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Wherein we discover that many of the rules for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Think
Control
Thinking
Hand
Wherein
Moving
Observation
Keep
Discover
Hands
Rules
Many
Sex
Writing
Lose
Good
Loses

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Creativity is no big deal.
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To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.
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Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them things they can’t forget stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.
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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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Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it
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This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it.
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I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.
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When you write, don't say, I'm going to write a poem. That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself say, I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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Women need space and silence. We too quickly give away our energy. There's something about holding that richness.
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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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Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.
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I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
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We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.
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I told all kinds of stories about going to Japan, about playing ball with my father... I wanted to record my life in case it was going to end soon. So, I wrote that and it was very comforting to have that practice in the afternoons in my living room. I just wrote about my life.
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I don't mean to be flippant about cancer - it was hard, it was tough and it was scary. Then my next manuscript was about cancer because I had a whole new topic to write about. And because I wrote, it didn't take over. Writing took the chaos out of cancer.
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Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.
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Understand that writing is like an athletic activity. To play tennis well, you expect to keep practicing, but for some reason with writing, you think you should come out fresh the first time.
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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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The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.
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Really you don't need more information. If you've lived twenty years, you probably have enough material for the rest of your life
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