Hemingway: Write One True Sentence (And some other reflections on truth in creative work).
Nurturing The Song Within
Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.
It was in that room too that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything, I hoped; learning, I hoped; and I would read so that I would not think about my work and make myself impotent to do it.
- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
. . .
For reflections on truth in creative work by Ed Abbey and Frederick Franck, visit here.
Join Heron Dancers for an exploration of subjects related to creative work each Sunday at 7pm Eastern. More here.
That's a fabulous likeness of the great man- congrats!
O, thank you for running these terrific quotes. In particular, I was influenced early in my searching late twenties by Abbey. Then later in art school by Franck. I have a copy of that same booklet, Pacem in Terris, which I received on a vist to his sculpter garden and home. For years I received his yellow newsletter, " The Shoestring", via US mail! This walk with memories reminds me of tthe many riches I experienced, now forty years ago!