So, if you are reading this and are a writer (and by writer I mean you write) then you know what I mean when I say that we are crazy (and by crazy I’m referring to the definition mentally deranged–okay, not mentally deranged…complex maybe. Yes, I like that word better). We spend way too much time in our own heads and second guessing ourselves. One minute we are feeling on top of the world, the next like one of those plastic bags used for dog poop.
It’s kinda like this:
a roller coaster of emotion that you never seem to get off of and I’ve found that one of the biggest things that helps it not seem so daunting at times is knowing you are on it with a bunch of other complex people.
When I was at TwiCon this summer I sat in on a symposium about getting published. It was the first time I had been in a room with a bunch of aspiring writers and it felt comfortable. I could relate to everything they were saying from their inspirations to their frustrations, and I just wanted to go up and bear hug all of them because they made me feel very normal; like this avenue I was beginning to go down wasn’t so scary anymore or that far out of reach for me. And, well, I just like to hug people.
I’ve found, just in the very short time that I’ve been writing, that this process doesn’t get any easier with time; it’s just the opposite, really. So to keep my head up when that little devil of doubt pops up on my shoulder, I refer to a bunch of quotes that I’ve been compiling by writers about being a writer. It helps me remember that I’m not the only complex person on this roller coaster to authorhood and that everything I’m feeling has been felt before. I’ve decided to share some of the ones that are most inspiring or helpful to me so feel free to use them if you wish. All of them are brilliant.
Elmore Leonard
C. S. Lewis
One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
Stephen King
Robin McKinley
Stanley Schmidt
Darrell Schweitzer
Melinda Haynes
Barbara Kingsolver
Gloria Steinem
Kaari Utrio
Gaston Bachelard
Stephen King
William Blake
Albert Einstein
Oscar Wilde
Woodrow Wilson
Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.
John Jakes
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
Oscar Wilde
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
Winston ChurchillWriting is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyze yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.
Octavia Butler
Heather Armstrong
Ray Bradbury
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Frost
Raymond Chandler
Samuel Johnson
John Updike
Isaac Asimov
E.L. Doctorow
Grace Paley
Nikki Giovanni
AND MY FAVORITE….(drumroll please…)
Dr. Suess
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