In the same boat

I attended a workshop at NJRW about conquering your writing demons. RaeAnne Thayer presented it, the handout she gave us had quotes from accomplished authors admitting they had their own fears when it came to writing. Now I have read a lot of quotes from writer's offering inspiration and and how to advice...and they do just that. However, reading the quotes, where fears similar to mine have been faced by authors who have accomplished literary success hit home with me. That we share the same fears, are in the same boat as it were, inspired me even more. So I thought I would share some from the flyer and that I have discovered elsewhere...

"Writing itself is an act of faith, and nothing else"-- E. B. White

"A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down."--Edna St. Vincent Milay

I'm scared all the time, which is always good. You have to be scared or you're not working hard enough.--Sue Grafton

"If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it as an act of courage."--Cynthia Ozick

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.--Virginia Woolf

Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them.
- Isaac Asimov

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
- John Campbell

The book is done, the writer wants to cry out ‘bring it back, let me rewrite it, or better, let me burn it. Don’t let it out in the cold world in this unfriendly condition.’ I never lost the weight of clumsiness, ignorance or aching inability
-John Steinbeck

All my life I’ve been frightened at the moment I sit down to write.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

'A book is so much a part of oneself that in delivering it to the public one feels as if one were pushing one’s own child out into the traffic.’
Quentin Bell

"The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better."
(Stephen King)

When asked about the most frightening thing he had ever encountered, novelist Ernest Hemingway said, "A blank sheet of paper."
The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
William Faulkner

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde

"Every writer's nightmare...Is the idea worth writing about? Will the readers hate it? Am I wasting my time? And there are no answers--until the book is published, then you bite your nails, hold your breath, and pray like mad.-- Sydney Sheldon


((HUGS))may you find the courage to push past your fears and doubts and pursue whatever dreams you hold in your hearts!

Mari