With my writing, I try to do stuff I have not done before. Each time I sit down, I want to have a new experience, and by extension, I want my readers to have a different experience.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of innovation in writing to provide unique experiences for both the writer and the readers.
Jacqueline Woodson expresses a desire to push the boundaries of her creativity with each piece of writing. She aims to explore uncharted territories in her work, ensuring that her writing not only serves as a personal journey but also offers her readers something fresh and different. This approach highlights the dynamic relationship between a writer's exploration of new ideas and the diverse experiences they create for their audience.
In practice
During a literary workshop, I shared a quote about writing to inspire fellow writers to explore new ideas.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
Time gives growth, it gives continuity and it gives change. And in the case of some sculptures, time gives a patina to them.
I don't think I've ever written a poem whose intention was just to be funny. I've written poems that start out funny and often shift into something more serious.
If we start putting music out constantly where people don't think no more, people go crazy. We're gonna lose the love of heart, of soul. And if the world lose that, I think the world is doomed.
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