Today's quote is by Catherine Drinker Bowen.

Writing, I think, is not apart from living.  Writing is a kind of double living.  The writer experiences everything twice.  Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.

What's wonderful about this is that our lives are enriched in a special sort of way.  What a beautiful thing it is to experience everything twice and to live life as a writer.

What's more difficult about this is that we can never fully immerse ourselves into "that mirror"... we can only dream about it. 

Today is the last day of November.  I hope you have enjoyed these writing quotes and that they have inspired you in some way, whether to write or even to look more closely at life.

What is your favorite quote?

And for those of you who participated in NaNoWriMo, did you complete your goal and write a novel? 

Today's quote is by Anais Nin.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

Write with every part of you.  Don't be afraid to reach into a place within yourself you've never gone before.  When you write, write with a piece of your heart.

What was the most impacting book you've ever read?

Today's quote is by Burton Rascoe.

What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.

Alright, I don't have a wife... and I don't ever plan to have one.  However, I can relate to this quote.  There have been so many instances in my life where I've been scolded by a teacher or my mother for daydreaming instead of doing something "productive."  If one isn't a writer, he simply cannot understand the importance of just sitting and thinking.

Have you ever been caught daydreaming when you were supposed to be working or paying attention?

Today's quote is by Karol Jackowski.

Every word born of an inner necessity.  Writing must never be anything else.

If you're experiencing a bad case of writer's block, pause for a few days and see if it gets better.  It doesn't matter if you're participating in NaNoWriMo.  You don't want to write for the sake of making a word count.  Write because you love to write.  Write because there is something inside of you begging to come out on paper. 

If there is nothing in you asking to be written, take a break.  Why write worthless scribbles?

What are your favorite cures for writer's block?

Today's quote is by Joan Baez.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them.  The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

Sometimes I feel like the best of my writing, the parts that came from all-nighters or moments of sudden inspiration, isn't really mine.  And the worst of my writing tends to be what I've slaved over the most.

Hmmm...

Have you ever written a song?

Today's quote is by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.  The chasm is never completely bridged.  We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.

I love art in many forms.  Music, painting, sketching, and writing.  I have found that writing satisfies my inner vision the most out of any of the others... but I agree with Isaac Bashevis Singer.  There will always be a part of me that wishes I could say more to better bare my heart.

What form of art best satisfies your inner vision?

Today's quote is by Vita Sackville-West.

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.

This is one of the reasons I love blogging so much.  When I look over my blog entries from the last two years, I am able to remember things I wouldn't have remembered otherwise.  I catch glimpses of the problems I once struggled with, the victories I experienced, the moments of revelation I felt with the Lord.  I can see that I came through a difficult time or a dry spell then, so I surely can again now.  I remember days with my loved ones, the excitement of getting a puppy or finishing a great book, what inspired me, and what broke my heart.

My blog has become my journal in a lot of ways.  While I will still journal occasionally, I don't think anything has captured my life in a butterfly net more than this blog has over the last two years.

Do you have a blog?

Today's quote is by Truman Capote.

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make.

How do you feel when you write? Does a song play in your heart?

Today's quote is by Logan Pearsall Smith.

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.

I love the moments when I'm in the middle of a good book and a revelation about the story hits me.  "Oh, so that's what this means..." and it's never spelled out clearly but instead is hidden between the lines of each page, simply waiting to be discovered.

What are you reading right now?

Today's quote is by Francis Bacon.

Write down the thoughts of the moment.  Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

Have you ever had one of those moments in the middle of the night (or during the day when you're busy, even) when inspiration suddenly hits you, but you think, "Ehh, I'll remember it later"?  And then when you go back to write your thoughts down, you realize with disappointment and frustration that the inspiration is no longer there?

I hate those moments.

Today's quote is by Vladimir Nabakov.

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

One of my favorite feelings in the world is when I feel inspired to write a poem.  With fiction, although I will have moments of inspiration, I will also have times of writer's block and lapses in concentration.  With poetry, it's like the words form in my head.  The poem already exists.  I just need to write it down. 

On average, it takes me less than five minutes to write a poem. 

What inspires you?

Today's quote is by William Wordsworth.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

Do you keep a journal or a diary?  How often do you write in it?

Today's quote is by Anton Chekhov.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

I don't think I've ever read a better metaphor for how to describe "showing" versus "telling."  As a  fiction writer, this can be one of the easiest mistakes to make.  I constantly have to remind myself to show, not tell.

Do you have any bad writing habits?

Today's quote is by Sylvia Plath.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

As a writer, it's so easy to doubt ourselves.  For the longest time, I would show NO ONE what I wrote out of fear of rejection.  I would have never kept a blog like this.  The mere idea would be too terrifying. 

I am still young and inexperienced.  Not everything I write is beautiful.  However, I must continue to remind myself that my writing doesn't have to be excellent to touch someone's heart.

Are you confident or shy about the things you write?

Today's quote is by Charles Peguy.

A word is not the same with one writer as with another.  One tears it from his guts.  The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.

And you know, I don't think either is wrong.  With some things I write, they seem to come out of nowhere.  It's like they were already in my head and all I had to do was write them out.  And then other times, when I write, it's like my heart is being ripped to shreds.  It's difficult and emotionally exhausting, but I learn a lot from the experience.  Both ways can produce fantastic writing, I believe.

Does writing tend to tear you apart or does it come to you without much effort? 

Today's quote is by E.L. Doctorow.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

This made me laugh so much that I couldn't help but share it today.  It's so true.  Half the time, I walk around with characters speaking inside my head.  They're made up, sure, but they have voices and personalities of their own.  I walk around and see a world other than the one before my eyes.  I experience the emotions of people who don't exist.

Perhaps writing is a socially acceptable form of multiple personality disorder as well.

Have you ever gone through a day while subconsciously narrating your life?

As she wakes up, she stretches.  She gazes out the window, breathing in a sigh of relief at the sight of the gently rising sun...

Today's quote is by Anais Nin.

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

No matter what kind of fiction you're writing, you should be able to express something that makes your reader say, "Wow.  I never thought of it that way before."

What have you been writing lately?

Today's quote is by Walter Wellesley Smith.

There's nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

This is a pretty popular quote, so you may have heard of it before.  It's a bit graphic in nature, but in a way, it's very true.  In order to write something beautiful, you must give a piece of yourself. 

What's been the most difficult thing for you to write?

Today's quote is by E.L. Doctorow.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write.  They hazard themselves.  Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

This is true in my case.  When I'm working on a novel, my insomnia intensifies.  I stop sleeping, I become immersed in the lives and emotions of my characters, and I lose focus on other things.  At times, I accidentally call the people around me by the names of my characters.  In a few instances, I've gone downstairs while trembling, only to frighten my mother or Ali... but no, nothing bad happened to me.  I just finished writing an especially emotional scene.

Writing fiction is hard on me emotionally.  However, it's a beautiful experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

What's the most emotionally distraught you've become over a character?

Today's quote is by Arthur Polotnik.

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you.  And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.

I don't even need a blog post to express my feelings for this quote.  It's just beautiful.  I'm officially inspired for the day.

What is your passion you hope to show through your writing?