The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners.
Interpretation
True writing requires honesty and depth, rather than just social niceties.
In this quote, Natalie Goldberg emphasizes that the qualities valued in social interactions, such as politeness and decorum, are not the same traits that contribute to powerful writing. Instead, she argues that authentic writing demands a willingness to expose one's vulnerabilities, confront difficult truths, and embrace the complexities of human experience, suggesting that raw honesty and intellectual boldness are essential for impactful expression.
In practice
In a writing workshop, I mentioned this quote to underline the importance of authenticity in storytelling.
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.
When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.
When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.
What a beautiful testament to the creative spirit and its true motives, to creative contribution coming from a place of purpose rather than a hunger for profit.
The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words.
After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
I'll go to the south of Sicily in the winter, and paint memories of Arles – I'll buy a piano and Mozart me that – I'll write long sad tales about people in the legend of my life – This part is my part of the movie, let's hear yours
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