At some point each day (well, most days) I unroll my mat and practice for an hour. I sit in meditation for a while. This can be five minutes or twenty minutes, but the daily practice - simply showing up for it - is centering. Dani Shapiro More Quotes by Dani Shapiro More Quotes From Dani Shapiro I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it. Dani Shapiro artist joy jobs It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive. Dani Shapiro dream trying thinking Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. Dani Shapiro writing way window I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away. The truth is in the present moment. The great paradox is that when I'm really able to do that, time slows down and opens up. Time feels suddenly and inexplicably without end. Dani Shapiro wish want past Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write Dani Shapiro ongoing writing needs If you are a writer or any kind of artist, if you change something as fundamental as where you live - the way you live - then I think you change the very instrument that is trying to make the art Dani Shapiro trying art thinking Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle. Dani Shapiro creating literature struggle My son is now fourteen, and from the moment he was born, I understood that forevermore my heart would be walking around outside my body. Dani Shapiro would-be heart son The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime. Dani Shapiro persistence empathy writing If I dismiss the ordinary—waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life. Dani Shapiro special missing waiting You can start your day over anytime. Dani Shapiro When I near the end of a book, it feels as if the entire universe meets me more than halfway and supports me. The whole world seems to shimmer when I find the words. My mind quiets. Dani Shapiro support mind book The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it. Dani Shapiro embrace things-to-do fighting How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.' Dani Shapiro simple answers writing I used to act in television commercials when I was a kid and a young adult. Dani Shapiro television-commercials adults kids I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well. Dani Shapiro wells alive writing Everything I know about life I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write. Dani Shapiro sitting-down practice writing Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms. Dani Shapiro breathing dream writing In the country, I stopped being a person who, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, startles easily. I grew calmer, but beneath that calm was a deep well of loneliness I hadn't known was there. ... Anxiety was my fuel. When I stopped, it was all waiting for me: fear, anger, grief, despair, and that terrible, terrible loneliness. What was it about? I was hardly alone. I loved my husband and son. I had great friends, colleagues, students. In the quiet, in the extra hours, I was forced to ask the question, and to listen carefully to the answer: I was lonely for myself. [p. 123] Dani Shapiro husband lonely country I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people interrupt themselves in the middle of some story they're telling me to say, "You know you can't write about this." Dani Shapiro eye writing people
