Natalie Goldberg’s first book, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala), was a surprise hit when it was published in 1986. The first print run was ten thousand copies. In the past seventeen years it has sold more than a million copies in ten languages and is now in its thirty-third printing. Looking back, Goldberg says, “I’m a little embarrassed by the confidence of that thirty-six-year-old. I just told people what to do. Now I would say, ‘You have to find your own way.’ ”
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The Sun Interview
Keep The Hand Moving
Natalie Goldberg On Zen And The Art Of Writing Practice
Correspondence
Reading Genie Zeiger’s interview with Natalie Goldberg [“Keep the Hand Moving,” November 2003] was like attending a personalized writing workshop. I found myself thinking, I could do this. I could actually “just write.”
I found an old journal, in which I’d faithfully chronicled exactly one week’s worth of my life, and did ten minutes of writing practice. I took Goldberg’s advice and kept the pen to the page. So far I’ve practiced two days in a row.
It’s too bad more colleges don’t teach Goldberg’s method. This one simple interview inspired me to write a letter to The Sun for the first time in fifteen years.
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