‘Authors Should Just Write’ – Or, Maybe They Shouldn’t | James Shelley

‘Authors Should Just Write’ – Or, Maybe They Shouldn’t | James Shelley.

So, aspiring writer, I propose that the quality and meaningfulness of what you and I do correlates with our willingness to consume, ponder, critique, and contemplate the thoughts of others. We are not little blobs floating in some sterile vacuum, and neither are we sitting at a typewriter in a whitewashed isolation cell. We only nurture our capacity to say something constructive about the world if we let the world in.

A reminder that, in order to be better writers, we must be better observers. It is essential that we disengage from the blank page regularly so we might go out and have the experiences required to return and fill it.

As an aside, James Shelley’s subscription newsletter, The Caesura Letters, is one of the best things I read daily. It’s smart and challenging. You should check it out.