Forget the Muse

The best cure for Writer’s Block is to write. Stephen King’s book on writing is one of my favorites. Also, Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Bird By Bird by Ann Lamott. Muscles atrophy when we don’t use them so it only stands to reason that writing does not improve without practice, daily.

A Writer's Path

by Michael Mohr

Today I wanted to talk about the process and act of writing. What I mean by that is the simple craft of regularly putting pen to paper. As Stephen King famously said, “Amateurs wait for the muse to come. The rest of us get working.” That is so incredibly true. When I was a creative writing undergrad at San Francisco State University, like many young [writing] students, I thought that, when the ‘muse’ came, I could then write the Great American Novel.

The truth is—any professional can affirm this—and I hate to break your heart here: There is no muse. The muse is like Santa Clause; it’s a hoax that we tell beginners to try and inspire them. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But at some point, if you take yourself seriously as a writer, you will have to let go of the Santa Clause…

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Wednesday’s Words to Ponder, for Book lovers only…

Books, the love of the written word, and of writing words, is something that unites many in a world fraught with attempts to divide. As someone who enjoys a good quote and a book lover, I find quotes about books enticing. If you will bear with me, I should like to share a few and it would be lovely if you would share your favorite book quotes.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I have always imagined Paradise will be a kind of library.”  – Jorge Luis Borges

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”  –  Haruki Murakami 

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if that book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”                                                            – Madeleine L’Engle

“Books are perfect entertainment: No commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry around a book for those inevitable dead spots in life.”  – Stephen King

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books.”   – Roald Dahl, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

“Truth is stranger than fiction,  but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilites; Truth isn’t.”                                                                                                                                                     – Mark Twain, Following the Equator, A Journey Around The World

Do you have a favorite quote about books? If so, please share it.

 

 

Bisous,

Léa

 

 

 

blocked

“Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way.
I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the
appalling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere.”

– A. A. Milne

“When asked , ‘how do you write?’ I invariably answer ‘one word at a time.”                                                     – Stephen King

blocked

will tortured lines appear
stuttering fingers tremble across
the keyboard
an exercise in hit and miss
the empty mind hopes
perhaps the laws of probability
would be kind
smiling in verse

fingers shudder, spasm and freeze
from a distance, grey matter bounces
thought and metaphor
till they coagulate
in cerebral jelly
synapse arrested
white pages glare
laughingly at me

Bisous,

Léa