Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

“You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination,”

“Writers end up writing about their obsessions.”

“settle the self on the self.”

You tell the truth and you depict it in detail:

Jack Kerouac’s

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Accept loss forever Be submissive to everything, open, listening No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge Be in love with your life

“Trust in love and it will take you where you need to go.” I want to add, “Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.” And don’t worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want.

“Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”

every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before. Each time is a new journey with no maps.

It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand.

Think, too, about your notebook. It is important. This is your equipment,

Instead you should feel that you have permission to write the worst junk in the world and it would be okay.

when I am writing something emotional, I must write it the

first time directly with hand on paper. Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart. Yet, when I tell stories, I go straight to the typewriter.

speaking into a tape...

Experiment.

Choose your tools carefully,

It’s a great opportunity to capture the oddities of your mind.

First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and

three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.

First thoughts are also unencumbered by ego,

That is the discipline: to continue to sit.

you may feel great emotions and energy that will sweep you away, but you don’t stop writing.

I encourage them to continue reading or writing right through the tears so they may come out the other side and not be thrown off by the emotion.

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

You don’t wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run.

Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, “I am free to write the worst junk in the world.” You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.

If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment.

My rule is to finish a notebook a month.

One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.

it is hard to write about being in love in the midst of a mad love affair. We have no perspective.

Katagiri Roshi said: “Your little will can’t do anything. It takes Great Determination. Great Determination doesn’t mean just you making an effort. It means the whole universe is behind you and with you—the birds, trees, sky, moon, and ten directions.”

We must continue to work the compost pile, enriching it and making it fertile so that something beautiful may bloom and so that our writing muscles are in good shape to ride the universe when it moves through us.

This understanding also helps us to accept someone else’s success and not to be too greedy. It is simply that person’s time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.

you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

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“Talk when you talk, walk when you walk, and die when you die.”

“Teach in order to learn.”

How to generate writing ideas, things to write about? Whatever’s in front of you is a good beginning. Then move out into all streets. You can go anyplace. Tell me everything you know. Don’t worry if what you know you can’t prove or haven’t studied.

Own anything you want in your writing and then let it go.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT your talent or capability: that will grow as you practice.

just practice writing, and when you learn to trust your voice, direct it. If you want to write a novel, write a novel. If it’s essays you want or short stories, write them. In the process of writing them, you will learn how. You

Don’t step away from their warmth and fire to talk “about” them. Stay close to them. That’s how you’ll learn to write. Stay with the original work. Stay with your original mind and write from it.

We think our words are permanent and solid and stamp us forever. That’s not true. We write in the moment.

That is how writing is. Instead of freezing us, it frees us.

The ability to put something down

align how you feel inside with the words you write; at that moment you are free because you are not fighting those things inside. You have accepted them,

The power is always in the act of writing. Come back to that again and again and again. Don’t get caught in the admiration for your poems.

Don’t identify too strongly with your work. Stay fluid behind those black-and-white words. They are not you. They were a great moment going through you. A moment you were awake enough to write down and capture.

There is no separation between writing, life, and the mind.