Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Completing a first draft is a challenging and uncomfortable task.
Joyce Carol Oates uses the metaphor of pushing a peanut with one's nose across a dirty floor to illustrate the difficulties and uncomfortable nature of writing a first draft. This vivid image captures the struggles that writers often face, emphasizing that the creative process can be messy and arduous, yet it is a necessary step towards producing a polished piece of work.
Themes
WritingCreativityFirst DraftStruggleMetaphor
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, I shared that getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes βI never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Similar quotes
Creativity has more to do with the elimination of the inessential than with inventing something new.
Helmut JahnRead
If we're free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running from it.
Austin KleonRead
In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction.
George LoisRead
Creativity is generating ideas that are novel and useful. I define originals as people who go beyond dreaming up the ideas and take initiative to make their visions a reality.
Adam GrantRead
Do you think of yourself as a creative personality? If you do, you are both fortunate and correct, in fact the beautiful truth is that everyone is creative and we all have the ability to develop our creative potential. It is wise to remember that the person who follows the crowd will get no further than the crowd. The person who walks the creative path is likely to find they are in places no one has ever been before.
Bob ProctorRead
Ad agencies do all kinds of market research that ask people what they think they want, and instead, you should be creating things that you want. If you do something and you get it, the rest of the world will get it, too. Trust your own instincts, your own intellect, and your own sense of humor.
George LoisRead