Quote of the (Random) Day--

I found this quote via Mark Goodyear who has a great-looking new blog at goodwordediting.com. The quote comes from Annie Dillard's book, The Writing Life:

Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.

The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that page will teach you to write.

Mark uses this quote to refer the new year as a blank page. How will we fill it? For me, my writer's resolution is to simply fill more pages. Inspiration comes in the doing, not the preparing, and I spend far too much time thinking about and preparing to write stuff than I should. Like a pianist, I need to exercise my fingers more. And I need to give God more opportunities to slip me a few aha! moments.

Comments

[Mark Goodyear]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm still ironing out some functionality issues, but like you said here, I could prepare forever. I decided to just launch it and clean up as I go. With a virtual product, there's no reason not to.

I know what you mean about over planning. Always planning and never writing. Always talking about a great story or a great pitch or a great character and never actually writing anything.

Patrick, I'm gonna take this as a personal challenge to focus my energies more and take joy in the doing!

(On the other hand, good coffee brews, good wine ferments, and good cheese ages, just not too long.)

[Patrick]

Take joy in the doing. I think you've hit the nail on the head, Mark. Funny how many of us writers enjoy being a writer but so often avoid the hard work of writing. I suppose we can always discover joy in writing if we have the right attitude. Even a good case of writer's block can be a sign of a better story trying to break through -- a cause for joy... :)

[beats by dr dre uk]

What fun! I couldn't stop!