Write that first novel
“They say everybody has a novel inside them, and that’s usually the best place to keep it. Really.”
I think that’s snarky and facile and not helpful at all.
Keep that novel inside you, and you’ll never get to writing the second, third, or fourth book that hopefully will be better.
I, an unpublished nobody, say: write that first book. Just don’t expect too much of it, and don’t stop there.
Summon the Muse? Summon? Good luck with that…
I wrestle regularly with the concept and degree of inspiration needed for me to write.
As Leonard Cohen said, “If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.”
Writing and The Hidden Power Of The Subconscious: Summoning Your Muse
When it doesn’t work…
“When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
― Neil Gaiman
So be careful what you kiss on St. Patrick’s Day…
I get my holiday traditions confused. I kissed a groundhog on New Years Eve and, sure enough, it was six more weeks until Valentine’s Day.
Be Not Afraid
Because stasis can be stultifying
Change – and the possibility of change, and the imagining of change, and sometimes the actual realization of change – is the basis for hope.
Just say no to the nuggets!
How to write a novel
You never learn how to write a novel. You only learn how to write the novel that you’re writing.
― Gene Wolfe
The rider and the ridden
The difficulty lies in learning that we ourselves encompass forces equally great. We say, “I will,” and “I will not,” and imagine ourselves (though we obey the orders of some prosaic person every day) our own masters, when the truth is that our masters are sleeping. One wakes within us and we are ridden like beasts, though the rider is but some hitherto unguessed part of ourselves.
― Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw