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But lives go down the tubes one repetition at a time, one deflection at a time, one hundred and forty characters at a time.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Turgenev. I read Cervantes and Flaubert and Stendhal
Highlighted these authors to check out myself.
"refine your skills to support your instincts."
When Stephen Sondheim makes a hat, he is thinking of nothing else. He is immersed. He loses himself in the work and in the moment.
He knows that when the Muse sees his butt in the chair, she will deliver.
The 10,000 Hour Rule, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, postulates that the achievement of mastery in any field, be it brain surgery or throwing a split-finger fastball, requires approximately 10,000 hours of practice. But the key, according to Mr. Gladwell, is that that practice be focused.
Once we turn pro, we're like sharks who have tasted blood, or renunciants who have glimpsed the face of God. For us, there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hunt. When our hearts burst... then we'll go out, and no sooner.
Patricia Ryan Madson taught improv at Stanford for years to standing-room-only classes. (Her book Improv Wisdom
The best pages I've ever written are pages I can't remember writing.
Years ago, in New York, I had hit the wall as a failed novelist. My next day's to-do list had been reduced to two options: Kill myself by hanging. Kill myself by jumping off the roof. Instead I decided to write a screenplay.
The amateur believes that she must have all her ducks in a row before she can launch her start-up or compose her symphony or design her iPhone app. The professional knows better. Has your husband just walked out on you? Has your El Dorado been repossessed? Keep writing. Keep composing. Keep shooting film. Athletes play hurt. Warriors fight scared. The professional takes two aspirin and keeps on truckin'.
"There is a second self inside you — an inner, shadow Self. This self doesn't care about you. It doesn't love you. It has its own agenda, and it will kill you. It will kill you like cancer. It will kill you to achieve its agenda, which is to prevent you from actualizing your Self, from becoming who you really are. This shadow self is called, in the Kabbalistic lexicon, the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara, Steve, is what you would call Resistance."
