Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say.
Interpretation
Writing, like music, involves nuanced expression where both what is included and omitted carry significance.
This quote by Robert Creeley suggests that the art of writing is akin to the art of music, emphasizing the importance of phrasing and the careful selection of words. Just as musicians manipulate notes to create emotion and meaning, writers must consider how they express their thoughts, highlighting the crucial role of silence or omission in conveying a message effectively.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to think about their word choices.
I did however used to think, you know, in the woods walking, and as a kid playing in the woods, that there was a kind of immanence there — that woods, and places of that order, had a sense, a kind of presence, that you could feel; that there was something peculiarly, physically present, a feeling of place almost conscious ... like God. It evoked that.
Moon, moon, when you leave me alone all the darkness is an utter blackness, a pit of fear, a stench, hands unreasonable never to touch. But I love you. Do you love me. What to say when you see me.
Translation is not original creation - that is what one must remember. In translation, some loss is inevitable.
I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.
Before Turner there was no fog in London.
At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do.
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
Sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter of an inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.
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