Prologue_The Stamina to Use Diligently, the Stamina to Love Diligently_05

The beginning of the writing room
About My Young Masters _13
Believable Sentences _17
Talent and Repetition _23
Food and Writing _27

Brothers' Study Room
Oh, Brother _33
A Boy's Writing with a Boy's Heart _46
Birth and Lies _51

Yeosu Writing Room
What's Wicked _57
Problem Solving Experience _64
When the subject becomes someone else _69
Chat and Snacks _75
Body Diary _79
Letter to the Children of Yeosu _83
Discovery of Writing Style _134
Easy to feel, difficult to shake _140

Youth Writing Room
Healthy Teacher _147
A Middle School Boy and I _155
Talent and Destiny _159
What I wore that day _167
Longing and Detail _171
Tension and Tears _175

My childhood and some writing room
Oh my, this is so scary _183
Weather Check _190
The Courage Not to Explain _203
Speaking without crying or laughing first _207

Adult women's writing room
Sisters' Sentences _213

Writing Room in the Corona Era
Writing Teachers in the COVID Era _227
Children's Wasted Time _231
We can't meet, the feeling is important _261
Three-Dimensional Others _265
Practice Writing About Others' Pain _269
Love Without Conjunctions _275

Epilogue_From My Old Teacher_280

“The stamina to use diligently and the stamina to love diligently.
This soft physical strength is not only for ourselves,
I believe in protecting the world.”

The power of body and mind that we use every day
The story of the writer of "Daily Dew"
#DailySulla #Writing #WritingRoom #SullaWritingRoom #SerialWorker #WritingTeacher #Essay

A new essay by author Lee Seul-ah, author of 『Daily Lee Seul-ah Essay Collection』 and 『I Become My Mother's Face Every Time I Cry』, has been published by Munhakdongne.

Before she began working as a serial writer, author Isul-ah worked as a writing teacher for several years.
The career of 'Mobile Writing Teacher Lee Seul-ah', who started by going around apartment complexes and posting job flyers asking for help teaching writing, continued with taking the KTX to open a writing studio in Yeosu, teaching writing in small writing studios for younger siblings, a writing studio for adult women in Mangwon-dong, and a writing studio for teenagers.
Recently, he opened a 'swimming room' at his home in Paju and conducted non-face-to-face classes for children who are unable to go to school and are wasting time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book is about what author Isul-ah taught and learned in the writing studios where she worked as a writing teacher.

He says he no longer considers talent in writing.
Everyone has good and bad writing times, but only those who consistently contribute more writing to the writing room, listen to others' opinions, and diligently strive to write better than the last time will eventually become good writers.
Author Lee Seul-ah was an author who, through the power of 'repetition' and 'consistency', overcame all the barriers of solid platforms and authority and opened her own chapter.

From the brilliant writings of students who came to Isul-A's studio, ranging from children to teenagers, middle school boys, and adult women, to the "secrets of writing" she taught and learned from them, "Diligent Love" is an essay filled with inspiration and love for writing and life.


In my writing class, I tell my children:

“You will grow up to be you.
“It’s probably the best you can be.”
I end the lesson by simply giving the children the writing prompts for next week.
Because no matter how ordinary or extraordinary, only children who keep writing will eventually become writers.
_From 'Talent and Repetition'

“Even children who hate or are afraid of writing
“It can make you love writing.”

Writing teacher Isul-ah's resume began with this one sentence written on a flyer.

Just as she did when she started working as a nude model in the episode she wrote in “Every Time I Cry, I Become My Mother’s Face,” and just as she started posting lively posters recruiting subscribers for “Daily Isul-a” on social media to pay off her 20 million won student loan, in the spring of 2014, when she was putting up flyers for writing tutoring, Isul-a, a 23-year-old college student, found it difficult to cover rent and living expenses with just her hourly wage from her cafe part-time job.
At that time, I was a writer who had not yet published a book, but I had only worked at a magazine and won a small prize in a literary contest.
He begins his journey as a writing teacher with a sentence he himself could not believe: "Even children who hate or are afraid of writing will love writing."
It was a sentence I could never be sure of, but it wasn't a lie.
It was like a pledge or a promise to myself.
He approached the kids, who were more drawn to YouTube, soccer balls, and random chatter than to a manuscript filled with tightly packed squares, and asked them to write together.
To allow the children to naturally share their stories, Iseul first opened up about her daily life and thoughts.
And, carefully selecting the writing materials to be used that day and telling them about the meaning and beauty of those materials, Isul-ah begins to fill up the writing room time and manuscript paper with the children.

The children sniffled and sniffled, saying things like, “Why do I have to write like that?” and “It’s because writing is annoying!” But eventually, they slowly walked step by step into the world of writing guided by teacher Isul-ah.


While eating and drinking,
The days when famous phrases are born out of nowhere

This book contains fun and quirky sentences written by children, along with manuscript paper with crooked handwriting scattered between the pages.


"Even when my sister and brother are right next to me, I miss them." _ Choi Ga-hee, 10 years old
“We played together and got to know each other’s summer scents.” _Lee Hyeong-won, thirteen
“People who run have their faces swaying up and down.
When I run, I feel like the wind is pushing me.
“When I run while thinking about the wind, I find myself in first or second place.” _Woo Ye-rin, twelve years old
"We had fun making a movie that didn't necessarily have a happy ending." _Oh Seung-rin, 13
“Hello! Little kid like me! From now on, I will teach you how to live.
(...) If you do what I say, your life will be happy.
“Happiness is doing what you want.” _Ten-year-old Kim Ji-on
“Sometimes when I get scolded by my mom and am alone, I sing this song.
“I console myself by saying, ‘Life will be reconciled anyway. Mom likes me, so it will be okay when night falls.’ _Yang Hui-mo, 10 years old

After writing such brilliant sentences, the children look at their teacher, Isul-ah, with eyes full of anticipation, and ask, “Can we go out and play now?”
Children who run out into the yard, into the outside world, even to the edge of the Earth, without even thinking about taking the manuscripts they wrote with them.
He writes down his reading impressions, questions, and stories he wants to hear more about under the children's manuscripts, and sometimes he just leaves a proud exclamation of "I love it!"
And I would pick out the manuscripts the children had left scattered on the desk and keep them, and often gaze at those brilliant sentences, at the objects and worlds the children had discovered and written about anew.


My first disciple told me about the destiny of a writing teacher.
“You must keep my writing.
“You must keep my writing.”

When author Isul-ah was preparing to compile the manuscripts of the young brothers she had first taught into a small book, nine-year-old Kim Se-yoon is said to have written this sentence.

“My writing teacher’s name is Isulya.
I hope the book gets finished soon.
“You must keep my writing.”
Isul-ah chews over this sentence, which felt like a command and destiny from her child as a writing teacher.
“You must keep my writing, you must, keep my writing.”
Lee Seul-ah, a writing teacher and author, thinks.
Writing is about collecting and preserving the details of life.
Writing is about learning what you don't know.
It's about exploring my body and mind without getting caught in the swamp of narcissism or the trap of self-pity.
At the same time, it is a matter of breaking away from the selfish daily life of always putting 'me' as the subject and putting 'others' as the subject and thinking from their perspective.
It means not blindly criticizing someone, not easily judging them as good or bad, and not looking at them in a three-dimensional way rather than flattening them.
It is said that even the sighs and complaints of others are stored in memory, carefully tied with a ribbon called a “quotation mark”, and breathed life into the manuscript paper to revive them.

And from the sentences that the children write down one by one, author Isul-ah realizes again.
The meaning of all this writing is connected to love.

In the end, writing was 'diligent love'.

It was a matter of diligently using one's mind, observing someone intently, thinking about them, and diligently moving one's body, which was constantly trying to become comfortable, to constantly move toward others, not oneself, and toward a wider world.

While responding to the children's shining sentences and remembering and preserving the great daily lives lived by those small bodies, Isul-ah has now become known to her readers as a writer who writes 'sentences of love and life that they must cherish.'
Now that he's a writer who no longer has to worry about rent and living expenses, he still works as a writing teacher one day a week.

Because to him, children are not just part-time jobs, but ‘young teachers’ of writing that author Isul-ah must continue to pursue throughout her life.


Then our minds became busy.
I just increased the subject.
He just shifted his gaze from me to the south.
I just went to where he was.
I began to hear things I hadn't heard before and to see things I hadn't seen before.
Things that weren't sad became sad, and things that weren't happy became happy.
It felt like the day passed twice.
Once while experiencing it, once while interpreting it.
When I wrote and lay down, I felt like I was falling asleep a little older than usual.
We seemed to know one of the properties of writing.
Writing never leaves us, lazy and selfish, alone.
Writing persuaded me to see the world through other people's eyes and not be trapped within myself.
So that there isn't too much of me inside me.
So that you may find a resting place in me.
As we wrote several articles, we gained stamina.
The stamina to work diligently and the stamina to love diligently.
I believe that this gentle force protects not only ourselves but also the world.
_prolog

How Talent Without Consistency Loses Its Power
How surprisingly powerful is consistency without talent?

"Diligent Love" is also a book that testifies to why the current Isul-ah became 'Isul-ah'.

Finishing a piece of writing every day, showing it to others and enduring countless opinions, no longer questioning whether or not you have talent and just writing every day, enduring your own inability to write and constantly being impressed and moved by others who write well, and finally, finally, writing your own unique sentences again.
This simple yet terrifying training ultimately created the Isul-ah she is today, and she continues to learn about writing while teaching children in a writing class as a writing teacher.

Looking back, it has only been two years since the publishing world and readers 'discovered' and began reading about the person named 'Isul-ah'.
During that time, he steadily published “Daily Dew” and wrote and communicated daily, becoming a writer with a remarkable presence and weight in the publishing world and among readers in just two years.
Even before the publication of 『Diligent Love』, the fact that the first edition of 10,000 copies was sold during the pre-order period and the second printing went straight into production is a sign that author Lee Seul-ah has become an author that countless readers are waiting for and watching with anticipation.

For serial worker Lee Seul-ah, two years was not just about growing two years older, but about diligently writing for 760 days and becoming new each day from the person she was yesterday.

As he wrote, stories and writing “make us live again and again.”
So, writer Lee Seul-ah is “born again and again” and writes a new story every day.
His new work, "Diligent Love," contains the writing and thought process of author Lee Seul-ah, who is reborn and renewed every day.
Author Isul-ah used the metaphor of writing as 'diligent love', but as I read the book, 'love' becomes stronger and takes shape like a manuscript page, and it seems to be read as a 'person' as well.

Author Lee Seul-ah vividly shows us what kind of power and ripples a diligent person creates when he diligently writes and loves, and how the sentences of someone with "warm hands" can gradually change the world and one's own destiny.



I wondered if I had any talent.
Talent seemed to make someone start off far ahead or at a much higher level.
If I had talent, I would have tried harder.
If not, I thought I should work hard on something other than writing.

Now that I'm twenty-nine, I no longer think about talent.
It's been a long time since that happened.
Because I learned how talent without consistency loses its power, and how surprisingly powerful consistency without talent can be.

Someone who possesses both talent and consistency will create exceptionally great works, but I want to talk more about what is not innate and what is acquired through effort.
Because you can't choose talent, but you can choose consistency.
If I think about it, it was the same in writing class 10 years ago.
Even those who write well don't always write well.
Even those who write poorly don't always write poorly.
Everyone came to class repeating whether they wrote well or not.
Children who attend regularly inevitably improve their skills.
There was no one who didn't get better with continued use.

I feel hopeful about the stories I have to write, the stamina to write them, and the perseverance to write them again.
Admiration for others and despair for myself will continue endlessly.
I willingly endure the pain and continue because I know that without repetition, things will never get better.
Until I can write more indifferently to my talent.

_From 'Talent and Repetition'