#writing on empty

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“Death blowing bubbles,” one of the several depictions of death created by Johann Georg Leinberger between 1729 and 1731 for the ceiling of the Holy Grave Chapel in Michaelsberg Abbey in Bamberg, Germany. The bubbles are symbols of the fragility of life.

[Traces of History and Archeology and Art]

* * * *

We have reached a hastier and superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision.

—Anaïs Nin (fourth journal, 1944)

[Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice :: Natalie Goldberg]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Hayward

* * * *

I continue, prattling on in the cemetery in the creeping dark. Here he is, after all—after all these years. I have a shawl wrapped around me and a streetlight nearby turns on. “I dried up after fifteen books,” I tell him. “One came after the other, crowded to get in line. Then nothing but the empty days on the portal and Covid burning up the sidewalks. My last book was about haiku.” I quickly drop that subject, afraid Hemingway didn’t care about haiku. I’m sure I repeated myself. Finally, I unwind as much as I can, and then there is nothing. But it is dumb clear, even with no revelation—it comes from me, not him: Write anyway. No ecstatic understanding. No big epiphany.

What did you think? I ask myself. You went to a writer for help. I was ignorant of a writer’s path when I was young and still hoped to escape, but I was married to it. Visiting Hemingway only drove that home. Like other marriages, you don’t know what you’re getting into until you stay and meet it, moment by moment. I think of the words of Suzuki Roshi, the Japanese Zen master, when someone asked him what enlightenment was: Seeing one thing through to the end. I guess that fit for anything you seriously take on.

[Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice :: Natalie Goldberg]

[kammartinez]

Natalie Goldberg on the Real Equipment of a Writer

First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highli

[kamreadsandrecs]

Natalie Goldberg on the Real Equipment of a Writer

First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, nonfiction, essay writers, and poets, highli

[dirtypuzzle]

when it’s late, nd u need to S L E E P