Susan McCaskill's Blog: Susan McCaskill, Author, page 5

Daily Words of Wisdom

I have found this to be true so many times! If we don't let our 'logical' mind get in the way, the path to creativity is there.

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” 
― Saul Bellow

Daily Words of Wisdom

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” 
― Toni Morrison

Daily Words of Wisdom

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” 
― Douglas Adams,  The Salmon of Doubt

Daily Words of Wisdom

“Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

Daily Words of Wisdom

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.” 
― Junot Díaz

Daily Words of Wisdom

“The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle. Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.” 
― Joan Didion,  Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Daily Words of Wisdom

“Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch.” 
― Lili St. Crow

Daily Words of Wisdom

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.” 
― Marcel Proust,  Time Regained

Daily Words of Wisdom

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.” 
― George R.R. Martin

Daily Words of Wisdom For The Writer

Each day, I will post a snippet of Wisdom from established writers that may help your writing process. Enjoy!

"You have to write whatever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children." ~ Madeleine L'Engle.