G. Steve Journal

A Wave In The Mind

This observation by writer Virginia Woolf seems a perfect description of any artist's creative response to aspects of the world that strike a particular chord:

A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it.

[thanks BP]

A Sneeze

 

In 1952, E.B. White sent Ursula Nordstrom a letter about his book Charlotte’s Web.  I think the sentiment he expresses perfectly describes many creative impulses that are acted upon but remain difficult to describe:

I haven’t told why I wrote the book, but I haven’t told you why I sneeze, either.

A book is a sneeze.

[thanks, Brain Pickings]

What Kind of Egg

Poet T. S. Eliot, writing about the creative process, described a feeling of release -- when quotidian stresses momentarily lift and allow one an unimpeded path to deeper understanding:

...we do not know until the shell breaks what kind of egg we have been sitting on.

[thanks Brain Pickings]