Quite a few people know about my blog for Gen X Parents. Not so many people know about my other blog WriterQuotes. It’s my simple way of encouraging and inspiring writers. Also, my cool friend, Camy Tang, has a Health and the Writer column every Monday. (Which actually has really good health tips even if you’re not a writer but spend a lot of time on the computer.)
And if you forget to keep going back to be inspired (smile), you can sign up for FeedBlitz (on the page) and have the quote delivered in your Inbox!
Yesterday, the quote was from Meg Files, author of Write for Life:
What’s a good day or night of writing for you? Perhaps it’s when you’ve used your little silver key and opened the book of secrets and lost yourself as you shaped them into a story, an essay, or a poem. Lost yourself and found yourself. Perhaps it’s later when, back in the tangible world around you, you are quietly full and satisfied because you know you have written something true.
Sobbing is allowed.
Isn’t that great? Okay, here is one more, just for the road.
“Writers live twice,” says Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones. “They go along with their regular life, are as fast as anyone in the grocery store, crossing the street, getting dressed for work in the morning. But there’s another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and detail.”
That’s so true! And aren’t we always observing? People, situations, interactions, life. Everything I see is filed away. Last week, it was the cheerfulness of the older ladies working the hospital coffee shop. This week it’s the interaction of the teens in my house when both my 17-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter have friends over. (It’s not the same as when they were five and all the kids played together not caring.) Then, the texture and detail shows up somewhere else.
For example, I just wrote a proposal for teen fiction story set in No. Cal where I grew up. (Lake Shastina, just 1 hour south of the Oregon border.) It all came back. Back then, the lake, the lava rock, and quirky people in the community . . . was where I lived (yawner). Now, it’s setting. A really cool setting.
All that to say . . . check out WriterQuotes and enjoy! Just my gift to you, wrapped up in someone else’s brilliant words!
Off the subject Tricia, I wanted to let you know I couldn’t find “From Dust and Ashes: A Story of Liberation” at the local library, however, I am reading “Dawn Of A Thousand Nights: A Story of Honor” and I sit in disbelief at what our precious soldiers went through.
What a wonderful book. I am at the part where Dan, Tony and Gabe are opening the chest.
Have a wonderful and blessed weekend Tricia.
This it totally true. I grew up in Hawaii in Wahiawa, a little town in the center of the island. Not as exciting as Honolulu. But now, I have a series proposal set there and in Waialua, the small town where my grandma lives. Suddenly they’re exotic. LOLOLOLOL
camy
Leticia, Did you finish? I interviewed many vets and what they experienced was so horrible. I felt honored to write the story of their sacrifice.
Also, ask your librarian to order “From Dust and Ashes” through Interlibrary loan.
Camy you grew up in Hawaii???? Too cool. Lets go vacation there and you can show me your “world.”
Tricia I finished the book! It was wonderful, I was sad that Libby couldn’t fly or even Dan, but the way my imagination works, they are both miraculously healed by Christ and flying again with the baby, lol!
I gave my hubby an early Christmas list and I have all four books listed to buy for me. I will, however, speak to the library about ordering the book. Thanks for the advice.