Word by Word

Practical insights for writers from Jessica P Morrell

Walt Whitman on the secret of writing

Written By: Jessica Morrell - Oct• 23•18

The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment–to put things down without deliberation–without deliberation–without worrying about their style –without waiting for a fit time or place. 

I always worked that way. I kept the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote, wrote. No prepared picture, no elaborated poem, no after-narrative, could be what the thing itself is. You want to catch its first spirit–to tally its birth. By writing at that instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.  ~ Walt Whitman

 

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