how to use writing quotations to succeed

Writing quotation: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit,” said Richard Bach.

Another quotation about not giving up: “You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price in disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft – then you can add all the genius you like.” – Phyllis Whitney.

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I don't know about genius, but I do know about disappointment, discouragement – and success! Today, Flare magazine accepted a piece from me, and that almost makes up for my fear that Woman's Day might change their minds about the article they accepted last week (they sent me an American W-9 to fill out but I'm Canadian and they're still "looking into it." Surely they must have employed Canadian writers before, no?!).

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But I digress.

Writing tip: These inspirational quotations about writing are more important than you know. The more your thoughts focus on persevering despite rejections or writing blocks and the more you focus on your dreams, the more likely you’ll achieve your writing goals.

Here's how to use writing quotations to succeed: Find 3 or 4 writing quotes that motivate you to achieve and to produce. Post them near your computer, in the front of your notebook, or on your fridge -- anywhere you'll see them regularly. When you get used to seeing them or have memorized them or have moved beyond what they offer, switch them out for new writing quotations.

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Another great way to stay motivated is to visit writing sites or blogs regularly, but don't get sucked into surfing or reading posts for longer than a few minutes! Internet distractions can be the death of any dream.

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Write on, fellow writers. Write on.

Writing tips from Barbara Taylor Bradford

This writing advice from Barbara Taylor Bradford comes from the book Bestsellers: Top Writers Tell How by Richard Joseph.

Writing quotation: “Basic writing ability is not enough. A would-be novelist must also observe what I call the five ‘Ds’:

D for desire – the desire to want to write that novel more than anything else.
D for drive – the drive to get started.
D for determination – the will to continue whatever the stumbling blocks and difficulties encountered on the way.
D for discipline – the discipline to write every day, whatever your mood.
D for dedication to the project until the very last page is finished.

Finally, there is a sixth D – to avoid! This is for distractions – perhaps the most important D of all, the enemy of all writers, whether would-be or proven.”

Writing tip: Since I can’t really add to the infamous Barbara Taylor Bradford’s writing advice, I’ll tell you that Woman’s Day magazine accepted one of my proposals! Woo hoo, it’s time to celebrate (well, it will be after I write the article and they publish it hopefully with little or no edits because those make me nervous even as they teach me how to be a better writer).

You know, it’s an upward spiral: the more I write, the more I want to submit proposals and ideas. Be ware the downward spiral: the more distractions we allow, the less discipline we have, and down we go.

Here’s to using our D’s to take us up, up, and away!

Getting published involves a bit of luck

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Have you ever wondered how some books ever got published? Sure you have. As a writer, you see those words and books and articles and cringe. And you know you could've done better.

So what do those writers have that you lack? Maybe it's something beyond your control.

Writing quotation: “Luck was one of the most important factors in my success. I was in the right place and at the right time. There could be a thousand people who could have written that first novel equally as well, or as badly, as I did, but I had the good fortune to send it in at that specific time,” says Penny Jordan, author of over 100 (published) books.

Writing tip: To tap into Penny Jordan’s kind of luck, writers need to send their stuff out, right? I mean, Penny not only wrote that first novel – she also sent it in.

Send in your proposals and manuscripts, fellow writers. Do your research, yes, and write as clearly and descriptively as you can, for sure. But send it in or you’ll never have a shot at publication.

Getting ahead in writing, by Agatha Christie & Anne Lamott

It’s daunting, starting that article, poem, or book. I know, because I have an article for Reader’s Digest due in a week, and I’m more interested in blogging or writing for Suite or checking out various forums or Googling my name than actually getting down to work.

Are you the same way? Just think how much work we could get done if we actually worked constantly! Since that seems impossible, especially at the beginning of new pieces, here’s some writing advice from Agatha Christie and Anne Lamott to get things moving.

Writing quotations: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started,” said Agatha Christie. That’s good, but let’s hear what Anne Lamott has to say…

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper,” says Lamott in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. “What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.” She suggests various ways to quiet those voices, including putting them one by one in a mason jar and closing the lid.

Then, you write.

Writing tip: Agatha Christie says you need only get started in order to get ahead. Why? Because getting started will build momentum, and before you know it the article or poem is half written, or the book outline is finished. Just get started, even if you only have 15 minutes.

Okay, I’ll go work on my article. You write your stuff. And we’ll both get ahead...

Finding the right publisher

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writing quotation from Toni Morrison

Writing Quotation: “It seems to me there’s an enormous difference in the writing of black and white women. Aggression is not as new to black women as it is to white women. Black women seem able to combine the nest and the adventure,” says Toni Morrison.

Question: Is it really an adventure if you’re still in the nest?

Toni Morrison’s writing quotation continues: “[Black women] don’t see conflicts in certain areas as do white women. They are both safe harbor and ship; they are both inn and trail. We, black women, do both. We don’t find these places, these roles, mutually exclusive. That’s one of the differences.”

Comment: In my Inspirations for Women blog, I do tend to separate finding yourself/pursuing your dreams from staying safe in your cocoon. It sounds like Toni Morrison is saying that black women writers pursue both adventure and security at the same time.

Toni Morrison’s writing quotation continues: “White women often find if they leave their husbands and go out into the world, it’s an extraordinary event. If they’ve settle for the benefits of housewifery that preclude a career, then it’s marriage or a career for them, not both, not and.”

Writing tip: Whether you agree with Toni Morrison or not (myself, I think it's a little stereotypical, a little too "black and white"), think about her ideas. Different cultures - even in the same province, state or city - give us different mindsets and perspectives. This is why kids raised by the same parents in the same household grow into totally different people.

When you're writing, consider how culture affects your readers. Culture can be narrowed all the way down to family, and broadened all the way out to country or even continent.

writing advice from poet Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton was a poet and writer who struggled with bipolar disorder for most of her life. Suicide was her final escape.

Writing quotation: “Until I was 28 I had a kind of buried self who didn’t know she could do anything but make white sauce and diaper babies. I didn’t know I had any creative depth. I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children,” said Anne Sexton.

Why didn’t she know she had any creative depth? Maybe a better question is: what’s holding you and me back from our creative depths? Answering that may provide insight into Sexton’s writing life. Even if it doesn’t, it could help us understand ourselves as writers.

Anne Sexton goes on to say: “I was trying my damndest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out. The surface cracked when I was about 28. I had a psychotic breakdown and tried to kill myself.”

Writing tip: Revealing and accepting yourself – what you really think, where you’ve really been – is one of the hardest parts of being a writer. It’s not just about rejection, though that’s huge. Since elementary school we’ve been conditioned to be quiet, tamp ourselves down, stop crying, colour in the lines, and wear big boy pants (some families are much more “stiff upper lip” and reserved than others). Letting ourselves go in writing is really, really hard.

When we expose our true selves in writing, we’re vulnerable to rejection, teasing, mocking, and labeling. But if we let fear stop us from writing, we’re vulnerable to things that are much worse: losing ourselves, breakdowns, and burying our dreams in food, booze, shopping, and bad relationships.