I asked what he was laughing at. I was just wondering if it was possible to get any more miserable. He chuckled darkly. I suppose if a river snake crawled up my ass and gave birth to quintuplets…
Do not tell me death is real. It is not. I have sustained my heart for ages with the love my brother passed on to me, dead as he was.
Crazy,' says Paddy Mayne, 'is our business.
. . None of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us. Instead we show up possessing already a highly refined and individuated soul.Another way of thinking...
The Spartan right fall upon the defenders of Antirhion, not in frenzied shrieking rage, lip-curled and fang-bared, but predator-like, cold-blooded, applying the steel with the wordless cohesion of the...
When inspiration touches talent, she gives birth to truth and beauty.
When Michael Crichton approached the end of a novel (so I’ve read), he used to start getting up earlier and earlier in the morning. He was desperate to keep his mojo going. He’d get up at six, then fi...
When Krishna instructed Arjuna that we have a right to our labor but not to the fruits of our labor, he was counseling the warrior to act territorially, not hierarchically. We must do our work for its...
What better way of avoiding work than going to a workshop?
What are we trying to heal, anyway? The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt. Remember, the part of us that we imagine needs healing is not the part we...
We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.
We all fight wars—in our work, within our families and abroad in the wider world. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on th...
Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It's a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.
There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.
Then there’s the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God. Give the act to...
The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots....
The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery.
The professional is prepared at a deeper level. He is prepared, each day, to confront his own self-sabotage.
The professional has learned better. He respects Resistance. He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.
The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when...