Victoria Nelson > Quotes

“As a rule, young children don't complain of wanting to fingerpaint but finding themselves mysteriously unable to do so.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“What is creativity? Above all, it is play, the child's fresh spontaneity waiting to come forth in writing, or painting, or composing music, or any creative act.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“A novel is something that stands at the end of a lengthy process called writing. It is not a preexisting Platonic form embedded within the writer... I do not have a Boston marathon inside me waiting to get out. The marathon is a peak experience I am rightly entitled to only as the culmination of years of regular training and love of running.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“One of the most distinctive features of psychosis is its dynamic of externalization. Madness is experienced as being enacted on the subject from without; a person perceives his own unintegrated psychological contents as outer-world creatures and demons who threaten to engulf and physically destroy him. The barriers between inner and outer, subject and object, dissolve so entirely that no boundary remains to protect the ego from the onslaught of this projected unconscious material.”
― Victoria Nelson

“Many people find it difficult to head straight for their fun; something in them refuses to play. The barrier is not lack of willpower (did you ever need willpower, as a child, to make mud pies?), but a stronger and much more seductive emotion: hatred. Specifically, hatred of self.
Loving oneself—as opposed to the narcissism of being
in love with oneself, with all its attendant insecurities—is one of the most difficult life tasks to master, and it is integrally related to the creative process.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“Se cuenta que una vez el viento y el sol hicieron una apuesta. Se desafiaron a ver quién sería el primero en conseguir que un hombre se quitara su capote. El viento sopló con furia, pero el hombre se ajustó más la capa. Cuando brilló el sol, se la quitó feliz.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“When you experience writer's block, it means your creative child is throwing herself on the floor and refusing to cooperate. What do you do under these circumstances? Do you try to compel your child, kicking and screaming, to do what she would not? Do you send her to her room without dinner? Do you give her a number of logical reasons why she ought to
cooperate? Or do you try to find out why she doesn't want to in the first place?”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“Como hemos visto una y otra vez, los escritores serios y crónicamente bloqueados suelen haber perdido el contacto no sólo con lo sencillo, lo inocente y lo lúdico, sino también con su propia identidad. Necesitan volver a empezar de cero y dar de nuevo sus primeros pasos vacilantes, dejando en suspenso cualquier juicio alambicado y cualquier directriz creativa hasta no haber restablecido un contacto genuino con sus fuentes interiores.”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block

“¿es el éxito en el arte más importante que haberlo practicado tan bien como nos haya sido posible?”
― Victoria Nelson, On Writer's Block