writing-tips – Page 5 – Andrew Careaga

Practicing patience

My freshman year of college, I became friends with an older student. (He was old enough to buy beer, which made him a very good friend indeed.) He lived in a nondescript apartment downtown, above one of the local businesses, and the only thing I remember about the place was a poster that depicted two cartoon vultures perched on a dead tree limb in a desert. One vulture is saying to the other, “Patience my ass. I’m gonna kill something.”

Beginner’s mind and the writer

Perhaps for the writer, beginner’s mind can begin with the notion of writing as a journey, an exploration with no specific destination in mind.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,

but in the expert’s there are few.

— Shunryu Suzuki

I’ve only been at this creative writing thing for a year, but sometimes I forget that I’m a beginner. With that in mind, I’m trying to embrace and understand anew the concept of beginner’s mind. So in an attempt to wipe the slate clean, I’m going back to the beginning, or near beginning, of this writing journey by republishing a post from exactly a year ago. I post it to remind myself how much I need to still unlearn — and to remind me that I ain’t no guru.