Chapter VI: Know that There is Often Hidden In Us a Dormant Poet, Always Young and Alive

Posted on 2007-Dec-14 at 02:40 - Post Comment

Chapter VI:

Know that There is Often Hidden In Us a Dormant Poet, Always Young and Alive

De Musset

"Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regurarly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. [...]

 I tell you all this because it is the way you are to feel when you are writing - happy, truthful and free ...With complete self-trust. Because you are a human being all you have to do is to get out truthfully what is in you and it will be interesting, it will be good. Salable? I don't know. But that is not the thing to think of - for a long time anyway."