Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

Writing is egalitarian; it cuts across geographic, class, gender, and racial lines.

don’t worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want. How many of us with our big salaries are actually secure anyway?

Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.

“When you are present, the world is truly alive.”

It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice.

Writing is not a McDonald’s hamburger. The cooking is slow, and in the beginning you are not sure whether a roast or a banquet or a lamb chop will be the result.

‘Standing in the field, I was lonelier than a crow.’”

Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. And don’t think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page.

Don’t tell readers what to feel. Show them the situation, and that feeling will awaken in them.

Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That’s how they learn to write.

If you want to write, write. If one book doesn’t get published, write another one. Each one will get better because you have all the more practice behind you.

“Even paradise gets stinky,”

To be alive, we have to deal with a loss of control.