Stephen! "Stay in contact" my friend. I bet your writing is as fun doing as it sounds in the reading.
What i notice when i hold to a practice of writing and reading: i come back alive, i care about commas, my mind gets more supple, i git cutsey wit' werds, my eyes give and get more, im not scrambling to and fro, grinding my teeth, knocking over grandmas crossing the street. I have a more gentle, noticing gaze. Something to take the edge off the serious-me. And it only costs a few pages of paper. And sometimes results in substack posts like this:
Really interesting post. And inspiring. I will find one of Peter Elbow's books.
Here is an excerpt of one of my books (on my shelves) on writing and the creative process:
… So if you are to have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious you must learn to write easily and smoothly when the unconscious is in the ascendant.
The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can - and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before - begin to write.
…
Becoming a Writer from Dorothea Brande, 1934, page 72
Stephen! "Stay in contact" my friend. I bet your writing is as fun doing as it sounds in the reading.
What i notice when i hold to a practice of writing and reading: i come back alive, i care about commas, my mind gets more supple, i git cutsey wit' werds, my eyes give and get more, im not scrambling to and fro, grinding my teeth, knocking over grandmas crossing the street. I have a more gentle, noticing gaze. Something to take the edge off the serious-me. And it only costs a few pages of paper. And sometimes results in substack posts like this:
https://thinkingandfeelingoutloud.substack.com/p/revenue-is-the-outer-doll-nesting?triedRedirect=true
[you've been pasted]
no more grandma-grinding, tooth-scrambling, no more lack of comma-care, say I
no more!
thanks for pasting, I'm a fan of your nesting dolls
Really interesting post. And inspiring. I will find one of Peter Elbow's books.
Here is an excerpt of one of my books (on my shelves) on writing and the creative process:
… So if you are to have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious you must learn to write easily and smoothly when the unconscious is in the ascendant.
The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can - and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before - begin to write.
…
Becoming a Writer from Dorothea Brande, 1934, page 72
"Writing without Teachers" is a classic of his. He's great.
I love that quote. Thank you for sharing it.
It evokes this sense of.. parting the curtain of the day with a sense of grace and feeling