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Quotes about Writing

Anne Lamott Quote on Writing Really Poorly Before You Ever Write Anything Good

    “People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts… For me and most other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. If fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

    Anne Lamott

    Beyond the Quote (43/365)

    For all of you who are intimidated by the dreaded blank page and have insecurities and self-doubts about writing (or creating in general), let me reassure you: we ALL start out with really, really shitty first drafts.  Not even the best writers in the world (the ones who you envision typing out those perfect, fully formed passages as fast as a court reporters can type) write their final copy on their first try.  It just doesn’t happen.  So, drop the expectation that you’ll be able to do that yourself (sorry not sorry)!

    Read More »Anne Lamott Quote on Writing Really Poorly Before You Ever Write Anything Good

    Leo Babauta Quote on How Self-Reflection Changed His Life

      “Self-reflection has turned out to be one of my most powerful tools in changing my life.  It becomes a mirror that helps you see what’s going on in your life, that keeps you from making the same mistakes over and over again, from being on autopilot and failing to course-correct.  Having a blog with readers is like having a journal on steroids—it forces you to reflect on what you’re doing in your life, because if you’re going to share what you’re learning with other people, you first have to reflect on what you’ve learned.”

      Leo Babauta, Essential Zen Habits (Page 50)

      Beyond the Quote (37/365)

      Creating space for self-reflective thinking is crucial for self-improvement.  If you want to live your best life, you have to take time on a regular basis to take a good look at where you are, where you are going, what has happened, what those “happenings” mean, and what needs to be adjusted so that you can keep moving forward.

      Read More »Leo Babauta Quote on How Self-Reflection Changed His Life

      Bernard Malamud Quote on Writing—There’s No Secret Practice

        “There’s no one way [to write] — there’s too much drivel about this subject.  You’re who you are, not Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe.  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.  If he or she is not disciplined, no sympathetic magic will help.  The trick is to make time — not steal it — and produce the fiction.  If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track.  Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way.  The real mystery to crack is you.”

        Bernard Malamud, via Daily Rituals

        Beyond the Quote (16/365)

        If Dwayne Johnson AND Jocko Willink both wake up at 4am to get their workouts done, given how wildly busy and in shape they both are, then that must be the best time to wake up and workout, right?  To answer that from personal experience, no.  I have tried to build that idea into my routine several times and have failed awfully each and every time.  I experienced so much misery and resistance that I felt like even if I mustered together ALL of my willpower from a day, it wouldn’t be enough to get me through one 4am workout—let alone a lifetime of them.  So, what gave?

        Read More »Bernard Malamud Quote on Writing—There’s No Secret Practice

          “To write a great book, you must first become the book.” ~ Naval Ravikant, via Atomic Habits

            “Like your private bedroom, your writing room should be private, a place where you go to dream.  Your schedule — in at about the same time every day, out when your thousand words are on paper or disk — exists in order to habituate yourself, to make yourself ready to dream just as you make yourself ready to sleep by going to bed at roughly the same time each night and following the same ritual as you go.  In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.  And as your mind and body grow accustomed to a certain amount of sleep each night —six hours, seven, maybe the recommended eight — so can you train your waking mind to sleep creatively and work out the vividly imagined waking dreams which are successful works of fiction.” ~ Stephen King, via Daily Rituals

              “I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.” ~ John Updike, via Daily Rituals

                “Today many people live the external life exclusively, and when the inner world erupts or stirs, they rush to a therapist or druggist for help. They try to explain profound mythic developments in the language of behavior and experience. Often they have no idea what is happening to them, because they have been so cut off from the deep self. Their own soul is so alien to them that they are unaware of what is going on outside the known realm of fact. Former methods of keeping in touch with the inner life have gone out of mode. Diaries, letters, and deep conversations help focus attention on developments and materials that lie beneath the surface. Only one hundred years ago, without benefit of typewriters and word processors, people kept elaborate, long and detailed diaries and notebooks. We seem to have left behind these methods of reflection in favor of technologies for action.”

                Thomas Moore, Original Self | ★ Featured on this book list.

                Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck? [Book]

                  Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck by Seth Godin

                  By: Seth Godin

                  From this Book: 28 Quotes

                  Book Overview:  Made for dipping into again and again, Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck? brings together the very best of Seth Godin’s acclaimed blog and is a classic for fans both old and new. ‘Getting your ducks in a row is a fine thing to do. But deciding what you are going to do with that duck is a far more important issue.’ Since he started blogging in the early 1990s, he has written more than two million words and shaped the way we think about marketing, leadership, careers, inno­vation, creativity, and more. Much of his writing is inspirational and some is incendiary. Collected here are six years of his best, most entertaining, and most poignant blog posts, plus a few bonus ebooks.

                  Buy from Amazon!  Not on Audible…

                  Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.

                  Post(s) Inspired by this Book:

                  1. Top 15 Quotes from Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck by Seth Godin
                  2. Seth Godin Quote on Quitting—Quitting More So You Can Focus More On What Matters [Plus 30 Things to Consider Quitting] (Beyond the Quote 71/365)

                    “In the connected age, reading and writing remain the two skills that are most likely to pay off with exponential results.  Reading leads to more reading.  Writing leads to better writing.  Better writing leads to a bigger audience and more value creation.  And the process repeats.”

                    Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

                      “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.” ~ Dawson Trotman

                        “Writers, of course, are obliged by our professions to spend much of our time going nowhere.  Our creations come not when we’re out in the world, gathering impressions, but when we’re sitting still  turning those impressions into sentences.  Our job, you could say, is to turn, through stillness, a life of movement into art.  Sitting still is our workplace, sometimes our battlefield.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness

                          “When you write, you lay out a line of words.  The line of words is a miner’s pick, a wood-carver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe.  You wield it, and it digs a path you follow.  Soon you find yourself deep in new territory.” ~ Annie Dillard

                            “One of the few things I know about writing is this:  Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time.  Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.  The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.  Something more will arise for later, something better.  These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.  The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.” ~ Annie Dillard, American Writer

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