Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk. ~ Will Shetterly
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.~ Mark Twain
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~ Jules Renard, “Diary,” February 1895
Happy writing
Sandie
Most beginning writers – and I was the same – are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they’ve never tasted themselves. How can you make a great – or even an adequate – bouillabaisse if you’ve never had any? If you don’t really understand why people read mysteries – or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever – then there’s no way in the world you’re going to write one that anyone wants to publish. This is the meaning of the well-known expression “Write what you know.” ~ Daniel Quinn
Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. ~ Emme Woodhull-Bäche
Happy writing
Sandie
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them. ~ John Ruskin
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~ Vladimir Nabakov
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~ Anton Chekhov
Happy Writing
Sandie
All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new. ~ Neil Gaiman
What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith, “All Trivia,” Afterthoughts, 1931
The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~ Norbet Platt
Happy writing
Sandie
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. ~ E.L. Doctorow
The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with. ~ William Faulkner
Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. ~ Jessamyn West
Happy writing
Sandie
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist. ~ Paul Valery
If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. ~ William Zinsser
Today’s Word Count: 250
Total Word Count: 36,453
Morale: As of today I’m putting my NaNo journey on hold. Personal issues have caused me to hold off on the writing for at least the next three to four days. If I can get back to finish this novel I will, but if I don’t I’m not overly worried. For me family comes first and in this case my elderly Mother needs my attention.
Life is what happens to a writer between drafts.
Damon (aka Dennis R. Miller) …who spent 25 years completing his novel The Perfect Song.
Happy Writing
Sandie
Writing a book is a adventure. To begin with it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes 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 Churchill
Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed. ~ P. G. Wodehouse
Today’s Word Count: 605
Total Word Count: 36,203
Morale: As you can see the words are still coming slowly and I can’t blame it on the story, this time it’s me and life/family needing to come first. It happens sometimes, but when you need to be a good Mum, daughter and grandmother you have to do what needs to be done.
The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you’ve done a story justice, you’re in the wrong business. ~ Robin McKinley
Happy writing
Sandie
Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~ From the movie Finding Forrester
Today’s Word Count: 509
Total Word Count: 35,595
Morale: A slow day today, my Mum was in hospital last night so I spent most of the afternoon with her and a a writers meeting in the morning.
Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. ~ A. Bronson Alcott
Happy Writing
Sandie
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page. ~ Joan Baez
Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
If I’m trying to sleep, the ideas won’t stop. If I’m trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness. ~ Carrie Latet
Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~ Sharon O’Brien
It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write. ~ Sinclair Lewis
Happy Writing
Sandie
