When I'm working, I'm so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It's only after - long after - I've finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.
Interpretation
The creative process can sometimes obscure the emotional depth of one's work until it is completed.
In this quote, Taiye Selasi reflects on the nature of her artistic process, emphasizing how her intense focus on the technical aspects of writing—like sound and rhythm—can detach her from the emotional resonance of her work. It is only once she steps away from the piece that she can truly appreciate the feelings and emotions embedded within it, highlighting a common experience among artists where the act of creation can lead to temporary disconnection from its emotional impact.
In practice
An author might use this quote during a workshop about the writing process to encourage others about the journey of creating art.
I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn't that they are inaccurate, but that they're incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn't that it's inaccurate, it's that it's incomplete.
I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.
Fashion is in the sky, in the street.
I deeply wished I could make the stars all come down and breathe them; disappear in them
I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.
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