Here are a few sayings I would like to submit for your edification, some of which have already appeared here as „inspirational quotes“:

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, 1813 – 1855

Neil Gaiman on writing: "This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard."

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit."
Richard Bach, author (1936-)

(My translation of a quote from a book of German word-search puzzles:)
Luck is one half of life and discipline is the other, decisive half, because luck won’t get you far without discipline.
(I think you could reword this to apply to writing, too:)
Talent is one half of writing and discipline is the other half, the more important half, because talent won’t get you far as a writer without discipline.

“You’ll be good at what you do every day.”
-John’s mom


I came up with these after my conversation yesterday with Kee. We have both been feeling uncertain about our writing lately, wondering whether we have what it takes, or why we feel so strongly about doing something that makes us kind of crazy sometimes. We will both admit that we are happy in our lives right now, and yet we are striving after something that doesn’t always make us happy. Writing is like our crack: we can’t see it doing us much good, but we can’t give it up.

With that being said, I don’t think we have turned the corner yet; we haven’t yet given ourselves completely over to this task of turning out stories we can be proud of. Maybe I am putting words in Kee’s mouth; she can call me on it if I am. It just seemed to me that all of the above quotes are especially applicable to our current situation.

Kee said something interesting, that she has support from friends and family coming out the whazoo (perhaps not that crudely stated *g*), and yet it is still hard for her to put fingers to keyboard. It made me think that support can’t be the only thing you (generic and specific) need to be successful at something; maybe you also need accountability. Maybe I do, too. So here is what I propose: every day, you email me your daily pages, and I will send you mine. I don’t care if it is notes, rough draft, thinking aloud—whatever. I won’t actually read it unless you want me to, but I will see that you did something. No counting words or pages, no breaking it down the way we did when we started this blog, just raw output.

I know that you are a smart, creative woman, Kee, and I know that you can do this. Your novel has characters that people can care about, that people who have read your work *do* care about, and I know that you can work hard when you put your mind to it (remember that screen door?). So now I am going to put your feet to the fire. Let me see what you can do.

And if you don’t I will taunt you in this public forum, because I am your big sister. And if you still don’t, I will taunt you a second time. Feel free to return the favor.