Daily Writing Quote

Sorry all, I forgot to post this yesterday, so you get a double header today. I'm going to post an inspirational writing quote every day during November.

I do a first draft as passionaltely and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it's immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it. Let your characters have their way. Let your secret life be lived.
-Ray Bradbury

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
-William Wordsworth

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
-E.L. Doctorow

Shut up and write.
-Natalie Goldberg

(if you haven't read Writing Down the Bones, you really should. You know, in December. Not now. It's my favorite book on writing EVER.)

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

The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my typewriter keys.
-C. Astrid Weber

I have one:

“Stories…are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.”
— Catherynne M. Valente, from In the Night Garden

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.
-Isaac Asimov

And this one is especially good for NaNo:

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
-Jack London

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.
-Henry Rollins

If you ever have a chance to see this man's spoken word, you absolutely must. He is a huge inspiration to me, and really really smart (not what you'd expect from a former punk band member) and just seems to be a really great guy. I hope to someday meet him in person.

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
-Gene Fowlern

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition.
-Graham Greene

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
-Saul Bellow

You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for adults, you write it for children.
-Madeleine L'Engle

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.
-Unknown

Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insance asylum.
-Gracie Harmon

I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
-Somerset Maugham

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
-E.L. Doctorow

I think this one is very appropriate for NaNo...

You must learn to overcome your very natural and appropriate revulsion for your own work.
-William Gibson

My step daughter recited the poem 'Word Builder' tonight at a school event and I immediatly thought about NaNo. As the poem is being used in a delightfully illustrated children's book (that we do not own a copy of... yet) I was not able to find the entire poem online anywhere... but... if you happen to be wandering around a bookstore swing by the children's section and check out this book for some nice inspiration:

Word Builder

You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.

-Neil Gaiman

Yikes, I missed a few days, so you get a bunch today!

Writing is 10% inspiration and 90% endeavor. It's a job and has to be approached as a job. Writers write; they don't wait for it to be fun.
-Elizabeth George

Many people hear voice when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls alld ay. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
-Meg Chittenden

Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don't talk about it. Do it. Finish.
E.L. Konigsburg

If only we could give ourselves permission to write "badly," so many of us would write very well indeed.
-Julia Cameron

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun.
-Mary Lou Cook

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
-John Irving

Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.
-Norman Mailer