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WritersNotes.Net: Helping Writers Follow Their Dreams Through Information, Inspiration, and Encouragement!
Update: Just noticed that the link I posted to Pat Schneider's book on Questia was mysteriously transformed into a link that took one elsewhere on the Questia site. Tried posting another link, but apparently links at Questia must either be time-dependent or based on the number of visits the link receives: In other words, after a period of time, they expire. My apologies!
I've decided, instead to post a link to the Questia home page, where you'll be able to locate the book by typing or pasting the book's title into the search bar (in quotes) or by using the following category info: Under Subject Categories, click Education > Arts and Humanities Education (under Curriculum and Instruction) > Creative Writing > Writing Alone and With Others. Sorry for the convoluted way you'll have to access the book! That's entirely Questia's doing. I think you'll find it well worth the effort, though! Thanks for your patience!
A Wealth of Wisdom for Writers
In her book, Writing Alone and With Others (Oxford University Press, 2003), author and speaker Pat Schneider offers a great deal of wisdom to writers. The following are a few quotes that I hope will resonate with you, touching areas of fear or doubt, insecurity or confusion that you may be experiencing in your own writing journey. We all experience these moments of uncertainty now and then, whether we write professionally, share our musings with others for free, or pour our hearts and souls into written works intended for our eyes alone.
Sample the Book at Questia
You'll be able to read a generous sampling of pages from Schneider's book for free right on the Questia website, by visiting the following link: Questia and typing (or pasting) the book's title into the search bar (in quotes). (To search via Questia's categories, see my instructions in the Update at the beginning of this post.) You'll find a good selection of her words of wisdom for writers posted there, so that you can decide whether purchasing her book or e-book might prove worth your while. Even if you decide not to buy it (I'll be honest: I haven't bought it yet, though I'm considering doing so), at least you'll enjoy the benefit of the encouragement, inspiration, insight, and incredibly practical advice she offers in the excerpts available at Questia.
Where is the Book Available?
In case you'd like to purchase it, here are a few places the book is available (as of this writing):
Writer's Notes Writer's Resource Store (paperback)*
Amazon (paperback)
Amazon (Kindle edition)
Barnes & Noble (paperback)
Barnes & Noble (e-book)
The Quotes
Now, without further ado, a few sage Pat Schneider quotes that I hope you'll love as much as I do:
There are so many voices within us and outside us that discourage and undermine us, tempt us to abandon our own visions, our own voices, that a sense of duty, of 'ought and should' will not be sufficient to counter them. Each person must study him- or herself to understand the form that discipline needs to take. Surely the person who works well with a tight schedule of planned hours will want to work writing in the same way. The only way for me to lead a disciplined writing life, however, is to believe in myself as a writer and to love my work so much that nothing else—even 'those other commitments'—can take it away from me. (p.45)
Leading a disciplined writing life is not all about work. It is also about sleep. Entering and staying in the mysterious place where daydream meets night dream is important to the writing life. Our deepest writing, our genius, requires an engagement of the unconscious mind. (p.54)
I have come to understand, through my own writing and through working with other writers, that fear is a friend of the writer. Where there is fear, there is buried treasure. Something important lies hidden—something that matters—like the angel waiting in the stone that Michelangelo began to carve. (p.4)
The first step in becoming free of fear is to accept yourself as a writer. All writers deal with this problem. You are not alone. None of us creates ex nihilo (out of nothing). All writing involves self-revelation. Even if the actual facts of our lives are not revealed, we cannot escape the fact that writing reveals the ways our minds work. All writing is, at least, an auto-biography of the imagination. (p.11)
You are the landlord of your own soul. Let the words, the memories, the imaginings pour white-hot onto the page. You can decide later what they are, what they might become, and when it is time to show them to someone else. (p.13)
Whatever you do, don't stay in the never-never land of wanting and not doing. It will make your soul sick. If you want to write, claim for yourself what you need in order to learn, grow, practice. There is no other way to be an artist. (p.52)
Quotes Can Inspire Us to Achieve Our Dreams
Hopefully, this brief introduction to Pat Schneider's wise words will stir your writer's soul, planting a seed of passion that will compel you to develop your own unique voice, find your own special calling, niche, or purpose -- or further refine it until it truly expresses the essence of who you are as a writer, thinker, and person.
My hope is that these writing quotes will serve to spark your imagination, broadening your mind to new possibilities, inspiring new hope, and prompting extravagant dreams that you may never have even entertained before today -- bringing with them the firm belief that you are perfectly capable of achieving them!
May all your writing dreams come true!
Jeanne
*You'll also find a link to my Writer's Resource Store in my left sidebar.
What are your thoughts on the topics Pat Schneider discusses in the above quotes? Does any of her advice especially resonate with you? In what way?
A Fascinating Collection of Quotations to Guide and Inspire the Writer
The following quotations come from a great collection I came across on a website you'll definitely want to check out. It's called Choice Quotations: Timeless words that challenge, motivate and inspire The site currently contains eight pages of these motivational gems. The ones I've reproduced below seem to me particularly pertinent to creatively thoughtful individuals such as writers.
So, read, absorb, and enjoy these wise words which can help you make the most of your writing talent.
The Quotations
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
- Larry Bird
Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.
- Chuck Close
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
- Pablo Picasso
Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.
- Pythagoras
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
- Scott Adams
Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird--that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace--making the complicated simple, awesomely simple--that's creativity.
- Charles Mingus
Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.
- Unknown
Do not let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden
Do not wait; the time will never be "just right". Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
- Napoleon Hill
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Harold Whitman
Don't let making a living interfere with making a life.
- John Wooden
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
- C. S. Lewis
Faith doesn't mean the absence of fear. It means having the energy to go ahead, right alongside the fear.
- Sharon Salzberg
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Handling criticism: if it's untrue, disregard it. If it's unfair, keep from irritation. If it's ignorant, smile. If it's justified, learn from it.
- Unknown
Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
- Henry van Dyke
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
Hopefully these quotations have inspired you to use your talents to shoot for the stars!
To your success!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Which of the above quotes have particularly inspired you and why? Do you have any favorite quotes you'd like to share which have helped you achieve greater success or carried you through particularly difficult or dry creative periods?
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Part Two of My Albert Einstein Quotation-Sharing Project
Here's the second group of Albert Einstein quotes I've collected to share with you, so you can join me in plumbing the depths of the incredible wisdom of a most prolific scientific genius and intellectual giant.
Einstein's Definitions, Explanations, Perspectives, and Clarifications
Einstein had very definite ideas about many things--ideas that were incisive, frank, opinionated, yet totally lacking in arrogance, and incredibly altruistic for a man of science. A list of these follows:
1. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
2. “Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
3. “Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
4. “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”
5. “I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”
6. “In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.”
7. “It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
8. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
9. “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”
10. “The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.”
Einstein's Views on Teaching and Education
A man of learning, to be sure, Einstein was, nevertheless, not a believer in education for its own sake and was obviously of the opinion that education should open realms of interest and wonder for the student, rather than representing a duty which should be fulfilled or a burden to be borne, as can so often be the case in educational institutions. Here are a few of his quotes on the topic:
1. "Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty."
2. “Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.”
3. “The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.”
4. "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
Einstein's More Enigmatic, Profound, or Clever Sayings
Albert Einstein was certainly a man of great depth and multiple dimensions, as can be readily seen by the following group of his deeper, wittier, and often more-ironic quotes:
1. "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
2. “If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.”
3. “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
4. “Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.”
5. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”
6. “When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.”
7. "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
8. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
9. “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
10. "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
11. “I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives - the disastrous by-product of the scientific and technical mentality. Nostra culpa. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits.”
A Final Word from One Who Deciphered Many Mysteries of the Universe
As we consider the many wise words of this great man of science, we can benefit from yet one more declaration from one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived--a declaration which can encourage us in our feelings of ineptitude as we prepare for a certain inevitable season of our working lives:
“The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.”
If even Albert Einstein believed that, we writers can certainly breathe a sigh of relief!
Hope you've enjoyed Round Two of the quotes of Albert Einstein!
Thanks for reading!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Have any thoughts you'd like to share! We'd love to hear them!
My Inspiration for this Post
While checking the current value of my blog over at Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog (the results of which I'll report in another post), I came across Dane's latest blog entry, posted earlier, which I found highly appropriate for writers/bloggers as we head into a new year. In his post, Dane shares 10 Golden Lessons from Albert Einstein. Check out the words of wisdom that Dane has chosen to share from the great store of sayings which originated in the mind of this great scientist and creative thinker.
Additional Gems of Einsteinian Wisdom
After reading Dane's post, I became inspired to search for additional Einstein quotes and was by no means disappointed. The following are some of the incredible words spoken by a man of great intelligence, a dedicated scientist and thinker, prolific in articulating his insights about life.
Albert's Advice for Writers to Take to Heart
The first group of five Einstein quotes offers excellent advice which, though not directed specifically at writers, is nonetheless applicable to our creative literary pursuits and every bit as much to our attempts to achieve success in our chosen discipline. Read and reap the benefits of some of the potent life lessons learned by Einstein during his many years of intellectual inquiry:
1. "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
2. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
3. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
4. “We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”
5. “Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.”
More Einsteinian Truths to Inspire Us
The additional 21 Einsteinian gems of wisdom which follow can further inspire us to reach the heights of our own personal creativity, imagination, idealism, and intellect. No doubt certain of these sayings will resonate with each of us more than others will; but all seem to me to have great significance for those of us who seek to express ourselves through our literary endeavors. Which of them have special meaning for you?
1. “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
2. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
3. “Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.”
4. “Information is not knowledge.”
5. “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”
6. “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
7. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”
8. “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
9. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
10. “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
11. “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
12. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
13. “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
14. “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”
15. “True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
16. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
17. "It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."
18. “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
19. “Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”
20. “People do not grow old no matter how long we live. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
21. “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
Not All, But Enough for Now
The above are by no means all the Einstein quotes I've collected during my fascinating foray into the mind of this intellectual giant; yet, they are enough, I think, to stimulate our minds, hearts, and imaginations for the moment. Even these are quite a lot to absorb at one sitting and will likely require rereading a time or two for lasting impact; so I'll stop here to allow them sufficient time to sink in and save the rest for a later post.
Hopefully, these quotes have been a source of inspiration to you and will continue to resonate with you as you look forward to another year of reading, thinking, learning, feeling, and sharing with your readers all that you discover and absorb in the year ahead.
Happy learning--and writing!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Have anything to share about the above quotes or the creative process or any additional words of wisdom you've come across in your own intellectual travels? We'd love to hear from you!
Here are a few more great quotes on writing critics and writing criticism, just in case you could use another dose of humor, wisdom, irony, or wit. Some of these literary tidbits are serious, some hilarious, some straightforward and some oh so barbed--but all are worth the read!
The best thing you can do about critics is never say a word. In the end you have the last say, and they know it. ~Tennessee Williams~
The critic should describe and not prescribe. ~Eugene Ionesco~
The only really difficult thing about a poem is the critic's explanation of it. ~Frank Moore Colby~
I don't read my reviews, I measure them. ~Joseph Conrad~
Critics of literature have the same essential function as teachers of literature: this is not to direct the judgment of the audience, but to assist the audience in those disciplines of reading on which any meaningful judgment must rest. ~Mark Schorer~
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. ~Joyce Carol Oates~
People ask you for criticism but they only want praise. ~W. Somerset Maugham~
When I have to praise a writer, I usually do it by attacking his enemies. ~H.L. Mencken~
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without ever having to read them. ~G. C. Lichtenberg~
Ideal dramatic criticism is unqualified appreciation. ~Oscar Wilde~
Criticism can be instructive in the sense that it gives readers, including the author of the book, some information about the critic's intelligence, or honesty, or both. ~Vladimir Nabokov~
And, finally, for any writer who may need a bit of an antidote to criticism, here's a list of some great ingredients to mix together to make your elixir:
Confronted by an absolutely infuriating review it is sometimes helpful for the victim to do a little personal research on the critic. Is there any truth to the rumor that he had no formal education beyond the age of eleven? In any event, is he able to construct a simple English sentence? Do his participles dangle? When moved to lyricism does he write "I had a fun time"? Was he ever arrested for burglary? I don't know that you will prove anything this way, but it is perfectly harmless and quite soothing. ~Jean Kerr~
Here's to the writing life--despite the critics!
Jeanne
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They say that everybody's a critic, and to a certain extent this is very true. And if true for the average person, it is even more so for the writer. To a writer, criticism is a fact of life! Those who might not be able to do any better themselves simply love to pick apart every paragraph...every sentence...every phrase...every word written--as long as it's written by someone else!
But, what else should a writer expect? After all, we, as writers repeatedly make ourselves vulnerable to the whims and caprices, the opinions and judgments, the beliefs, perspectives, and presuppositions of every individual who reads our work! By boldly putting our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and opinions out there for all the world to see...to evaluate..to weigh against their own experiences, their own feelings, and their own individual knowledge--as well as the wider body of knowledge, pseudo-knowledge, experience, and pure conjecture that surrounds us--we attract and even at times invite criticism.
But this is OK! We can take it--and hopefully we can at the same time learn not to take it to heart! Whatever their intent, our critics can teach us a great deal--as much about ourselves as they can about our work! If nothing else, they can teach us something about grace under fire...about turning the other cheek...about persevering despite all odds...and about transforming temporary failure into ultimate success!
So, let's say Thanks to critics everywhere! If nothing else, they give us the determination to keep trying...to continually challenge ourselves...to steadily improve our skills. And, if all else fails, they at least give us one possibly unintended gift: publicity!
Here are a few enlightening quotes by famous writers on critics and criticism:
A man must serve his time at every trade save censure--critics all are ready made. ~Lord Byron~
A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned. ~George Bernard Shaw~
A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender. ~Jim Bishop~
Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good. ~P.G. Wodehouse~
Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write,
Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite. ~John Dryden~
The good critic is he who narrates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces. ~Anatole France~
Nature fits all her children with something to do,
He who would write and can't write, can surely review. ~James Russell Lowell~
Critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. ~Ambrose Bierce~
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse will not hold. ~William Shenstone~
To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent. ~Nelson Algren~
A bad review by a man I admire hurts terribly. ~Anthony Burgess~
Time is the only critic without ambition. ~John Steinbeck~
I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise. ~Noel Coward~
Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing the open sea. ~John Updike~
The main use in criticism is in showing the manner of man the critic is. ~Frank Moore Colby~
And, finally, this gem:
I never read a book before reviewing it. It prejudices me so. ~Sydney Smith~
Hope these quotations, from some of the best writing minds that history has produced have made you smile or chuckle...consider or reflect. I always find it fascinating to read the differing viewpoints of a whole array of writers on a single specific topic--and the more intricately related to the writing craft, the better!
Till next time,
Jeanne
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Here they are--just in time for Mother's Day! Some more-or-less contemporary quotes about that great vocation (not to be confused with great vacation!): Motherhood!
Motherhood in all its guises and permutations is more art than science. ~Melinda M. Marshall~
Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. ~Erma Bombeck~
We honor motherhood with glowing sentimentality, but we don't rate it high on the scale of creative occupations. ~Leontine Young~
The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute. ~Honore De Balzac~
The central paradox of motherhood is that while our children become the absolute center of our lives, they must also push us back out in the world.... But motherhood that can narrow our lives can also broaden them. It can make us focus intensely on the moment and invest heavily in the future. ~Ellen Goodman~
Combining paid employment with marriage and motherhood creates safeguards for emotional well-being. Nothing is certain in life, but generally the chances of happiness are greater if one has multiple areas of interest and involvement. To juggle is to diminish the risk of depression, anxiety, and unhappiness. ~Faye J. Crosby~
Of all the haunting moments of motherhood, few rank with hearing your own words come out of your daughter’s mouth. ~Victoria Secunda~
The most consistent gift and burden of motherhood is advice. ~Susan Chira~
The passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings. ~Honore De Balzac~
The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific and torturous, involving and utterly tedious, all at the same time. The world is full of women made to feel strange because what everyone assumes comes naturally is so difficult to do—never mind to do well. ~Anna Quindlen~
The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so—concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities. ~Jessie Bernard~
When you reach the end of your rope, don't add guilt to your frustration. No one said motherhood was going to be easy. ~Heather King~
Happy Mother's Day to Mothers Everywhere!
Your Creative Cohort,
Jeanne
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Here are a few more quotes by writers on writing. Some are thought-provoking, some brutally honest, some inspiring, and some simply clever--but whatever your thinking about the art or the craft, you should find something here that will catch your fancy!
Here goes:
There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of mind and he is born with it. ~Morley Callaghan~
Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book. ~Mickey Spillane~
Autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing. ~Quentin Crisp~
A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can only be a footnote. ~Yevgeny Yevtushenko~
Books are...funny little portable pieces of thought. ~Susan Sontag~
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more books than he has read. ~Samuel Johnson~
Journalism is literature in a hurry. ~Matthew Arnold~
Literature is the question minus the answer. ~Roland Barthes~
Literature is recognizable through its capacity to evoke more than it says. ~Anthony Burgess~
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~G.K. Chesterton~
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession. ~Robert Graves~
The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born. ~W.H. Auden~
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. ~Robert Frost~
It's easier to write a mediocre poem than to understand a good one. ~Montaigne~
In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind. ~Marianne Moore~
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings...in a man who has thought long and deeply. ~William Wordsworth~
You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place--you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter. ~Bernard Malamud~
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark. ~Henry David Thoreau~
When I stop (working), the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm working. ~Tennessee Williams~
Words are loaded pistols. ~Jean-Paul Sartre~
Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. ~Alexander Pope~
All the fun's in how you say a thing. ~Robert Frost~
The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne~
I do not understand this chronic illness. I wish I had gone to law school. ~Darryl Pinckney~
The best time for planning a book is when you're doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie~
I talk out the lines as I write. ~Tennessee Williams~
If I could, I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. ~Emily Bronte~
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. ~Irvin S. Cobb~
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. ~E. L. Doctorow~
Hope a few of these provocative thoughts have set your own creative juices flowing!
Happy writing!
Jeanne
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Writers, as a rule, tend to have a great deal to say about many subjects--and writing is no exception. Here are a few pearls of wisdom on the writing craft from some of history's most prolific authors:
There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Red Smith~
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. ~Samuel Johnson~
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. That is too much of a temptation to the editor. ~Ring Lardner~
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it. ~W. Somerset Maugham~
The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain WHATSOEVER on his habitually slack attention. ~Ezra Pound~
Better to write for yourself and have no public than write for the public and have no self. ~Cyril Connolly~
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by people who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. ~Don Marquis~
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give to your style. ~Sydney Smith~
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. ~Henry David Thoreau~
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers. ~H.L. Mencken~
You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved. ~Tracy Kidder~
The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer~
When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be till I'm under way. I trust inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day. ~Alberto Moravia~
It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. ~T. S. Eliot~
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. ~Mark Twain~
The secret of good writing is to say an old thing a new way or to say a new thing an old way. ~Richard Harding Davis~
Well, dear Aspiring Writer, now that you've read all this practical advice, all these clever witticisms, and all these words of inspiration penned by wordsmiths who have actually accomplished what you may only dream of, there's only one thing left for you to do if you'd like to join their ranks: WRITE!
Literarily Yours,
Jeanne
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