Advice? I don’t have advice.
Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like
you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and
there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a
cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing
to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and
please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.
Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our
brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the
king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have
to.”
“Go into yourself. Find out the
reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the
very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if
you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself
in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a
deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn
question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance
with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most
indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come
close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you
see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and
desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind
of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and,
when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your
dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor,
don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a
poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and
no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose
walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your
childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn
your attentions to it. Try to raise
up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow
stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in
the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. -
And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world,
poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or
not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see
them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A
work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one
can judge it.”
―
Rainer Maria Rilke
