No writing blog today, just a gentle reminder: Vote.
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I saw the same buildings and sky, listened to the same conversations and music, lived in the same house, was married to the same woman, but I saw a different world.
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When I get really twisted up about results, about how good my stuff is or what other people think of it, it’s only because I’m hoping some result will leave me feeling as good as the best day of writing always does.
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The only way to allow myself to be surprised, to create an inviting environment for inspired ideas, is to keep my attention on the road I can see, and not worry about the roads I can’t.
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Fortunately writing is sneaky. The goal is always to sort of hypnotize myself so that I can believe completely in something that no one else can see or touch or smell, believe in it more than all the things I can see and touch and smell. T
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Calm is the friendliest mental position I can assume. It doesn’t require anything of anyone, including me.
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The geography of the mind is infinitely large and infinitely varied, and there are no boundaries to its darkest lands other than the despair and anxiety and rage they provoke.
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When my desire to complain is stronger than my willpower, I ask myself if there’s truth in the complaint, if the complaint is like misunderstood guidance.
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Despite all the momentum of the fear that somewhere out in the misty future there is a world where no one likes what you’ve written, you must bring your attention back to the present moment where the story you want to tell is waiting for you.
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As wonderful as it is, as life affirming as it is, and as helpful as it is, inspiration doesn’t give a damn about my bank account.
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The Road to Hell is paved less with good intentions and more with a glorification of suffering, holding onto ours as if it’s what makes us who we are.
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You still like it, you’re still glad you wrote it, but it’s not worth going to the mat over. You click, “Accept Change,” and it’s gone.
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The world’s always a friendly place when I remember it’s a giant classroom.
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All my fear, shame, and pain are a consequence of mistaking stories for reality.
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For a moment, reality felt off kilter because I depended on what I liked or didn’t like to guide me not just across a radio dial but also through life itself.
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I could learn more about someone in two minutes of conversation than from watching hours of interviews or reading hundreds of pages of the their memoir.
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You will never be more original and inspired and productive than when you give something your complete attention.
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In this way, writing began teaching me how to love other people. I love them best by getting out their heads and sinking into my own heart, which, it just so happens, is where I find what I most want to write about
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When a story meets a reader I can’t be there to shepherd this new relationship through to a happy conclusion.
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Your readers will return mostly for your perspective. It may be that you and they share an interest like baseball or poetry or pop culture, and it is this shared interest that first brings you together – but it is your perspective on those subjects that brings them back.
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