Daily Nourishment for March 24, 2024: Write from Your Own Interest
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 13 minutes
“Always work (note, write) from your own interest, never from what you think you should be noting or writing. Trust your own interest.”
- Lydia Davis, “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits” from Essays One
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale. Then look at this painting by John Fabian Carlson for a few minutes.
Prompt.
Here’s more from Lydia Davis: “My interest may pass. But for the moment I follow it and enjoy it, not knowing where it will go. Let your interest, and particularly what you want to write about, be tested by time, not by other people—either real other people or imagined other people.”
Practice.
Set a ten-minute timer and write about one thing you’re interested in that you’ve never written about. Write what you know. Write what you don’t know.
Want More?
Here’s a quote by John Fabian Carlson from his book Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting: “It is the ability to determine consciously what it is that interests him, and why, that differentiates the artist from the art student.” - John F. Carlson
And here’s a bit about one of Carlson’s interests from the Learning Woodstock Art Colony website:
“Carlson was fascinated by trees, writing that ‘Trees are a lot like human beings; rooted men, possessing character, ambitions and idiosyncrasies. Those who know trees see all their whims; see their struggles too; struggles with wind and weather; struggles to adjust themselves to their society. For nature will not allow them to run amuck, heedless of their neighbors; their individual propensities must conform to the cosmic laws within their own democracy. Thus there is a certain rhythm in a wood; a flow between parts, a give and take that is rigidly observed.’ He further commented that ‘I seem to have painted a considerable number of so-called ‘wood interiors,’ and for no other reason than that I would rather be in the woods, than any other place on earth. I have gotten well acquainted with trees, and find them excellent friends.’”
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Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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