Don’t let a single day go by without writing. Even if it’s garbage, if garbage is all you can write, write it. Garbage eventually becomes compost with a little treatment. ~ Anonymous
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Today’s Word Count: 500
Total Word Count: 28,599
Morale: High, even after a couple of slow days I’m confident that I will pick it all up again tomorrow and during the week.
You are a bundle of mysteries. Finding and conquering yourself is a lifetime task. There are unplumbed depths in you full of the rich ore of personal discovery. Explore yourself! There is power in you – the power to change yourself and to change the world; the power to create plans, projects, movements for the common good; the power to inspire and serve. ~ Wilfred Peterson
Happy writing
Sandie
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged… I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out. ~ Erica Jong
When one door of happiness closes another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. ~ Helen Keller
Today’s Word Count: 237
Total Word Count: 28,099
Morale: Still high but wavered a little today. Out all day away from the computer is not a good thing I don’t think. It took me out of my routine, funny how even though at times this week I felt like I struggled with the words they came. Spend a day away and they almost dry up. Scary. Better get this thing finished before next Friday.
Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous ‘inspiration’ will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not – and the odds are against it – go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper – write. ~ J. B. Priestly
Happy writing
Sandie
Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living, or for that matter, creating by them. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer’s make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto. ~ Ray Bradbury
If you have other things in your life – family, friends, good productive day work – these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer. ~ David Brin
Today’s Word Count: 2,801
Total Word Count: 27,862
Morale: Flying again. A new murder has moved the word count along. Not sure what effect this will have on the story as it wasn’t planned. But than neither were five suspects. In all a good day.
The ideal view for daily writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible. ~ Edna Ferber
Happy writing
Sandie
The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn’t matter. ~Edward Albee
I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die. ~ Isaac Asimov
Today’s Word Count: 581
Total Word Count: 25,061
Morale: High, only just. This upset stomach is really getting to me, plus the midway stumble. I’m readjusting my target for the next few days, if I can write 500 words a day until the weekend and get myself over this little block that has hit me (again) I’ll be happy. Then I’ll get back into the 2,500 words a day target again.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Happy writing
Sandie
If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. ~ William Zinsser
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~ Thomas Mann
Today’s Word Count: 1,869
Total Word Count: 24,474
Morale: Wavering a little, but that could be the upset stomach I’ve had all day. It has taken me all day to reach this total and small writing session. Hoping tomorrow I feel better.
It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little – or not at all in some cases – should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time – or the tools – to write. Simple as that. Stephen King
Happy writing
Sandie
A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. ~ Charles Peguy
Every writer I know has trouble writing. ~ Joseph Heller
Today’s Word Count: 2,052
Total Word Count: 22,605
Morale: Over the moon – after such a slow day yesterday I was worried I could be hitting my slump period, but today the word count had picked up again. I could put a few more hours into my writing but I’m tired from the headache last night so will call it a day and start again tomorrow.
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. ~ Vita Sackville-West
If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages. William Campbell Gault
Plotting is like sex. Plotting is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release. You have to arouse your reader’s desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good triumph. You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not too much at a time, as your story goes on. That’s called suspense. It can bring desire to a frenzy, in which case you are in a good position to bring off a wonderful climax. Colin Greenland
Today’s Word Count: 550
Total Word Count: 20553
Morale: High – Still even if today so very slow
Plotting isn’t like sex, because you can go back and adjust it afterwards. Whether you plan your story beforehand or not, if the climax turns out to be the revelation that the mad professor’s anti-gravity device actually works, you must go back and silently delete all those flying cars buzzing around the city on page one. If you want to reveal something, you need to hide it properly first. Colin Greenland
Happy writing.
Sandie
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert
Writing is not a genteel profession. It’s quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.
Rosemary Mahoney
Today’s Word Count: 2,752
Total Word Count: 20,003
Morale: Still flying high. I’m still happy so far, no major problems, I may however need to do research at some point.
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Red Smith
Happy Writing
Sandie
For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. Catherine Drinker Bowen
There are many reasons why novelists write – but they all have one thing in common: a need to create an alternative world. John Fowles
Today’s Word Count: 2,228
Total Word Count: 17,251
Morale: Very high. Now have one suspect cleared with 4 more to investigate. Learning more about John and Elizabeth and so loving my Elderly Sleuths.
I can’t help but to write, I have an inner need for it. If I’m not in the middle of some literary project, I’m utterly lost, unhappy and distressed. As soon as I get started, I calm down. Kaari Utrio
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. E. L. Doctorow
You can’t say, I won’t write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then… you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer. Dorothy C. Fontana
Word Count Today: 3,274
Total Word Count: 15,023
Morale: Fantastic – Novel moving like great, although working with three different files is interesting. I’m happy how it is all going at this stage. Just hope I don’t work out who done it before I reach 50K.
Writing is physical work. It’s sweaty work. You just can’t will yourself to become a good writer. You really have to work at it. Will Haygood
