Wild Mind wisdom from Natalie Goldberg + others

--Write ever day for ten days in a row.  Do not reread anything you have written for those ten days until two weeks later....Put parentheses around sections you like. Develop those sections. (38)

--no, don't even think about good and bad: think instead of writing where you were present or not, present and connected to your words, and thoughts--is another chance to allow all kinds of writing to exist die by side, as though your notebook were Big Mind accepting it all...We need to learn to accept our minds...We have to accept ourselves in order to write.  Now none of us does that fully; few of us do it even halfway.  Don't wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of wriitng is an activity that teaches us about acceptance. (53)

--Do some oral "I remembers." Do them with friends.  Do them alone...Often students say that they had a great poem or story go through their heads while they were out running or walking or driving. Well this is the next step. Use your mouth and articulate it...This will get us prepared for when we have eaten up all the forests and there is no more paper.  (65)

--"If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed."  Write what disturbs you what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Go for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.  Be willing to be split open. (71)

--A helpful technique: right in the middle of saying nothing, right in the middle of a sentence, put a dash and write, "What I really want to say is..." and go on writing. (73)

--"Listen, tomorrow I'll meet you here at one [to write]...Don't tell me whether you'll be here or not. I'll pretend you will and I'll be here." (77)

--Play with the idea of home. Return there either physically or in your mind and describe it...Write about the plae where you were brought up. Becareful not to become sentimental.  Try to be true. True to what? To original detail. To get a new perspective, try to write it from a different angle: a dog's your mother's, a visiting aunt's. (96)

--Take a discipline you know well, maybe running...Try that first and then launch into timed writings.  There other skill might be able to warm you up for writing as long as it is about concentration.  Concentration does not mean squeezing your brain tight, but rather relaxing it and bypassing the editor. You are so intent on what you are doing, the internal censor can't get a word in edgewise. (101)

--Make contact with a writer you know about. If she lives in your town, perhaps call her up and tell her you would like to take her to lunch...You don't even need a published author. Make contact with other writers. Go to workshops to meet people. Don't stay isolated. Make an effort to seek out people who love writing and make friends with them. It helps to confirm your writing life. (126)

On Memoir, Truth and 'Writing Well' : http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5340618

But Enough About Me: What does the popularity of memoirs tell us about ourselves? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/01/25/but-enough-about-me-2