#writing

That day, that day when I can gaze at the sea--both of us calm--and I, trusting, having poured my whole heart into my Life Work....when death--black waves!--no longer courts me and I can smile, constantly, at everything because, my bones, there will be so little of myself left to give it. ↗

— Juan Ramón Jiménez

#life-work #nature-writing #poetry #death

Guy struck a jangling chord on the keyboards and then another. 'You know,' he announced, sitting back and crossing his arms. 'We need some new material. We’ve got to write some new songs.' 'Like what?' He shrugged. 'I don’t know. Throw out some ideas.' 'Love! Death! Existential struggle!' Emily intoned dramatically, rattling out a drumroll. 'Agriculture! ↗

— Francine Pascal

#sweet-valley #death

The short story, I should point out, is perforce a labor of love in today's literary world; there's precious little economic incentive to write one... ↗

— Lawrence Block

#short-stories #short-story #writers #writing #love

If you're going to fall out of love with public approval, something interesting will happen: people will be deeply attracted to your work. ↗

— Jeff Goins

#writing #love

Without imagination, there would be no creativity. Without creativity, there would be nothing. ↗

— Aneta Cruz

#life #reading #writing #imagination

Don't always be appraising yourself, wondering if you are better or worse than other writers. "I will not Reason and Compare," said Blake; "my business is to Create." Besides, since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of Time, you are incomparable. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#creativity #writing #art

I'm not so presumptuous to feel that they're gonna get it right away, get exactly what I have in mind. I hope that they'll enjoy looking at it at any rate, whatever it is. And that's why I started writing stories on my work. ↗

— Faith Ringgold

#away #enjoy #exactly #feel #get

Everyone’s life is an evolution of emotions, spirit and beliefs. The storyline changes, plots thicken, main characters mature and new spiritual journeys begin. This is true of inspirational authors. Their books represent only the stages of their life. New triumphs of the soul have yet to be written! ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#future #religious-beliefs #writing #change

Blackadder was fifty-four and had come to editing Ash out of pique. He was the son and grandson of Scottish schoolmasters. His grandfather recited poetry on firelight evenings: Marmion, Childe Harold, Ragnarok. His father sent him to Downing College in Cambridge to study under F. R. Leavis. Leavis did to Blackadder what he did to serious students; he showed him the terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in his own capacity to contribute to, or change it. The young Blackadder wrote poems, imagined Dr Leavis’s comments on them, and burned them. ↗

— A.S. Byatt

#craft #literature #poetry #self-confidence #skill

people don't really want original stories. they want different versions of the same story. this is called meta-narrative. ↗

— Chester Elijah Branch

#screenwriting #storytelling #movies