Sage Writing Advice by Karin Gillespie

A few posts on writing that spoke to me this week, and I hope they’ll speak to you as well:

From author Leslie Stella comes a lovely rambling post about all the ups and downs in a writer’s life.

Here’s an excerpt:

“You cannot go to sleep at a reasonable hour for the same reason you cannot have a glass of wine and the idiot box: because you were a writer, you were born to be a writer, and you still want to be a writer—no, not yearn, just want, want—it’s a simple word and you have read enough crappy writing by now, including your own, to know that there is something to be said for the simple and direct and plain way of speaking; you are a writer and who is going to tell you that you are not? You are a writer; you are a writer.”

Also this from an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love:

“It’s okay to recognize that you took a wrong turn, and to begin anew. It’s okay to write a book that gets bad reviews. It’s okay to write a book that no one reads. The idea is just to focus on how you want to spend your life. My intention is to spend my entire life doing this, so any one piece of it isn’t that important when you think of it in the long scale.”

And finally this quote about telling the truth:

You will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it... Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.” 
― C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It’s all a journey isn’t it? And a lovely one at that. Enjoy and try not to get too frustrated with the bumps. It’s merely part of the wonder.