how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop

“One writes out of one thing only — one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.” — James Baldwin

Well.

I am not really sure I have anything insightful to add to this thought.

This quote captures the essence of what any writer, or artist, attempts every time they decide to put word on paper.

To recreate some of the disorder in our Life … an experience … in words. This is the thought that non writers just do not understand … that writing is part of the writer. Therefore that which is written is a little <or sometimes big> part of the writer … shared in all its nakedness.

Well.

At least that is true if it has any chance of being worth a shit.

And, in the end, I imagine the true value of what is written should be defined by how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop.

Because it is when you have reached the last drop … truly the last … that is when you have reached what truly matters.

Great writers relentlessly seek the last drop. They squeeze it out in words.

And you know it when you read it.

Great quote.