Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
~ Victor Hugo
quotations
The complexity of things
The complexity of things – the things within things – just seems to be endless.
I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.
~ Alice Munro
Post-kidlit conference: weary yet invigorated
I’ve been at the Letters & Lines Conference which is the annual conference of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators). I didn’t attend the conference for the past four years and so it was very nice to catch up with old friends while also making new connections. Highlights of the weekend were inspirational keynote speeches by Laurie Halse Anderson who opened the conference and critique partner Claudia Mills who gave the closing speech. Those two women inspired me, challenged me, made me laugh*, and brought me to tears. I’m invigorated and ready to get back to my creative life. Well, probably not today. This introvert is worn out after playing extrovert for so many hours.
But tomorrow? I’m back to my stories.
* I received so many rejections and I earned them the old-fashioned way: by turning in books that sucked. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson
With all due respect to Carrie Fisher, Zoey disagrees
There is no point at which you can say, ‘Well, I’m successful now. I might as well take a nap.’
~ Carrie Fisher
In which I make like a guitar string
Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.
~ Pele
Today as I continue exploring a new story idea, filling pages in a new notebook, I’m filled with excitement and anticipation. There’s nothing but pure potential at this point. I haven’t yet taken any wrong turns or gotten bogged down in the swampy middle of the novel. It’s just me and a 12-year-old boy finding our way.
Enthusiasm is running high.
Workers Unite
Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.
~ Susan B. Anthony
A novelist and a bricklayer walk into a bar
Writing a novel isn’t like building a brick wall.
You don’t figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier
each time because you know what you’re doing.
With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time.
Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.
~ Kate DiCamillo
Allow me to clarify
With great writing there is great clarity.
~ David Costabile
That is precisely why I’ve got my notebook out again, jotting down elements of the manuscript I’m revising in hopes of making connections I’ve missed so far. It’s hard to admit, but my story lacks focus. How that can still be true in the fourth draft I do not know. What I do know is this:
With mediocre writing there are muddy waters and confusion which result in the reader not knowing exactly what she’s supposed to root for or why any of it matters.
~Tracy Abell
Word of the day (and probably however long it takes to finish this draft) = CLARITY.
Counting moments with a butterfly
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
Yeah, what he said
I’m trying to make work that is reflective and is encouraging of reflection.
~ Antony Gormley
Note to self
Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.
~ Will Rogers
All good things
Just knowing you don’t have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn – and those are all good things.
~ Dick Van Dyke
Heaven in a Wild Flower
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
~ William Blake
~ William Blake
Today’s deep thought
You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream. ~ Frank Zappa
Ever see a White Ibis cry?
Red is the ultimate cure for sadness.
~ Bill Blass
Reminder to self
Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
~ Ken Kesey via ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
Rejoice!
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy,
if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,
if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand,
rejoice, for your soul is alive.
~Eleonora Duse
A reminder on this solstice
There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.
~ Charles Dickens
Nature for the win
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
Free bird!
Fiction is such a world of freedom,
it’s wonderful.
If you want someone to fly, they can fly.
~ Alice Walker
Holding to the vision
As I continue to work on the YA-manuscript-with-many-warts, I take solace in this bit of wisdom:
Every great work,
every big accomplishment,
has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision,
and often just before the big achievement,
comes apparent failure and discouragement.
~Florence Scovel Shinn
The way I see it, I’m currently smack-dab in the middle of an enormous puddle of failure and discouragement which means Big Achievement could very well be nigh.
*scans horizon before getting back to revisions*
Shine on
Yeah we all shine on,
like the moon,
and the stars,
and the sun.
~ John Lennon
Unidentified Flying Object
Psst…my guess is Black-capped Chickadee. Photo by Zippy
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
~ Albert Einstein
I’m aiming for the heart
The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
~ Maya Angelou
Iris bloom as work of art
Art is all in the details.
~ Christian Marclay
