Essay, "Original detail". p.45
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Quotes from book
Writing Down the Bones
For more than thirty years Natalie Goldberg has been challenging and cheering on writers with her books and workshops. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Writing practice, as she calls it, is no different from other forms of Zen practice—"it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind." This thirtieth-anniversary edition includes new forewords by Julia Cameron and Bill Addison. It also includes a new preface in which Goldberg reflects on the enduring quality of the teachings here. She writes, "What have I learned about writing over these thirty years? I’ve written fourteen books, and it’s the practice here in Bones that is the foundation, sustaining and building my writing voice, that keeps me honest, teaches me how to endure the hard times and how to drop below discursive thinking, to taste the real meat of our minds and the life around us."
“What is important is not just what you do - "I am writing a book"”
but how you do it, how you approach it, and what you come to value.
[…] There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live.
Essay, "Every Monday". p.127
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Write anyplace". p.110, 111
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Epilogue. p.179, 180
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "No hindrances". p.145
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "The Goody Two-Shoes Nature". p.140
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Go further". p.112
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "The writing studio". p.103
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Listening". p.59
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
“Writers move with grace in and out of many worlds.”
Essay, "Writers have good figures". p.56
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Living twice". p.53
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Writing is not a McDonald's hamburger". p.39
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "First thoughts". p.8, 9
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Essay, "Beginner's mind, pen and paper". p.5, 6
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Introduction. at p.2
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
“You tell the truth and you depict it in detail.”
Foreword to the 2nd Edition (December 2004), by Natalie Goldberg. p.xxiii
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.
Essay, "Writing as a practice". p.11
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
