1,024 Quotes About Writing-process

...the answer is not in the damn blank page - it's in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up - exhume the past again ...

If you are unsuccessful, the common advice is to "just keep writing." That way, you will have many books under your belt.However, to be noticed, you really have to loosen that belt and take those pants off.

I write the sacred words from wondering.

Music is a writer's heartbeat.

The best stories come from deep within us and are of us. Either our inner child comes out to play and makes all things possible, or we mold our characters and events from our own experiences, or our dreams of wanting to experience.

Learning to crow: If we’ve been taught to credit our success externally and debit our failures to ourselves, we’re indeed in a bind. It is important to come to an authentic assessment of our talents and strengths, speaking from our center. [p. 91]

Owning something also means owning up to something. It means accepting responsibility, which means, literally, responsibility. When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them, we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are rendered conscious. Each day, each life, is a series of choices, and as we use the lens of writing to view our lives, we see our choices.

Life is a rich literature. We are only writing the history of our time.

I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.