Good To Remember

I found this link of quotes to remember when starting out writing via Mental Floss. Twelve Quotes from Authors to Remember When Staring Your First Book by Jason Krell I found on I09. I found the below quotes the most enlightening.

"People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it." - Harlan Ellison

The past few nights have taught me the meaning of this maxim. The stories I'm writing now may never go anywhere but the process of writing them, the daily/nightly grind, it's all part of the work that hopefully makes me a better writer.

"Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it..." - Michael Crichton

I've read this one before and it is so true. I was stunned by how many re-writes my books go through. Vapor Trail, the novel I'm currently working on, is nowhere near the book it started out as, and it's had the fewest re-writes of any of my novels.

As someone who despises the "rules" for writing that he keeps hearing and reading about, I particularly loved this quote:

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - Somerset Maugham

Reading the other nine quotes is definitely worth the time invested.