Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings." —Stephen King




Earlier this month I killed 10,000 darlings. Last month, 35,000. I'm officially a ms murderer.

(These erasers remind me of scary clowns. Just sayin'.)





It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Remember to load your brain before you shoot your mouth off." —Unknown

Sounds like some western wisdom to me, and although it's appropriate for writers (and everyone else) I thought the amping political climate could use an injection of humor. Wry, but humor.

It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Don't get it right, just get it written." —James Thurber



I'm working on this. Really.



It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"No two persons ever read the same book." —Edmund Wilson



As a writer who puts each new book out there with a mixture of pride and trepidation, I love this.



It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten." —Neil Gaiman

My favorite way to learn "mere facts" is through the inspiring shadow truths of fiction.



It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Acting is essentially doing a great deal of preparation and then hoping that an accident happens." —Laurence Olivier


The same can be said about writing fiction.



It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writer and Those Who Love Them

"... everythng in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." —Sylvia Plath


After 9/11 I wrote a poem about the plane that went down in the field. For me it was cathartic. Sometimes big things require a poem.

Can you imagine what Sylvia Plath would have done with a blog?



It's all better with friends.