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.
For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.
I wish I had more confidence. I think that's probably my Achilles' heel. If I had more, I probably would have felt emboldened to make more interesting music earlier on, or really go for it in an artistic or songwriting sense.
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
That is why I believe that art is so much more significant than either economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of man's spiritual vision.
When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.
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