https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/what-great-artists-need-solitude/283585/

In the article What Great Artists Need: Solitude, the author, Joe Fassler discusses how discipline and time alone are the essentials of being a great writer, and not drinking, partying and doing drugs. He’s also taken notes from other authors such as Dorthe Nors and Ingmar Bergman to help further prove his point. He states in the article “conventional wisdom tells us pain is good for art”. Dorthe addresses the difficulty of art and how dangerous glamorizing suffering truly is. She also talks about how Ingmar Bergman had inspired her in her writing; in her most recent book, she wrote a character inspired by Bergman, who she claims is “cuckoo” and “He never did what he was supposed to, as opposed to other Swedes, who did do as they were supposed to.”

What interested me the most in the article was learning of Ingmar Bergman’s backstory; mainly of how disciplined he was and always stuck to a certain routine, especially learning of how dedicated to his craft he was. I agree with him when he says you need pain and discipline to be a good writer, and that you don’t need to follow any of the cliches mentioned to be a great writer. While reading the article, an entry from Ingmar Bergman became stuck in my mind “Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity.” mainly because of it’s meaning of there being ‘too much human in me’.  The article in general gave me a brand new perspective on writing.

What I liked about the author’s writing style was, again, how it gave me a new perspective of writing. None of my other writing teachers had ever talked about this or mentioned this author. I also liked hearing Dorthe’s side of things; mainly how she got into writing.  I also like how it gives advice to other writers throughout the article, which I’ll definitely keep in mind the next time I write.

For my rating, I’d give it a 9/10 and would definitely recommend to anyone wanting creative advice.