I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
Interpretation
Writing is a reflective practice that reveals one's true self and cannot be masked.
In this quote, Natalie Goldberg emphasizes that writing is a form of Zen practice, where the act of writing serves as a mirror to one's thoughts and emotions. It suggests that through writing, one cannot disguise their inner truths, as the words laid out on the page unveil who they truly are, making it a deeply authentic and introspective process.
In practice
In a workshop about the therapeutic effects of writing, this quote can highlight its significance.
This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.
Finally, if you want to write, you have to just shut up, pick up a pen, and do it. I'm sorry there are no true excuses. This is our life. Step forward. Maybe it's only for ten minutes. That's okay. To write feels better than all the excuses.
Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.
Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.
Too often we take notes on writing, we think about writing but never do it. I want you to walk into the heart of the storm, written words dripping off hair, eyelids, hanging from hands.
I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am; the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
I remember the first year at the Game Developers Conference I wore these big red giant knee-high boots. Nobody cared. You can wear anything you love, because that's what you do in games. You make yourself who you want to be.
Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.
She knew this music--knew it down to the very core of her being--but she had never heard it before. Unfamiliar, it had still always been there inside her, waiting to be woken. It grew from the core of mystery that gives a secret its special delight, religion its awe. It demanded to be accepted by simple faith, not dissected or questioned, and at the same time, it begged to be doubted and probed.
When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise.
I find that when I get on stage now, I don't want to perform a lot of my songs because they don't feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.
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