The following snippet...
A. motivates me
B. pisses me off
C. makes me laugh
D. none of the above
E. all of the above
"An interviewer once asked Ursula Le Guin's advice for writers, and she replied, 'I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.'" (taken from The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, Tuesday, 21 October 2008)
2 comments:
So two weeks ago, this part "And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte" would have freaked me out, would have made my brain yell "Fraud" and/or "Lazy Fraud" at myself. But I must now publicly admit that I am being helped by a a self-help book (shudder). It's a book on writer's block by Victoria Nelson, and it is chock full of silly gestalt and freudian phrases. But Nelson feels dead on, at least for me, and I think I am on my way to much better productivity. And much less name calling of myself.
I love the quote.
I heard Ron Rash speak last night. He's GWU's most famous alum. He said something along these same lines.
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