#writ

We’re all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidentify with our jobs 8 ) We master the technique of our jobs 9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs 10) We receive praise or blame in the real world ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#professional #work #writing #art

Inside" Children Inside each of us are the children we were at each developmental stage. With regard to our creative dreams, these inside children can prevent us from living them by "acting out" in order to try to get our attention. Your inner 5-year-old is not going to patiently wait as you learn intricate metalworking techniques or study impressionist painting. Yet, your inner 10-year-old may be perfectly suited to learn and observe new skills. What's really needed is parenting of these inside children so that we bring them to age-appropriate activities. ↗

— S.A.R.K.

#creativity #dreaming #procrastination #writing #age

That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madness… He said books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes. ↗

— Steven Millhauser

#writer #writing #art

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day--a way of relating. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#writing #art

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ↗

— William Faulkner

#morality #writing #art

A work in which there are theories is like an object which still has its price-tag on. ↗

— Marcel Proust

#writing #art

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it. ↗

— Toni Morrison

#been #close #done #ever #everything

Here's another test. Of any activity you do, aks yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it? ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#writing #art

I’ve learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen. ↗

— Cameron Conaway

#fighting #martial-arts #open-mind #writing #art

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. [...] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#authorship #truth #writing #art