Inspiration?

It’s a rainy Monday morning and I could use a kick-start. So, I looked up a few quotes on writing. Below are some choice snippets. Inspiration, anyone?

Some advice from Stephen King: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Ah yes, so true.

According to Ernest Hemingway, the most frightening thing he had ever encountered was [insert drawn out drum roll here]: “A blank sheet of paper.”

Keep in mind that this man was a journalist who, while serving on the front of the First World War, was badly wounded. And after recuperating, he continued to cover other conflicts. Yet, a blank sheet of paper terrified him. Yup, I get it. I do.

On rewriting, Ernest Hemingway said: “I re-wrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.”

Wow. That’s all. Just wow.

From Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” (an awesome book, by the way): “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

Amen to that.

From Maya Angelou: “What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

I love this quote.

Last but most certainly not least, the fabulous Dr. Seuss:

It has often been said

there's so much to be read,

you never can cram

all those words in your head.

So the writer who breeds

more words than he needs

is making a chore

for the reader who reads.

That's why my belief is

the briefer the brief is,

the greater the sigh

of the reader's relief is.

Well, I do believe I’ve been kick-started. Happy Monday! : )