Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

You are exposing your life, not how your ego would like to see you represented, but how you are as a human being. And it is because of this that I think writing is religious. It splits you open and softens your heart toward the homely world.

Give yourself some space before you decide to write those big volumes. Learn to trust the force of your own voice.

Writers end up writing about their obsessions.

I have my writing groups make lists of their obsessions so that they can see what they unconsciously (and consciously) spend their waking hours thinking about.

They probably take over your life whether you want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you.

There are other things in the world to write about. It is true that there are other topics and they do come up naturally, but when I have made a conscious decision to not write about my family, the act of repressing it seems to repress everything else too, simply because I am spending a lot of energy avoiding something.

We are run by our compulsions. Maybe it’s just me. But it seems that obsessions have power. Harness that power. I know most of my writing friends are obsessed with writing.

You’re never free unless you are doing your art.

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

So perhaps not all obsessions are bad. An obsession for peace is good. But then be peaceful. Don’t just think about it. An obsession for writing is good. But then write. Don’t let it get twisted into drinking.

Be awake to the details around you, but don’t be self-conscious.

Relax, enjoy the wedding, be present with an open heart. You will naturally take in your environment, and later, sitting at your desk, you will be able to recall just how it was dancing with the bride’s redheaded mother, seeing the bit of red lipstick smeared on her front tooth when she smiled, and smelling her perfume mixed with perspiration.

We have lived; our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history, to care about the orange booths in the coffee shop in Owatonna.

A writer must say yes to life, to all of life:

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist—the real truth of who we are:

In a sense this is what writing is like. You have all these ingredients, the details of your life, but just to list them is not enough.

You must add the heat and energy of your heart.

Literature will tell you what life is, but it won’t tell you how to get out of it.”

you are never sure once the heat begins whether you will get a devil’s food or an angel food cake. There

are no guarantees; don’t worry. They’re both good to eat.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time to work at my real work.

Employers pay salaries for time. That is the basic commodity that human beings have that is valuable. We exchange our time in life for money. Writers stay with the first step—their time—and feel it is valuable even before they get money for it.

So it is good to be a little dumb when you want to write. You carry that slow person inside you who needs time; it keeps you from selling it all away.

if you want to get high, don’t drink whiskey; read Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats, Neruda, Hopkins, Millay, Whitman, aloud and let your body sing.

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.

“If you want to know about a tree, go to the tree.” If you want to know poetry, read it, listen to it.

We think in sentences, and the way we think is the way we see. If we think in the structure subject/verb/ direct-object, then that is how we form our world. By cracking open that syntax, we release energy and are able to see the world afresh and

from a new angle.

As you become single-minded

minded in your writing, at the same time something in you should remain aware of the color of the sky or the sound of a distant mower.

We shouldn’t forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.

You become aware that there would be no step without the floor, the sky, the water you drink to stay alive. Everything is interconnected, interpenetrated.

So when we concentrate in our writing, it is good. But we should always concentrate, not by blocking out the world, but by allowing it all to exist. This is a very tricky balance.

If we see their lives and festivals as fantastic and our lives as ordinary, we come to writing with a sense of poverty. We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close. Details are not good or bad. They are details.

In order to write about it, we have to go to the heart of it and know it, so the ordinary and extraordinary flash before our eyes simultaneously. Go so deep into something that you understand its interpenetration with all things. Then automatically the detail is imbued with the cosmic; they are interchangeable.

“It is very deep to have a cup of tea.”

We should learn to talk, not with judgment, greed, or envy, but with compassion, wonder, and amazement.

The cat’s mind is not thinking about how much money he needs, or whom to write a post-card to when he visits Florence: he is watching the mouse or the marble rolling across the floor or the light reflecting in crystal. He is ready with all of him to pounce.

“You are Buddha right now!” Only we forget when we are busy or frightened,

As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices—street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.

Get all your senses intent. Turn off your logical mind—empty, no thoughts. Let your words come from your belly. Bring your brain down to your stomach and digest your thoughts. Let them give nourishment to your body.

Then, when you finally pounce, let’s say at ten A.M., your designated time to write that day, add the pressure of timed writing. Write for an hour, or twenty minutes, whatever amount you decide, but write for all it’s worth. Keep your hand moving, pour out everything, straight from your veins, through your pen and onto paper. Don’t stop. Don’t doodle. Don’t daydream. Write until you’re spent.

But don’t worry. This isn’t your last chance. If you missed the mouse today, you’ll get it tomorrow. You never leave who you are. If you are a writer when writing, you also are a writer when you are cooking, sleeping, walking. And if you are a mother, a painter, a horse, a giraffe, or a carpenter, you will bring that into your writing, too. It comes with you. You can’t divorce yourself from parts of yourself.

even though life is not always so clear, it is good to express yourself in clear, affirmative statements.

But while you are practicing writing, do not worry if you see yourself using those indefinite words. Don’t condemn yourself or be critical. Just be aware of it. Keep writing. When you go back over it, you can cut them out.

Another thing you should watch out for are questions. If you can write a question, you can answer it. When you are writing, if you write a question, that is fine. But immediately go to a deeper level inside yourself and answer it in the next line.

Writing is the act of burning through the fog in your mind. Don’t carry the fog out on paper. Even if you are not sure of something, express it as though you know yourself. With this practice you eventually will.

Everyone has a great fear in life. Mine is loneliness. Naturally our great fear is usually the one most important to overcome to reach our life’s dreams. I am a writer. Writers spend a lot of time alone writing. Also, being an artist in our society makes us lonely. Everyone else leaves in the morning for work and structured jobs. Artists live outside that built-in social system.

Whenever I get disoriented or not sure of myself, it seems I bring my whole life into question. It

So when we write and begin with an empty page and a heart unsure, a famine of thoughts, a fear of no feeling—just begin from there, from that electricity. This kind of writing is uncontrolled, is not sure where the outcome is, and it begins in ignorance and darkness. But facing those things, writing from that place, will eventually break us and open us to the world as it is. Out of this tornado of fear will come a genuine writing voice.