Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?
Interpretation
Writing, like playing an instrument, requires effort and dedication rather than just inspiration.
This quote by Ann Patchett highlights the misconception that writing is solely the result of inspiration, whereas other disciplines, such as playing the cello, are recognized as requiring significant hard work and practice. It encourages us to acknowledge the effort involved in creative endeavors and to value the process of honing our skills, suggesting that inspiration alone is not sufficient for mastery.
In practice
In a workshop on creative writing, remind participants that consistent practice is essential.
Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you are running neck and neck. It will vastly improve the quality of your own life, the lives of others, and the state of the world.
There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again.
It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.
Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills to be alone. It gives us the ability to feel empathy for people we've never met, living lives we couldn't possibly experience for ourselves, because the book puts us inside the character's skin.
Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.
Carmen prayed hard. She prayed while standing near the priest in hopes it would give her request extra credibility. What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.
As Olafsson showed me, White can win... It's hard to believe. I stayed up all night analysing, finally convicing myself, and, incidentally, learning a lot about Rook and Pawn endings in the process.
All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting discrimination in public education must yield.
Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.
When someone says to me, 'I love your book - I read it in a day,' I want to tell them to go back and read it again.
It may be said that an education which does not succeed in making poetry a resource in the business of life as well as in its leisure, has something the matter with it.
When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.
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