Quote of the Day: Sara Zarr

Let’s face it—fear is easier than courage. Fear offers no resistance. It’s a black hole, a bottomless well, it’s always right there and handily accessible in never-ending supplies. You don’t even have to look for it—it throws itself at you, a needy, uninvited interloper. It’s loud and rude, while courage sits quietly and politely, waiting for you to call it forth. I’ve noticed this seems to be the case with all positive character traits; they’re quiet, they whisper, they wait. The negative ones are ready to party 24/7. I don’t know why this is but it is. For me, the only way to hear the good things is intentionally turn the lesser things down or off, and that takes some discipline. Asking myself: “Is this a thing I can change, or not change?” is a helpful place to start. If it’s the latter, I try to let it go. Sometimes I think the whole work of living is figuring out the difference between those things, and then acting accordingly.

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Quote of the Day: Jane Smiley

"Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist." 

--Jane Smiley

Quote of the day: Neil Gaiman

"Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."

Quote of the day: C.S. Lewis

"No one who bothers about originality will be original, but try to tell the truth & you'll become original."
--C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day: Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall

"Every writer has a natural voice, and every natural voice has its own way of telling a story. It has its own rhythm, pace, sense of detail, anecdote, and—if allowed to improvise—this natural voice can discover the story’s content and form. Natural voice is like a finger pointing at the moon, but it isn’t the moon itself. It takes time, patience, and work to refine this voice into a polished voice that can tell a story. But when your natural voice is allowed to lead the way, the result is a story with fire and spirit."

—Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall, Finding Your Writer’s Voice

Quote of the day:

Much wisdom is a hand-me-down. Like all hand-me-downs, it may be too big at the time it is given. – Rachel Naomi Remen M.D.

(Swiped from Janet Lee Carey's twitter feed. Follow her!)

Quote of the day: C.S. Lewis

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.

~C.S. Lewis

(And I think I know which finger.)

Quote of the day: Nathan Bransford

"The only way to stay sane in the business is to enjoy every step as you're actually experiencing it. Happiness is not around the bend. It's found in the present. Because writing is pretty great -- otherwise why are you doing it?"

-- Nathan Bransford, author and literary agent

Quote of the day: Sheryl St. Germain

"If you think of home as a place where you feel comfortable, where you can kick off your shoes and be yourself, then writing is my home. No matter where I am, if I have my laptop or my journal, I'm home. When I pick up the pen, I experience the most profound feeling of intimacy and acceptance and familiarity I know."

--Sheryl St. Germain, poet and creative writing professor, 2009

Quote of the day: Dorothea Brande

If you can come to such friendly terms with yourself that you are able and willing to say precisely what you think of any given situation or character, if you can tell a story as it can appear only to you of all the people on earth, you will inevitably have a piece of work which is original.

- Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer

Quote of the Day: Ray Bradbury

"Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer's make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto."

-- Ray Bradbury

Quote of the day: Hans Arp

"When a new mode of imagining erupts into literature, it dislocates the rhetoric of its time, and is of subtler stuff than that rhetoric—'the infinite arrives barefoot on this earth." --Hans Arp

Quote of the Day: Stephen J. Dubner

"A book is like a child who never naps, never goes to camp, always needs care and feeding, and whose presence gnaws on you if you dare neglect it."

From a NYT column on why some people hate meetings.

Quote of the Day: David McKee

"Picture books should be shared books, which can be looked at again and again by parents and child. I like to think that I'm writing for the adult that the child will be, and the child that the adult still is."

(Read an interview with the author of Elmer here.)

Quote of the Day: Ann Whitford Paul

"My adult students always want to know first of all how to get an agent and I tell them that their first question should be: How do I write a fantastic, one-of-a-kind picture book?"

Read more of an insightful interview at Teaching Authors.