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Today, you will write.
Today’s newsletter has been generously created by the incredibly talented author Rachel Maggart.
Find her on Substack here, and instagram here.
Today you will write letting go of language, preconceptions, fear. You will return to language as a vehicle and you will try not to think about style. You will really try not to take yourself seriously. You will write letting go of the burden of being a writer. Who cares what you write! You will write about experience, emptied of analysis or derivative statement. Remember you are a reader before a writer, so write for you. Do it with love.
— Rachel Maggart
See you tomorrow x
— Loren @ Paperbacks & Co.
Today’s Writing Prompts
Journaling Prompt – Turn on your favorite song right now and write from the feeling it produces.
Fiction Prompt – Take the most banal thing you can think of and make it the strangest; take the strangest thing you can think of and make it the most banal.
Poetry Prompt – Write a poem without the letter e in it.
Use the artwork at the beginning of this newsletter as a visual prompt to inspire some writing – whether a personal essay, or fictional short story, or poem…
An Interview with Author Rachel Maggart
What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received?
At the beginning of the pandemic I found Agnes Martin's Writings and I think reading it helped forge a new direction in my creative life. I remember reading something about how Martin wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't get around to making anything until 3pm sometimes if the idea, the impetus behind the work wasn't crystal clear to her. But then she could abide in the knowing that it was the right thing. This isn’t a passive approach; there are ways of cultivating, of sharpening the receptors for the signal, and that is the work more than the writing itself. The writing then takes care of itself.
A few quotes from Writings, just substitute "art" or "artwork" or "making art" for "writing":
Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.
Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
The worst thing you can think about when you're working is yourself.
The main thing in making art often is letting go of your expectation and your idea.
What is your favorite book about writing that you would recommend to other writers?
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders and The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr were both really good. A lot of the advice in The Art of Memoir can be translated to fiction writing too.
The authors apparently teach right across the hall from each other at Syracuse in New York and Karr writes about how they collude in an exercise for her non-fiction students. She stages an altercation in the classroom between herself and Saunders and then asks her students to write about what happened, all of them with completely varying accounts of course, to demonstrate the slipperiness of memory in transcribing past events.
What traits are necessary for a writer to succeed?
Grace / an ability to release things without dwelling on or identifying with them--there's a levity to grace
Tenacity / focus
A sense of humor
🥳 Celebrating Our Wins 🎉
Did you get some writing done today? Why not share your progress in the comments?!
Link to your blog post, share your word count, or even just jump in with a little text celebration…
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