Monthly Archives: April 2011

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”

— Anne Lamott

Tell me what you really know, what you really, really know. What can you write about with complete authority—even if it’s how to change a diaper or a tire; or how to listen to a friend. Make a list of things you really know how to do. Post your list here.

“This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage.”

–Ellen Goodman

Make a list of family stories you want to tell. Even the list itself turn into a poem about your family’s history. Keep adding to this list over time. Then start writing. Feel free to share your list with us, here on the Writer’s Journey Roadmap blog. Or a story…

You need not do anything

Remain sitting at your table and listen

You need not even listen, just wait

You need not even wait

Just become quiet and still and solitary

and the world will offer itself to you to be unmasked

It has no choice

It will roll in ecstasy at your feet

It has no choice.

–Franz Kafka

Tell me about a time you gave up and stopped trying to make things happen. What happened then?

Tell me about a time you gave up and stopped trying to make things happen. What happened then?