Writing Advice From Anaïs Nin

Writing Advice from Anaïs Nin

The following are excerpts from a letter of advice she sent to a 17-year-old aspiring author by the name of Leonard W., whom she had taken under her wing as creative mentor.

I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life.

Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it.

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings.

It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.

Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications.

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

✨reblog if you're accepting anonymous asks about anything✨

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midnighthieves

8 months ago

Crying

- A Psalm For The Wild-Built, Becky Chambers // kagonekoshiro

- A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers // kagonekoshiro

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midnighthieves

2 years ago

— Paul Guest, from “1987.”

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midnighthieves

2 years ago

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.

Mary Oliver, "Starlings in Winter"

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midnighthieves

1 year ago

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midnighthieves

2 years ago

You need a rest. You need empty moments in which you tolerate your anxiety and circling thoughts until they slow down and stop circling. You need slow, quiet activities that ground you and remind you to accept yourself in spite of huge obstacles and bad thoughts. You need to put solutions out of your mind for now, and engage in activities that have nothing to do with your ego. You need habits that strengthen your patience and focus, but also feel real and not arbitrary. You need to abandon your glorious future and build your imperfect present instead.

Ask Polly: “I’m Lazy, Reckless and Addicted To Social Media. Help!”

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midnighthieves

9 months ago

𝖇𝖑𝖊𝖌𝖍

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