Unfocused Friday totally hits the mark today, as I am so unfocused I can’t even think of anything to blog about. Which is why I’m posting a previous entry from my personal writer’s blog. A post from a day when I was experiencing exactly what I am today.
Read on…
OK, confession time: I had blogger’s block (it does happen from time to time!) 
I couldn’t think of anything to blog about, so after a few minutes of frustration, it came to me: why not steal other people’s brains today?
Below, I have listed several writing quotes made by famous authors. Mull them over and see if you can relate to any. I’d love to know which one is your favorite. There’s certainly a lot of wisdom in the brains that came up with these profound statements.
Much more wisdom than my brain is offering at the moment.
FAMOUS AUTHORS’ QUOTES ON WRITING:
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Jack London
“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” James Michener
“Read, read, read. Read everything- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.” William Faulkner
“I want to do stories that no one’s done before. I want people to wonder what I’ll do next. I don’t want to write ‘Christian’ fiction. What I want to do is write stories that reveal God’s character and get us to ask the right questions about what life is really all about.” – Ted Dekker
“Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.” – SueGrafton
“Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write a book so when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page. When people tell me I’ve kept them up all night, I feel like I’ve succeeded.” Sidney Sheldon
“Writing is lonely and sometimes it can be scary, and the writing spouse needs all the encouragement they can get. It can be pretty tough sometimes. Even if you’re a successfully published writer, you can just agonize over a book, trying to get it to work, or trying to get over a block, or trying to get an idea.” – Frank Peretti
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” Robert Frost
“Talent in cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – Stephen King
“The best time for planning a book is when you’re doing the dishes.” Agatha Christie
“Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“It’s always easy to write once I make the appointment with my keyboard. But that part is always tough. I set aside 6 hours a day to write – when the kids are in school. But half the time that doesn’t actually happen, and I end up scrambling on deadline.” – Karen Kinsbury
“Books aren’t written- they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.” Michael Crichton
“I rewrote the ending of ‘Farewell to Arms’ 39 times before I was satisfied.”- Ernest Hemingway
“The first four months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other image is pushing a train up the mountain, and it’s icy, and I’m in bare feet.” – Mary Higgins Clark
“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” – Tom Clancy
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3 Comments until now.
The quote that resonates most deeply with me is Ernest Hemingway’s, “I rewrote the ending of ‘Farewell to Arms’ 39 times before I was satisfied.” It is always in the rewriting — sometimes dozens of times — that my endings finally become clear and poignant and relevant.
Lynda, I am embarrassed to write that I had never heard of Ted Dekker, prior to discovering him, by courtesy of your list of quotes. Your unlock, for your blogger’s block, has brought me thought, to take stalk – with gratitude, thank you, Lynda.
My favourite Quote, is the one by Ted Dekker. I have read many of his books. His writing has accomplished his heart’s desire to perfection! His writing has unlocked a door to a room in my heart that only God was allowed to enter. Now I know there are others who sse HIM as i do. God Bless!