Quotes Week, Part Four

For Mike:

• A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

For Justine:

• Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. ~James Thurber

On characters:

• Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves. ~Carl Jung

Quotes Week, Part Three

To consider when revising:

• Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~Colette, Casual Chance, 1964

On plotting:

• A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order. ~Jean Luc Godard

On everything:

• An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. ~Gustave Flaubert

Quotes Week, Part Two

For Jessica:

• Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen

For Bryan:

• The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~Mark Twain

For Andrew:

• A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. ~Mignon McLaughlin

And for all of us:

• Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? ~Terri Guillemets

Quotes Week, Part One

This week I'm just going to be featuring a bunch of quotes about writing. Because, well, I need to be writing, instead of blogging. So here you go:

For Simon:

• You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury

For me (because I need to remember this while in revision):

• I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard

For Ted:

• If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~Toni Morrison

TGIF

I did something strange this morning. I read several blog post before I wrote my own. I never do that.

I don't know why, but lately I've been feeling very unmotivated about blogging. I know, weird thing for me to say, me, of all people. I went for probably a whole year blogging almost every single weekday. And I do still love it, I love the connections, I love the feedback, I love the human quality to it. But lately ... I don't know. I think it's because I'm so close in my revisions. I really want to finish this re-write, get it to my CPs, fix it again, and get it to betas so that I can try querying this novel this fall.

It's not like blogging really gets in the way of that, logistically, but I think it's a matter of mental focus. I can't focus on my story the way I want and need to if I'm focusing on a blog post. Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Anyway, with that, I leave you with these:

I'm lowering my standards a bit here, I know, but who cares. These things are fun. And it's Friday. Have a great weekend y'all!