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Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.

Natalie Goldberg

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Natalie Goldberg
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Really
Circumstances
Knew
Practice
Hard
Even
Long

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Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.
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Anything we fully do is an alone journey.
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When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)
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If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.
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Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.
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Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.
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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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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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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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One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.
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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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Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.
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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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We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.
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First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.
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You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.
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Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.
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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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We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.
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I am free to write the worst junk in the world.
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