Waiting to Read Write prompt from Natalie Goldberg

*Dani's notes- though I do believe in writing and not reading until later, I don't necessarily agree with Goldberg's time table. Feel free to revise this prompt so the timing works for you. write a week and go back to it a week later. Really you want to just give yourself enough time to distance yourself from your writing.*

Write every day for ten days in a row. Do not reread anything you have written for those ten days until two weeks later.

Then sit down in a comfortable chair and have a soft heart and read with interest and compassion what you have written. Underline sentences that stand out. Use those sentences as first lines for future writing practice. Put parentheses around sections you like. Develop those sections, if you want, not by reworking them but by re-entering them with more timed writing practice.

And be brave. Let some of the good writing go. Don’t worry. There’ll be lots of it over time. You can’t use all of it. Be generous and allow some of it to lie fallow. What a relief! We can write well and let it go. That’s just as good as writing poorly and letting it go. Just let go.

Excerpt from Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

Goldberg, Natalie. Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. New York: Bantam Books, 1990