Quote

In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Stories
Direction
Self
Healing
Need
Follow
Great
Takes
Needs
Practice
Writing
Story
Mind
Tell
Connect
True
Enter

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Creativity is no big deal.
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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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Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.
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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter the act of writing does.
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When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
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Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.
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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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Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth.
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Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths. To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life.
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Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
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I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.
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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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I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.
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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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I have students that I tell, If your book doesn't sell or you can't publish it, write another book. Quit sitting around. The publishing world is a business, but it's not any big deal. An editor is not your guru. Your agent is not your guru.
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Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it
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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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The harder you chase something, the faster you go and the less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down.
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There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before.
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We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.
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