Writing on Empty

A Guide to Finding Your Voice

By: Natalie Goldberg

Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg

"From the first moments of Natalie Goldberg's recording of Writing Down the Bones, her classic work on writing and life, listeners know they are hearing something wonderful"—AudioFile on Writing Down the Bones

This program is read by the author.

Bestselling author and teacher Natalie Goldberg shares her inspiring personal journey out of a devastating period of writer’s block and back into a life of growth, creativity, and healing.

Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore?

In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page. When all of her tried and true methods–meditation, sitting still, writing practice–stopped working, she had to take drastic action. She got into her car and left New Mexico in search of a new inventive source. In her journey through the western states, she visited famous literary sites, searching for the spark that would reignite her ability to write.

And, next to Hemingway’s grave, she found it. “Get going,” he seemed to say to her, and she did. Now, Natalie shares her story of traveling through literary and personal memory to clarify her way forward, struggling to make sense of her difficult relationships with parents and teachers, and digging into her long-held grief. Ultimately, she discovers how to write through the emptiness in order to fill up the world with compassion, healing, and renewed liveliness.

For anyone struggling to reconnect with their own creative source, Writing on Empty is a gentle and instructive guide to remembering what truly matters.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press Essentials.

©2024 Natalie Goldberg (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Natalie Goldberg is a sensualist. She lives life deeply; sight and sound, taste and smell. She takes the reader on a felt journey, exploring the odd corners of her mind and their own. Writing on Empty reveals a life richly led—it invites the reader within us all to explore and expand their particular human experience.”—Julia Cameron, New York Times bestselling author of The Artist's Way

"A refreshingly honest look at the struggles of the creative mind. Writers waiting for the muse to strike will find comfort and plenty of useful tips."—Publishers Weekly

"At some point or another, nearly all writers suffer a spell when the aquifer of inspiration runs dry. With Writing On Empty, Natalie Goldberg has written a sagacious and at times surprisingly funny memoir about her own dry spell—a chronicle that will also serve as an elegant instruction manual for others on how to write through the inevitable desolate patches to rekindle the banked fires of creativity."—Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder

A zen -tour de force!

Whether you met her through zen practice, her grasp of Haiku, or writing or have some personal kinship relationship with her across many years or just a moment, you will find all of that converging in Writing on Empty... and that is intentional.
Some of us, are cut flowers. Without roots, our beauty is in our appearance, our relevance - brief. Some of us are rooted plants growing in a container at risk of becoming rootbound, limited to a context and defined by the container itself. And some of us, planted in rich soil sink down deep sustaining roots that are nourished by many resources. Growing both vertically and horizontally -- blossoming -- bearing fruit -- sowing seeds in tomorrow. Katagiri Roshi -- 12 years of learning to hold her seat -- and her sanga is now and everywhere. Nothing disappoints. Truly engaged... Buddhist... practice...
Sit down
BE
at home