“I sit down every day at around the same time and put myself in the path of inspiration… If I don‘t sit down, if I‘m not there working, then inspiration will pass right by me…”
“That knowledge, that ping, the hair on your arms standing up, that sudden, electric sense of knowing. We must learn to watch for these moments. To not discount them… Like falling in love, moments that announce themselves as your subject are rare, and there‘s magic to them. Ignore them at your own peril.”
“Pain engraves a deeper memory… Pain carves details into us, yes. I would wager, though, that great joy does as well.”
“Whatever it is that makes us feel secure in our physical space allows us to make the leap, hoping that the page will catch us. Writing, after all, is an act of faith.”
“I was strangled by my own ego, by my petty desire for what I perceived to be the literary brass ring. I was missing the point, of course. The reward is in the doing.”
“Straining to know the whole of the story before you set out is a bit like imagining great-grandchildren on a first date.”
“The page is your mirror. What happens inside you is reflected back. You come face-to-face with your own resistance, lack of balance, self-loathing, and insatiable ego—and also with your singular vision, guts, and fortitude. No matter what you've achieved the day before, you begin each day at the bottom of the mountain.”
“We are all unsure of ourselves. Every one of us walking the planet wonders, secretly, if we are getting it wrong. We stumble along. We love and we lose. At times, we find unexpected strength, and at other times, we succumb to our fears. We are impatient. We want to know what's around the corner, and the writing life won't offer us this. It forces us into the here and now. There is only this moment, when we put pen to page.”
I‘ve been neglecting my library books so I‘m tackling those as well 😅
November #MonthlyNonfiction2025 reads @julieclair
#NonfictionNovember was a busy one ☺️
