“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” — Sir William Churchill

We’re almost done with the challenge, but we’re not done writing. Keep going. Keep climbing. And above all else, enjoy the journey!

“I learned… that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.”

“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.” — Stephan Mallarme

I love this quote, because it reminds me that there is inspiration everywhere. In the strangest places, in the weirdest situations…and even in the most mundane activities. When I’m blocked, it helps to sit back and just watch the world, because there is a book everywhere.

Happy writing!

“The search for a story is a matter of slowly, calmly, carefully, tentatively coaxing a hidden set of somethings into visibility. Those somethings may be characters, places, situations, scenes, hopes, fears - the unseen possibilities of drama that are lurking in what we know.”

“If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison

This was why I started writing, and why I would have continued to write, even if I hadn’t sold a single manuscript.

This is why I write. Getting paid is just a bonus.

Blocked? Remember the story you want to read, the one no one has written…and write it.

“You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something, perhaps something silly. It simply doesn’t matter what… In five or ten minutes the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.”

“Do or do not. There is no try.” - Yoda

I often hear people say they want to try to write a book. I tell them to do it. All of a sudden, they have all kinds of excuses. Not enough time. They don’t know where to start. Their grammar needs work. They don’t know how or where to submit their work.

My answer? I had all those concerns, and guess what? EVERY ONE OF THEM CAN BE FIXED. You make time. You start by putting your pencil to the paper. You buy a book on grammar. You join writer groups and do research for submission questions.

If you want something bad enough, you do it. If you go into it with the attitude that you’re going to “try,” instead of “I will,” you have already sabotaged yourself.

Football coaches don’t tell their team, “We’re going to try to win this game!” They say, “We WILL win!”

Military commanders won’t instill a lot of confidence in their men by saying, “We’re going to try to win this battle.”

So remember, as you’re looking at your half-finished manuscript and wondering how the heck you’re going to finish it, that you CAN finish it.

Do or do not. There is no try.

“… it isn’t ‘talent’ which is so important to a writer… The most important assets, I believe, are those associated with mules - a kind of stubbornness to get it done, to make it right, to make it better, and grit - not to quit - and even narrowness of purpose, a euphemism for being almost dumbly dedicated to accomplishing something.”

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” - Dr. Seuss

I love this quote, and the thing is, I love it — even applied to my writing.

I spent too long being conservative in my writing because I worried about what people would think. What would my parents think about the graphic sex? What would editors think about my choice of content? What would readers think about my unconventional characters?

Yes, you do have to be mindful of your writing in terms of quality and genre, but when you chain your imagination and natural voice because you’re worried about what other people think, you’re not being true to who you are.

Be who you are, write what you want, and don’t worry overly much what others will think. It’s very freeing to let yourself go, and your natural voice will shine. Your audience, the people who “get” you, are the ones who matter. If you change your writing to make your critics happy, YOU won’t be happy, and neither will the people who fell in love with the real you in the first place.

So write and be free.

The writing is so much easier when you let yourself go.

“If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.”