Writing in the quiet, the void

I feel strongly that one cannot have a family, even a nontraditional one, and be a committed artist without tremendous struggle — a tremendous giving of one's self. ... I believe doing it all, trying to do it all, is a trap women fall into. Why do it all!!!! Then one is running around like a chicken with its head cut off accomplishing things. But what of the quiet moments—the necessary leisure to just experience without structure — Life. If you try to do it all that is gone.

(Bell Hooks, "Black Woman Artist Becoming," in Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women, edited by Patricia Bell-Scott, p. 152.)

Time ran out

"I just haven't felt to have any identity under the steamroller of decisions and responsibilities of this last half year, with the babies a constant demand....

"It is the starting from scratch that is so hard—this first year. And then if, I keep thinking, if only I could have some windfall, like doing a really successful novel, and buy this house, this ghastly vision of rent bleeding away year after year would vanish.... How I would like to be self-supporting on my writing! But I need time."

(from Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, edited by Aurelia Schober Plath, p. 495; letter written on Jan. 16, 1963--Plath killed herself on Feb. 11.)

-- Submitted by Beth Blevins

The courage to speak

Our histories, our experiences call to us, always speaking our truths in a deep and resonant voice; they ask us only to listen. When women have the courage to write their stories, to write their truths, to address their silences—only then can their authentic journeys begin.

(Janet Lynn Roseman, "On Writing Women's Autobiography" in The Way of the Woman Writer, (Second edition), p. 13.)

The lady as novelist

For all this, the part-playful, part-hostile nineteenth-century distinction of women writers as 'lady novelists' has stayed very much alive. Consciousness of sex difference is as marked as ever it was. The distinction, however, has become hallowed as 'writers' and 'women writers', the phrase still operating to confine creative women to a pejorative subsection of the real thing, the great world of literature.

(from The Female Form: Women Writers and the Conquest of the Novel by Rosalind Miles, 1987, p. 7)

A life of thought

How do most people live without any thoughts? There are many people in the world, — you must have noticed them in the street, — how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

(from Letter to Colonel T. W. Higginson written by Emily Dickinson, 1870; reprinted in The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, p. 276)

Art from the chaos

“...what makes me feel as though I belong here out in this world is not the teacher, not the mother, not the lover, but what goes on in my mind when I am writing. Then I belong here and then all of the things that are disparate and irreconcilable can be useful. I can do the traditional things that writers always say they do, which is to make order out of chaos. Even if you are reproducing disorder, you are sovereign at this point. Struggling through the work is extremely important—more important to me than publishing it."

(If you didn't do this...?) 

"Then I would be part of the chaos."

--from “Toni Morrison, The Art of Fiction,” (Interview with Toni Morrison, 1993) in The Paris Review Interviews, II, p. 366.

Finding a wrinkle in time through art

When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.

(Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, p. 11)

Words that didn't go away

That all my dreams might not prove empty, I have been writing this useless account—though I doubt it will long survive me.

(Lady Nijō, c. 1307, The Confessions of Lady Nijō; translated by Karen Brazell, Stanford University Press, 1976, p. 264.)

The loneliness of the solo artist

I also think that process by which you become a writer is a pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a violinist might training for an orchestra, or a ballet student might being in a company that does ballets. We don't have any of that. We write on our own time, we write when we can.

Anne Rice, from A Fan's Interview with Anne Rice, The Borzoi Reader Online.

Why make the effort?

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

(Note: This is an oft-mentioned quote from Fran Lebowitz, but I haven't been able to find the exact source yet; will add later).