Writers are different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

I have come to this conclusion in stages. First, when I was growing up and realized other girls generally didn’t spend hours sitting around making up stories in their head. As a young adult I discovered that most people don’t actually identify the character arc or the story arc or the black moment when reading books or watching movies for entertainment. Who knew?

And then I attended my first writing conference. I looked around and heard other people talk about sitting behind a computer for hours in hopes that one day someone else would enjoy the story they couldn’t get out of their head. There were entire conversations about fictional characters and people who didn’t think it was at all weird to get busted by the UPS man in your pj’s at 2:00pm. I did a little mental happy dance. At last I had found my people! Others who understood.

So in tribute to all of the fabulous, just a little bit crazy, writers out there I have compiled a few of my favorite quotes about writers. Please feel free to add your own favorite quotes in the comments. You never know where you’re going to find something that will light up your life, soothe your soul, or inspire that next great story!

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God
who is sending a love letter to the world.
- Mother Teresa

The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. – John Steinbeck

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. ~Toni Morrison

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow

I think everyone had an abysmal winter (show of hands, please?).  If we used a plow service (hand up here), in spite of having a nifty snowblower in the garage (hand raised again), we have to be ready to face the consequences of the yahoos who ride those trucks and wield those plows.

Which is how I ended up with a staircase at the end of my driveway, smashed on one side, and completely unsafe.  Had the plow guys told me of the damage?  No.  They tossed the broken post behind the house, hi-tailed it back home and sent me the bill.

what my stairs should look like

Will they be plowing my driveway next winter?  Uh…  you guessed it, I’m looking for a new lawn service.

But I digress.  I watched Brilliant Writer Husband and Fabulous Engineer Son work on and repair the stairs over Easter weekend.  What did I learn?

I would love to have a drill like this

The damage has to be assessed for what is usable (read over your manuscript with close attention to gaps and mistakes, forgiving yourself along the way).

attractive rusty nails, ours weren’t

Old nails have to be pulled (cut the fat and unimportant details).

Decide if you will use the tools at hand, or make a run to the hardware store (are you going to work with what you have?  Or start all over again?).

Re-assemble the parts, checking for usability and strength (decide if your story has enough sass to survive a serious edit).

Attempt the first screw, and adjust technique as you go (ditto, but with words).

Test each re-assembled part for durability, then move on (as with the stairs, you MUST continue working forward in order to finish).

Finally, take a walk up the stairs, holding on to the railing, and celebrate your good work (huzzah!  you stuck with it! a hearty pat on the back for you!)

Close enough – just 34 years old!

Of course, the repairs didn’t go exactly like that.   Mark broke one hammer, the best hammer is missing, the middle hammer has one of the claws broken.  The battery-operated drill needs its battery pack replaced, and we had to pull out my father’s old Sears model, which doesn’t have the features of my DeWalt 9v.  I stood to one side, collecting bent nails in a soda can for disposal and looking helpful.  Finally, I left father and son to their own brilliance, and returned to celebrate the wonders of the repair.

And, in writing, it’s the same a lot of the time.  Discovering that two scenes of my manuscript can’t be used because I killed off the father before the book starts,  another chapter has a scene missing that has to be written.  There’s not enough energy between hero and heroine yet.  I’ve run through the easy parts and it’s getting harder.

Outside, the stairs are still put together – they have been for two days.  There has to be a lesson in that!

How do YOU find inspiration to keep going?

“Mommy, if you die, I’d want to die with you.”   

Words from my 7-year-old as I’m trying to merge through a swamp of 270 rush-hour traffic.  After I avoid almost crashing into the car in front of me, and after expounding a litany of question make sure she’s only expressing a thought and isn’t really ready to end it all with a butter knife, a thought strikes.  Holy crap!  What an opening line. 

The fact that I have opening lines on my brain isn’t a phenomenon.   Thanks to the WRW retreat, I have a few requests pending.  And now comes the icky part: what I like to call worry wording.  Where I chew and gnaw over every word.  Especially in those first opening lines.  I realize a fabulous first sentence won’t lead to a sale, the rest of the innards have to be there too, but it doesn’t hurt.    So that got me thinking.. can you name your favorite opening line in a book, WITHOUT looking it up.