There are so many separate selves; no one who writes creatively hasn't felt that.
Interpretation
Creativity involves various aspects of one's identity, and every artist experiences this multiplicity of selves.
Jeanette Winterson's quote reflects the complex and multifaceted nature of creativity. It suggests that for creative individuals, particularly writers, there exists a diversity of identities and perspectives that influence their work. Each 'self' represents a different facet of experience or emotion, illustrating how the creative process often requires the writer to tap into various versions of themselves to convey authentic and rich narratives.
In practice
In a workshop on creative writing, you might say this quote to illustrate the complexity of the writing process.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.
I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
The business of art lies just in this, -- to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.
Acting, I found, was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
I try to stay a civilian, to live as a human, not as a poet.
I never think about themes. I let the music create itself. I like it to be a potpourri of all kinds of sounds, all kinds of colors, something for everybody, from the farmer in Ireland to the lady who scrubs toilets in Harlem.
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