Quotes on writing that have actually helped you write better....

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
-John Greenleaf Whittier, from "Maud Muller"

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."
-Henry David Thoreau

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end."
-Ursula K. LeGuin

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with in us."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

2004: Daniel In The Lion's Den (mystery/suspense)
2005: Two Women And A Girl: EGG, MAT, and MSG (mystery/suspense)
2007: Finding Emma Jane (fictionalized memoir)
2009: Foreplay (mystery/suspense)

What a great idea for a thread! I love it!

From two of the "great three" Dutch authors that help me overcome inner editors and chronic procrastination:

- One minute of bad writing is better than one hour of good thinking - Harry Mulisch

- Of course everybody can write a novel. Just lock them up and tell them they'll be executed the following day if they haven't and it's guaranteed they've written a novel. - Gerard Reve
(this guy also confessed that he spent months researching and fretting over the characters and plot, lol!)

2008: Lapis Lazuli (historical fiction) - WON! (57K)
2009: Vicit Vim Virtus (historical fiction) - WON! (51K)

1 of 3 by Diana Gabaldon. The first was about reading a lot, then this one, then one about not giving up I think.

2) Write. The only thing that matters is getting words on paper, and it’s the only way you’ll discover what works for you. It doesn’t matter if you write the book in a straight line, backward, if you use an outline, or if you write it in little pieces and glue them together.

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."
Elmore Leonard

"You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different."
Neil Gaiman

"For anyone who is: just keep writing. Keep reading. If you are meant to be a writer, a storyteller, it’ll work itself out. You just keep feeding it your energy, and giving it that crucial chance to work itself out. By reading and writing."
Robin McKinley

I don;t know if they have actually helped but I like how they sound! :-)

>>"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."
Elmore Leonard<<

LOL! It seems so simple! And lights the way!

Sounds great until you realise it's about as useful as a chocolate teapot. LOL

Well it made me think of all those novels where the author found it necessary to spend four pages describing a tree!

Another one that makes me laugh was by Raymond Chandler:

"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand."

That would certainly add drama no matter where you insert it! LOL

"Only a mediocre writer is always at his best."

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

Di Maxwell

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

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.” Proust

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.” Bradbury

"Fill your page with the breathings of your heart." Wordsworth

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.” Woolf

And:

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterward it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse,” Hemingway

~Mer
ML-Modesto Region, CA
Co-moderator: NaNo Rebels thread
"I'm Gonna Wave my nerd Flag High"
"Put 'em up! Put 'em uuuup!!"

I'm fond of Mark Twain:

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
- Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888

The tragedy isn't that so many bad novels have been written, it's that so many good novels never were.

co-ML - Omaha, Nebraska

Good novels are written by people who are not frightened. George Orwell.

"Good novels are written by people who are not frightened. George Orwell."

Well, that leaves me out. 8-(
Luckily, here at NaNoWriMo we don't have to write good novels.

This is the quote that's keeping me going this NaNo:

“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

The car headlights for my fiction NaNo are very strong. The ones for my non-fiction NaNo are getting brighter.

Yes, I am writing two this year.

Chet's NaNoWriMo Experience (updated)

Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world. Dorothy Allison

I think every writer want to touch the hearts of their readers and change the world, even if it is only to make them laugh momentarily. Each one of us has a story to tell. It is just a question of who we choose to tell our story to and how we tell it that makes us each unique and interesting and hopefully our stories likewise.

I write because I have some secrets that no-one else knows. Tony Jordan

Terry K

http://terry-kidd.blogspot.com/

My favorite (and the one I've began two English classes with) comes from Dan Simmons' Endymion:

"I believe that I shall begin at the beginning."

It's simple, direct, and always points me in the right direction.