Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one.
Interpretation
Writing can be an exciting process, but receiving feedback, especially positive reviews, can sometimes be troubling if they misinterpret the work.
Eleanor Catton highlights the dual nature of the writer's experience where the act of writing brings joy and excitement, yet the reception of that work can bring unexpected challenges. Positive reviews can lead to disappointment if they fail to grasp the true vision of the book, while negative reviews, although harsh, can motivate and energize the writer to refine their craft and intention.
In practice
Using this quote in a workshop about the emotional rollercoaster of writing.
My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not own a television, either - my parents were unapologetic about this and told me very cheerfully that I would thank them for it when I was older, which was quite true.
Often I listen to songs on repeat for days and days at a time. There's something hypnotic or meditative, and it mirrors the way that I am putting the sentence together, going back over the same phrases again and again.
For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.
The ability of humans to read meaning into patterns is the most defining characteristic we have.
It is a mark of the depth of their wounding that they are pretending they suspected it all along. Everything that they have seen and been told about love so far has been an inside perspective, and they are not prepared for the crashing weight of this exclusion. It dawns on them now how much they never saw and how little they were wanted, and with this dawning comes a painful re-imagining of the self as peripheral, uninvited, and utterly minor.
I see disappointment as something small and aggregate rather than something unified or great. With a little effort, every failure can be turned into something good.
To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them. Someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores
Art is too serious to be taken seriously.
I saw that my camera gave me a sense of connection with others that I never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there but that was never explored before.
Art is violent. To be decisive is violent. ... To place a chair at a partial angle on the stage destroys every other possible choice, every other option.
Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
I knew that you couldn't make a living simply writing about the outdoors, so I made an effort from the beginning of my freelance career to write about other subjects.
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