Kindle Notes & Highlights
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March 21 - March 21, 2020
It’s not about getting anywhere but about how much we are getting out of what we do along the way.
Make sure your reasons for writing a book are internal. Because you can’t not. Because you love to write. Because you recognize it will be a learning process.
If your reasons are external or involve your ego — money, fame, recognition, sales, admiration, adulation — you are in all likelihood going to be extremely disappointed.
You venture your way in precisely because you want to reap its benefits, not because you already possess them.
If you want to write, forget about what is feasible. Forget about talent. Forget about ever being the best. Pull a chair out, sit down and write.
This is the beauty of a creative endeavor: the creator has full agency. You get to decide.
Does this excite me? Is it tugging at me? Do I really really want to?
Because the process teaches you something invaluable (among other things, to check your ego at the door). I highly recommend writing a book. What I want is for you to do it for the right reasons so that you enjoy the process rather than suffer through it.
What you keep leaving for later doesn’t get done later. It gets done never.
Writing is more about repetition than it is about inspiration. Writing is more about discipline than it is about creativity. Writing is more about practice than it is about talent. Read this again because I’m not saying talent doesn’t matter.
Write every day. Push aside every interruption. Note that the peskiest interruptions come from inside you.
Never try to sound like anyone else. Success is about finding your own voice and it’s not lurking within someone else’s. Rest. Step away from what you write. Switch to other tasks to give your thoughts some air. Take a walk. Sleep on it.
Don’t write for the wrong reasons, such as fame or money. If you do you are 93% guaranteed to end up insanely frustrated. Don’t write for anyone else. Writing is not intended to give to others, do for others or to impress others. It’s for you, from you.
I can’t recommend enough sleeping on things.
An amateur is a person who engages in something because they like it and not because they intend to get paid for it. Or, a person who admires something and devotes time to it for fun (an amateur of the theater).
When I remind myself I am inexperienced it opens my mind but it also invites in wonder and adventure. I hope to always regard the world like a beginner.
Never postpone what makes you feel fulfilled. Don’t let the book of your life remain unwritten.
