A Year of Writing Dangerously

So let’s pick up the pen, and kick some ass. Write down who you were, who you are, and what you remember.

— NATALIE GOLDBERG

Everybody else works out — actors, musicians, dancers — why not writers?

but she shows up periodically in class to do writing exercises, to work out; she calls the class her writing gym.

successful mystery novelist

I don’t think — I write.

People come up with memories or feelings or thoughts they didn’t even know they had.

10. Working Out
I give a lot of five-minute exercises when I teach, because I think writing for just five minutes forces you to get out of your own way and lets you off the hook for writing something brilliant. Five minutes — no pausing, no stopping!

and suggest that this would be the subject of their writing.

When William Zinsser visited schools to discuss writing, he’d ask students, “What are your problems? What are your concerns?

There is nothing hard about it but your anxious vanity and fear of failure.