Because it’s the holidays and there is too much to do. Too much to do equals less time and motivation for writing.

Because many of you are on a “break” in which you imagine you’ll accomplish much more work than you actually will.

Because you have, or will be, rejected from a place you’d really, really love to see your work in.

Because even if you need to take a break, a real one, at some point you’ll come back to the desk to find a blank page waiting, and even if you hate quotations with every fiber of your being, you can use your indignance/anger at someone else’s supposedly wise words about writing… to start writing.

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything. John Irving

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system. Flannery O’ Connor

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story. F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer, and if so, why? Bennett Cerf

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Should I Stay or Want to Go?

My mom was raised Catholic and my dad is Jewish so I’m entitled to a healthy dose of guilt. It can be useful, though, I’ve found. Guilt can be a catalyst for action. The current cause of my guilt is not replying to Steve Knezovich’s post from June 2, 2010 in which he asked, “I think all of us have writers who inspire us, but how many writers actually ask you to come out and play?” I’ve wanted to reply to Knezovich’s appeal for over a month now and I’m finally getting to it. The delay is not due to procrastination but to lack of information. I spend so much of my time doing what I should that I sometimes forget that I can read and write out of want. Should sure can govern most of our lives if we let it.   

I see now that in his posting the following week, “Invitation vs. Inspiration,” several people answered the question Steve posed (now I feel guilty that I didn’t read that post sooner). Some people have writers they turn to for inspiration, writers who seem to invite them to write, who ask them to come out to play. It just took me a while to think of any writers who do these things for me. The reason for this? I think I’ve had a bad attitude. I’ve been so caught in obligation that I can be reading the most exciting, inspiring, inviting thing ever and feeling like I need to find the use in it.    

This weekend I enjoyed reading Rare and Endangered Species, by Richard Bausch in which we get to see the inner feelings and mental workings of everyday people. Bausch tells us very little about his characters’ thoughts; most of his storytelling is done through action, description, and dialogue. I love how drawn in I become as I try to figure out the relationships and scenarios.    

I got the book at the library because a friend suggested I acquaint myself with Bausch’s work, but I actually read it because I wanted to, because it started like this: Read more »

These will be better than the work you’re doing:

Steve Almond’s correspondence with an editor who refuses to pay, via The Coachella Review

Richard Bausch takes on those bullshit “How to Write” manuals, in The Atlantic