Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

Sometimes I listen to the doubting voice and get sidetracked for a while. “I think I’ll go into sales, open up a café so other writers can go there, sip cappuccino and write, or get married, have babies, be a homemaker and make wonderful chicken dinners.”

I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me, and even more amazing, I don’t know.

In Japan there are stories of great Zen poets writing a superb haiku and then putting it in a bottle in a river or nearby stream and letting it go.