Well Spoken | Andy's Words & Pictures

Sometimes it is best to let those who have already expressed ideas speak.? I have gathered some quotes that speak to me as a writer (and a creative) to share with you.

On some days writing can be devilishly difficult. Writers, I think, love to bemoan the fact that inspiration can be fleeting, ideas?at least good ones?can be far and few between. There are times when the energy is not there, times when the passion is sleeping, times when distractions invade, times when nothing works.? To that notion I offer these two quotes:

?Writing is a dreadful Labour, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.?
?Thomas Carlyle

?I am most drawn to writing when I have something else urgent to do.?
?Mason Cooley

A novel is in the neighborhood of 80,000 words, or maybe 350 pages. It may have taken you a year or more to write. The scope of a story may take place over several months, years or generations, or the plot might take place entirely in one day.? You took time to tweak, polish, market and schlep it around trying to generate interest in it and finally make it available.? I think that Natalie Clifford Barney got it right when she said:

?Novels are longer than life.?
? Natalie Clifford Barney

Truth and honesty are some popular words.? Write the truth. Be honest to yourself. George Orwell had a slightly different take:

?For a creative writer possession of the ?truth? is less important than emotional sincerity.?
?George Orwell

Nietzsche had a similar bent on Orwell?s thought and extended it to others:

?A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.?
?Friedrich Nietzsche

While truth, honesty, sincerity and spirit are all admirable qualities for a writer, Ernest Hemingway saw something completely different as being essential:

?The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector?all great writers have had it.?
?Ernest Hemingway

While, as noted earlier, Natalie Clifford Barney thought novels to be longer than life, Gertrude Stein felt writing was life:

?Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.?
? Gertrude Stein

As a writer and a visual artist I was also drawn to this quote about the art of writing

?? often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and colour. I have the painter?s sensitivity to light. Much (and perhaps the best) of my writing is verbal painting.?
?Elizabeth Bowen

I have talked about the inconsistencies of inspiration and her willingness to take flight.? I have found, though, that when she returns it is usually in the middle of the night and with plenty of noise and clatter.? An idea that hits at midnight must be committed to paper or it will rob me of precious sleep:

?Writing about an idea frees me of it. Thinking about it is a circle of repetitions.?
? Mason Cooley

Lastly one of my favorite quotes is an unattributed one but a good bit of advice:

?It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.?
?Anonymous

Whomever said that successfully admonishes us not to cast about for excuses for our own failings; rather own up to it and make it better. Speaking of improvement, certainly you can improve upon the few quotes I have assembled here.

Question: What is your favorite quote?? Whose words inspire you?

Source: http://andyswordsandpictures.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/well-spoken/

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