Today’s quote comes to us from writer Marion Winik whose risk taking in area of creative nonfiction and the personal essay make me proud to know her. She is a beacon of truth-telling in the sometimes foggy world of so-called reality shows.
The quote that inspires Marion comes from William Stafford’s essay A Way of Writing:
“A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.”
Marion singles this quote out because “The idea is to trust the process and make time and space for it to unfold,” says Marion. “For me, that can mean half a day in bed with my laptop, taking some puny little idea and teasing it out into something more. I find I don’t have tons of great ideas — I’m lucky if I have one or two nebbish, vague ideas. But I know that if I assume the position and start moving my fingers, there’s a good chance something will come of it. Along those lines, I also love Joan Didion’s famous quote.”
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”
Stafford’s quote is the motto of the Creative Writing & Publishing Arts MFA program at the University of Baltimore where Marion teaches. She also writes a column called “Bohemian Rhapsody” for BaltimoreFishbowl.com and is the author of eight books of creative non fiction and two books of poetry.
Thanks for stopping in, Marion.
how interesting…
I was just talking about Marion and her brother Greg, a few days ago with a woman I just met via work who went to grade school with Greg, and he later dated her sister-in-law…
go figure…such a tiny, tiny world.
Congrats on the Snuggle Mountain App recognition…you have so earned it.
Thank you, Rob.
I have always loved to read Marion, and her unvarnished relationship with truth telling. Thanks for recognizing her here, and reminding me of how much I’ve missed that reading, and how much I appreciate reading you, too. And how much I need to get back to my own writing. (Time…. are they making any more of it these days?)
Ahh…yes…time. What I’ve found is there is really infinite time in the present moment, in our breath. Stay, present, Alexa and there is time for everything. It’s when we look ahead and check our lists that we begin to feel squished…I think.