My first exposure to the concept of a writer/creator/artists being part of an actively supportive and encouraging group came to me in my 40s. I read Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the The Inklings, by Diana Pavlac Glyer.
A major thread through the book is the practical usefulness of praise and encouragement in lieu of any kind of judgment. Be a mentor, not a judge, when someone shares the outcomes of their creative processes with you. It aligns with a text I read years prior, Writing Without Teachers, by Peter Elbow. Fragments of this concept continues to surface the more I read memoir.
For as beautiful and fluid Prince's handwriting could be, what I think Prince is driving at here is that Grace and encouragement is a lost art in need of resurrection.
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