Natalie Goldberg

IT IS CALLED a cut-up. Take some old poems, journal entries, etc., and simply cut apart the lines with a scissors. Now place the lines on a clean sheet of paper, helter-skelter, mixing them up from your different sources. Throw in additional lines from the Yellow Pages, a dictionary, Scientific American. Play around with them, shifting lines, discarding some, adding others. When you have something that pleases you, glue it down on the page.
You can also do this with a friend, alternating lines from each other’s work.
It’s good practice. It breaks open the mind.
Now, do a ten-minute timed writing, but make the topic of each sentence different from the subject of the sentence you just wrote. At first it seems impossible, but then it becomes fun. It is good practice in making your mind nimble and willing to take leaps.

Writing is a visual art. You want the reader to see what you are saying.

We have a need to express ourselves in this transient world. To stop time for a moment. To show how we see and feel before we are gone

I bet you’ll have fun sketching the numbers on the clock. Can’t fit all twelve? So what, don’t worry about it. We already know a proper clock. This one is yours. Give no thought about it being perfect. This practice is not only enjoyable, it can also calm the mind by meeting what’s in front of you with no interference. No good or bad, no judgment, no editor

Everything is speaking if we listen. A rock just talks slower.

I never erased a line I didn’t like in order to put down what I thought was a more correct line. What’s correct anyway?