Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing.
Interpretation
Choosing not to write is more detrimental than actually writing, regardless of the outcome.
Flannery O'Connor's quote emphasizes the importance of the creative process over the fear of imperfection or failure. It suggests that the act of writing itself, even if flawed, is far more beneficial for one's development as a writer and a thinker than abstaining from writing, which can hinder creativity and personal expression.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to encourage participants to draft even rough ideas.
Let me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Nothing is more repulsive to me than the idea of myself setting up a little universe of my own choosing and propounding a little immoralistic message. I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas.
What people donβt realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.
There won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.
Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery.
The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.
The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.
A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and makes us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.
For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it's like being a mirror; if they didn't have me to look at, they wouldn't be able to put the make-up on.
The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and itβs the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then itβs a failure in communication.
If you can still write in spite of the fact that you're not getting paid, that nobody cares about what you're writing, that nobody wants to publish it, that everybody is telling you to do something else, and you still want to and you still enjoy it and you can't stop doing it...then you're a writer.
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