Inspiring Quotes about Writing

I've always liked this one:

First get it written, then get it right.
(not sure who wrote it)

And

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.  You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
-E.L. Doctorow

And since I'm in the type of mood that can use a motivational pick-me-up, I searched around for more...the following are the ones I like.

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
- Somerset Maugham

I need to tattoo this one to the back of my hand right now:

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.
- C. J. Cherryh

Haha, I like this one because it goes along with what I always say about published writers...there are some really crappy books out there still getting really famous.  So I need to just keep my chin up and remain persistent...if this is what I want to do, there's nothing stopping me but me:

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
- Robert Benchley

I think I'll end with this one, since it feels like my life right now:

Half my life is an act of revision.
- John Irving

And my all time favorite quote, which has nothing to do with writing:

If there were a mile-high mountain made of granite and once every 10,000 years a bird flew past and brushed it with a feather, by the time the mountain eroded away, only a fraction of a second would have past in the context of eternity.
-Lois Duncan (which I just now learned by googling the quote)

30% Done

I'm still committing myself to this project most days. In fact, in August AND September I wrote 18 days out of the month (sounds better in September because that's 18 out of 30 days instead of 18 out of 31). I wrote over 1,200 words today (not to kid you though, this is one out of only 3 or 4 days that I've broken 1,000).

With this consistency comes a frustrating urge to talk about what I'm doing with my family. Unfortunately, it's difficult to talk about a 'wanna-be' book that I'm writing when I have nothing to show for it and no previous success in this area of my life (I've talked about 'wanna-be' books in the past so I'm speaking from experience here...all it gets is a smile and a courteous acknowledgement that I've just said something).

It's just hard to receive or expect to receive any support from anyone for this endeavor. I'm already doing the jewelry shop, I'm a part-time graduate student, and I'm in the process of relocating across country with my husband and toddler. Would anyone be expected to take this seriously?

The only reason even I am still taking this seriously is because I'm using a couple of iPhone apps that are making me keep track of the words I've written. That's how I know what percentage of the book I've written so far. The goal is to get to 70,000 words and right now I'm at 21,147 words (tracked with the 'Word Count' app) and I can see the days of the month I've written by logging the words in my TracknShare app.

At least half the time I force myself to write so that I have something to enter into those two apps. And I don't consider that to be a bad thing. Almost everywhere I turn to for advice about writing tells me that if I want to finish a book, I have to write. This wouldn't be such a constant piece of advice if I were the only one who struggled getting the words written. It takes time and commitment and I highly doubt there's anyone in this world who can spend months straight on a certain writing project without having a day or two where they just don't feel like getting into it that day. And for busy people that have several big and unrelated things ruling their time, they might see those couple of days spread to months. The only way to get myself to do this is to remind myself on a daily basis that it's something I want with every creative urge in my body (it sounds weird, but I have loads of them) and that I'll never feel totally whole unless I do this.

So once again, I'm happy to have this blog to track my thoughts on this topic and be an audience for me to put it out there that I'm excited about this.

"First get it written, then get it right." -not sure who

Thanks!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Wapwallopen, PA