Encouraging Words of Julia Cameron

Here are some encouraging quotes from Julia Cameron's The Right to Write (1998, New York: Putnam). I like Cameron's direct style. While she doesn't use the word, she's thought a lot about the psychology of writing -- and how wonky thinking can get us writers stuck in psychological traps!

Here are some of the lines my pen was drawn to highlight:

On how we think of ourselves as writers ~

• "...the act of writing makes you a writer..." (p.7)
• "If only we could give ourselves permission to write 'badly', so many of us would write very well indeed." (p.23)
• "...in order to be a good writer, I have to be willing to be a bad writer." (p.23)
• "We can either demand that we write well or we can settle more comfortably into writing down what seems to want to come through us -- good, bad, or indifferent." (p.11)

On our attitude to time ~

• "One of the biggest myths around writing is that in order to do it we must have great swathes of uninterrupted time." (p.13)
• "The obsession with time is really an obsession with perfection. We want enough time to write perfectly." (p.16)
• "The trick to finding writing time is to make writing time in the life you've already got." (p.16)

On silencing our internal critic ~

• "My job was to do the writing, not judge the writing." (p.19)

On being open to the mystery of creativity ~

• "I believe that what we want to write wants to be written." (p.18)
• "Writing -- and this is the big secret -- wants to be written." (p.20)
  

The Right to Write

Have you seen Julia Cameron's The Right to Write: And Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life? You probably know her from The Artist's Way, a hands-on book about creativity that has a cult following. Friends swear by it.

At the risk of sacrilege, I couldn't get into The Artist's Way. Maybe it's more a reflection of where I was when I read it, than a reflection on Cameron. But I'm loving The Right to Write. Cameron's writing has energy behind it. You feel like you're reading this organic thing running on pure oxygen. I love reading her. She gave me the urge to sit at the keyboard.

Writing Quotes

I've just got a copy of Writing out the Storm by Jessica Page Morrell (Starbound Publishing, 1998). Morrell writes in short chapters with pithy advice for writers and lots of suggestions for further reading. I'm liking it a lot -- some ideas are new to me and others are good reminders. Morrell sprinkles quotes from established writers through the book. Here are a couple I'm enjoying from her book:

"...Most writing is done away from the type writer, away from the desk." ~ Henry Miller

"There is no other way of saying this. Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block..." ~ Annie Dillard

"So how do you persist? Start small so that you become accostomed to writing as part of your daily routine. Commit yourself to fifteen minutes of writing practice every day. Fifteen minutes is easy. It's the time you spend eating dinenr or talking on the phone. Imagine that fifteen mintues as part of your daily hygiene routine; you shower, you brush your teeth, you practice writing. Write every day. Write when you don't feel like writing. Write when the words seem bland, meaningless, or scary. Keep learning, practicing, trying. Persist in the face of all your doubts and exhaustion. Persist." ~ Jessica Page Morrell

I haven't had a chance to check out Morrell's website and blog yet, but she has a strong web presence.