I took comfort, as a kid, in knowing that things had always been as awful and as wonderful as they were now, that the world was always on the edge of total destruction.
Michael ChabonRead
When I finish a first draft, it's always just as much of a mess as it's always been. I still make the same mistakes every time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creating a first draft is often chaotic and full of errors, regardless of experience.
Michael Chabon's quote emphasizes that the process of writing a first draft remains challenging and imperfect, no matter how experienced a writer becomes. It highlights the common struggles that writers face and the inevitability of mistakes in the creative process, suggesting that these difficulties are a universal part of artistic expression and growth.
Themes
WritingDraftMistakesCreativityProcess
In practice
Example use cases
During a workshop on creative writing, I shared Chabon's quote to encourage fellow writers to embrace the chaos of their first drafts.
More from Michael Chabon
All quotes →A story begins with this nebulous feeling that’s hard to get a hold of and you’re testing your feelings and assumptions, testing what you believe. They end up turning into keepsakes and mementos –like amber in which a memory gets trapped.
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I smoked and looked down at the bottom of Pittsburgh for a little while, watching the kids playing tiny baseball, the distant figures of dogs snatching at a little passing car, a miniature housewife on her back porch shaking out a snippet of red rug, and I made a sudden, frightened vow never to become that small, and to devote myself to getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
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It's always thrilling to encounter the sweep of time in a work of fiction in a way that feels authentic and real.
Michael ChabonRead
[My dad] didn't do much apart from the traditional winning of bread. He didn't take me to get my hair cut or my teeth cleaned; he didn't make the appointments. He didn't shop for my clothes. He didn't make my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My mom did all of those things, and nobody ever told her when she did them that it made her a good mother.
Michael ChabonRead
You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.
Michael ChabonRead
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