I'm not sure why working at a homeless shelter made sense to me, except that I needed to immerse myself in some sort of larger real-life situation to get me out of the cage of my mind, in some ways.
From Nick Flynn
When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it.
In life you get one take, and it's perfect.
The first book I could call mine, my first book, was a picture book, 'The Magic Monkey' - it was adapted from an old Chinese legend by a thirteen-year-old prodigy named Plato Chan with the help of his sister.
The only strategy I know of is to write every day, which I don't always do, because sometimes I just can't, for various reasons that seem out of my control.
What I do is write, and I try to write as closely as I can into what I call 'the mystery.'
Our job as writers, as far as I can tell, is to attempt to express what seems inexpressible.
That soldiers do terrible things during wartime should not surprise us.
You come to realize people are not simple.
When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives