Here are some of Herrigel's discoveries about Zen and the art of Archery paraphrased to apply to the art of writing fiction.
Before you can become an aHere are some of Herrigel's discoveries about Zen and the art of Archery paraphrased to apply to the art of writing fiction.
Before you can become an artist, you must become an artisan. The way to become a master artisan is through obedience, imitation and repetition. Only then does the artist, the creator of something new arises. To be an artist, the creation of art is not a decision but a flowering. Then eventually it dawns upon the artist that the value of what he is creating is the inward work of creating it. That as valuable as the work may be to others, the purpose of the work was the creation of the artist’s soul. A creation that is both the making of something new and the discovery of something as old as the beginning of the universe.
We are under the illusion that the spider weaves the web to catch the fly. But the spider simply weaves and the fly simply gets caught. So I am writing trying to catch the readers’ attention, admiration, but all I have to do is write. Write without worry.
Why anxiety is so bad for writing is not because it is painful to the writer, but because it prevents the best work from happening.
How do you stop worry? Only by practicing and practicing until you (your I) disappear and there is only the telling of the story. The teller of the story is telling what “it” sees, hears, thinks. The teller of the story is an “it”. The story telling itself.
A novel is an arrow that you shoot in the direction of a target. It is not known to me whether the arrow hits the target nor do I aim at the target. All I can do is hold the bow, draw the string, let go of the arrow. It may be impossible not to see the target (the reader), but you shoot the arrow as if you do not see it....more