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Inspiration/Affirmations To Keep You Writing
Collected by Lorraine Bartlett
How often have you stared at your blank computer screen telling yourself, "I
can't write. I'm not ready. Whatever I write will be crap anyway, so why
bother?"
Okay, it's easy to sit around feeling sorry for youself, but that doesn't get
the book, short story, poem, query, synopsis, article, or even letter to your
Great Aunt Mable written.
When I receive yet another rejection and find myself afraid to apply my
backside to my chair and my fingers to my keyboard, I try to remember
inspirational quotes and affirmations that will encourage me to get back to
work. When all else fails, just sit down and make yourself do it. Even if
what you write is crap, chances are it can be rewritten, polished, made
usable. And even if you have to throw it out, you'll at least know what
doesn't work and can try again.
Clip the following and tape it near your computer so you'll have it handy the
next time you need a shot of confidence.
Don't Be Afraid to Fail
(author unknown)
You've failed many times, although you may not remember. You fell down the
first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to
swim. Did you hit the ball the first time you swung the bat? Heavy hitters,
the ones who hit home runs, also strike out a lot. R.H. Macy failed seven
times before his store in New York caught on. English novelist John Creasy
got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books. Babe Ruth struck out
1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs. Don't worry about failure.
Worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.
Press On
(Ray Crok, founder of McDonalds--but I've also seen it attributed to others.)
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will
not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the
world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent.
And along the same line, I saw this in the Volusia County Romance Writers
Newsletter, Novel Notes, in an article by Carol MacLeod called Marketing
Yourself and Your Work: "Never, ever, ever give up. Persistence is the
number one key to the writing field. Not creativity, not genius, nothing
else but persistence."
 "This is a hard business. Sometimes your enthusiasm, your own belief in your talent, is all the support you'll have." -- Debra Dixon, RWA Vice
President
FINISH THE DAMN BOOK!
Don't quit five minutes before the miracle happens.
Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you
were meant to do. (Unknown)
Here's two affirmations from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way:
Choose companions who encourage you to do the work, not just talk about
the work, or why you're not doing the work.
Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist
than it is to do the work.
Also from the Artist's Way: "Pray for the willingness to write--and then
write." --Jerry Ayers.
and lastly:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain
©2000 Lorraine Bartlett
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