Midweek pick-me-up: Anaïs Nin on why emotional excess is essential for writing and creativity

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](.  If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free.  Need to modify your subscription? You can [change your email address]( or [unsubscribe](. [Brain Pickings]( [Welcome] Hello, {NAME}! This is the Brain Pickings midweek newsletter: Every Wednesday, I plunge into my twelve-year archive and choose something worth resurfacing and resavoring as a timeless pick-me-up for heart, mind, and spirit. (If you don't yet subscribe to the standard Sunday newsletter of new pieces published each week, you can sign up [here]( – it's free.) If you missed last week's archival piece – the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm on the art of loving and what is keeping us from mastering it – you can read it [here](. And if you find any value and joy in my labor of love, please consider supporting it with a [donation]( – over these twelve years, I have spent tens of thousands of hours and tremendous resources on Brain Pickings, and every little bit of support helps keep it going. If you already donate: THANK YOU. [FROM THE ARCHIVE | Why Emotional Excess is Essential to Writing and Creativity]( [anaisnindiary4.jpg?w=680]( [third volume of Anaïs Nin’s diaries]( has been on heavy rotation in recent weeks, yielding Nin’s thoughtful and timeless meditations on [life]( [mass movements]( [Paris vs. New York]( [what makes a great city]( and [the joy of handicraft](. The subsequent installment, [The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947]( ([public library]( is an equally rich treasure trove of wisdom on everything from life to love to the art of writing. In fact, Nin’s gift shines most powerfully when she addresses all of these subjects and more in just a few ripe sentences. [anaisnin.jpg?resize=617%2C710]( Such is the case with the following exquisite letter of advice she sent to a seventeen-year-old aspiring author by the name of Leonard W., whom she had taken under her wing as creative mentor. Nin writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life. I am by nature always beginning and believing and so I find your company more fruitful than that of, say, Edmund Wilson, who asserts his opinions, beliefs, and knowledge as the ultimate verity. Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it. But then you have not thought that this dream is planted in others, others begin to live it too, it is shared, it is the beginning of friendship and love. […] You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith. [The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4]( is brimming with such poetic yet practical sagacity on the creative life and is a beautiful addition to other famous advice on writing like Kurt Vonnegut’s [8 rules for a great story]( David Ogilvy’s [10 no-nonsense tips]( Henry Miller’s [11 commandments]( Jack Kerouac’s [30 beliefs and techniques]( John Steinbeck’s [6 pointers]( and Susan Sontag’s [synthesized learnings](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving Each week, I pour tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which has remained free for more than a decade and is made possible by patronage. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now](  [Give Now]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out each Wednesday and offers a highlight from the Brain Pickings archives for a midweek pick-me-up. Brain Pickings PLEASE DO NOT USE AS A MAILING ADDRESS 47 Bergen Street, 3rd floorBrooklyn, NY 11201 [Add us to your address book](//brainpickings.us2.list-manage.com/vcard?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=e967e378ad) [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](