes
poet
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Natalie Goldberg |
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7ed4cff
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It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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3677a30
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In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.
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reading
writing
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Natalie Goldberg |
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9a1277d
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We walk through so many myths of each other and ourselves; we are so thankful when someone sees us for who we are and accepts us.
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gratitude
relationships
love
perception
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Natalie Goldberg |
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abc00fc
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Too often we take notes on writing, we think about writing but never do it. I want you to walk into the heart of the storm, written words dripping off hair, eyelids, hanging from hands.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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69bb476
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Accept loss forever Be submissive to everything, open, listening No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge Be in love with your life
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Natalie Goldberg |
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a088551
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I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am; the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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045d443
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There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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fde01e4
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You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.
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living
life
enjoyment
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Natalie Goldberg |
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2f986ed
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When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing." (p.90)"
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Natalie Goldberg |
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b909ab0
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Let yourself live in something that is already rightfully yours--your own wild mind.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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6252fe7
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Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. And don't think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page. If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.
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reading
writing
inspirational
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e17e777
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Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life, are as fas as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there's another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives every second at a time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and details.
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writing
natalie-goldberg
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Natalie Goldberg |
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7ba4f50
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If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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753eee2
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People often say, "I was walking along [or driving, shopping, jogging] and I had this whole poem go through my mind, but when I sat down to write it, I couldn't get it to come out right." I never can either. Sitting to write is another activity. Let go of walking or jogging and the poem that was born then in your mind. This is another moment. Write another poem. Perhaps secretly hope something of what you thought a while ago might come out,..
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Natalie Goldberg |
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9b04d3e
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Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, "Go on, take us with you, carry us to ro..
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Natalie Goldberg |
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89bafc1
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Don't cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn't mean to write, leave it.) Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don't even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Don't think. Don't get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)
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margin
punctuation
line
spelling
grammar
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Natalie Goldberg |
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e06b1a5
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It's the process of writing and life that matters.Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This process teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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420d051
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LIFE IS NOT ORDERLY. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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b4d56f3
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You have to let writing eat your life and follow it where it takes you. You fit into it; it doesn't fit neatly into your life. It makes you wild.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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8bac8bf
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When you write a memory, it isn't in the past anyway. It's alive right now.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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7f0801e
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I met a doctor the other night who told me he had always wanted to be a writer. I nodded. People always tell me that...Then I thought to myself, 'You know, I've never met a writer who wanted to be anything else. They might bitch about something they're writing or about their poverty, but they never say they want to quit...and if they do abandon it they become crazy, drunk or suicidal.' Writing is elemental.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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1e4720d
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The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.
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Natalie Goldberg |
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647a9d7
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As writers we are always seeking support. First we should notice that we are already supported every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support. There is the sunlight coming through the window and the silence of the morning. Begin from these. Then turn to face a friend and feel how good it is when she says, "I love your work." Believe he..
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Natalie Goldberg |