[T]he one thing I want for you is to recognize when you are really singing in writing practice and honor that. Trust that. When you were screaming on the page. Maybe that doesn't make a whole book but that is the true seed.
Natalie GoldbergWhether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind.
Natalie GoldbergOne poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.
Natalie GoldbergOur bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.
Natalie Goldberg