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Writing Quote Wednesday: Making Art
“In order to make art, we must be willing to labor.” —Julia Cameron, Finding Water, p. 46 Creating stories is hard work. Sometimes I feel like an elephant holding a paintbrush in front of a crowd (only in the elephant’s case, there is always a cheering crowd).…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Listen
“If you listen, you don’t have to make anything up.” —George Ella Lyon, VSRA Conference, March 18, 2011 Sitting in an ER, a coffee shop, a park, a restaurant I find that truth is almost unbelievable at times. It’s in those places that I catch snippets of characters,…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Don’t Give Up
Todays’ quote is from a Publisher’s Weekly article last week after Katherine Applegate won the Newbery for THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN: “Fittingly, Applegate notes, she recently found a scrap of paper, something she had written a few years ago. On it were the words, ‘Should I give up…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Snow Day
“If it turns out you’re not as good as the competition, you have two options: give up or get better.” —Resilience by Mark McGuinness Where I live, I rarely miss work due to snow. It snows, but our street-cleaners are fast. The fact that I’ve been gifted these…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Winter
“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” – Pietro Aretino I’m not a big fan of winter. I grew up in the tropics, so I love flip-flops and warm weather. I have a hard time staying motivated when the daylight hours are shorter. But this…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Risks
“You can’t get to the top of the mountain by keeping one foot on the ground.” —Rock climber and business professor, Jim Collins, as quoted in The Creative Spirit On my weekend writing retreat, I took a apart a novel that I’ve been working on. I love this…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Confidence
“Waiting for ‘confidence’ before pursuing success is as absurd as waiting for your muscles to grow before you pick up a dumbbell.” —Resilience by Mark McGuinness It’s the beginning of the year. My writing goals are still shiny and enticing. My writing muscles are a bit sore…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Small Steps
“All creative work is made by many small steps. The steps themselves are rarely great leaps. It is the faith to begin that we must cultivate.” —Julia Cameron, Twitter, September 15, 2012 And so we begin another year–writing every day. Little by little making our way to…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Making Art
“Remember it is the making of the art, not the reception of your art that makes you an artist.” —Julia Cameron, p. 212 Finding Water This is my most recently completed work-in-progress. It’s a box full of drafts, notes, revision suggestions. It hasn’t found a home–yet. While I’m…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Pretending
“Writing is pretending on paper.” —George Ella Lyon, VSRA Conference, March 18, 2011 I discovered this tree ladder and rope swing while walking the greenway a few miles from my house. It was still. No children anywhere in sight. But if you listen closely, there’s a story there.…