Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Commenting on Quotes

I love quotes. They are full of ideas, scenes, and situations. I also like answering the quotes as if they are directed at me. No, not a big-head syndrome, it's only an exercise. Here are a few:

"Change everything, except your loves." Voltaire

We change money, jobs, clothes, partners, where we live, who we talk to, or how we exercise and have fun. Then, mores change, as do the social classes, understanding, and our biases. We are all biased, mostly in a nice way. I used to like chocolate bars but now I'm more biased toward hard candy with cinnamon flavor, but I like the change. Chances are I'll change again and change many things about me. Change, I think, is the spice of life.

Yet, when Voltaire said to change everything except loves, the words rang true for me also. After all, I'm the one who lived with the same man for forty-five years, stayed with WdC for ten years, and always loved literature, writing, and fine arts, possibly since birth. I guess Voltaire knew a few things about Dodos like me.

"Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators." Olin Miller

Where I live, I could probably wrestle alligators since they're aplenty, and if I could get good at it, I could make money on it. That is, if I weren't eaten first.
As to making money by writing, I have no such goals, truth be told. I would like, however, to write better, much better, than what I'm doing.
On the other hand, I'm happy I didn't take up alligator wrestling. That would be the end of everything for me, especially my mediocre writing.

"Even while I am working on a book, I continue to research." Mary Higgins Clark

That is one of the downfalls while writing in November, I mean NaNoWriMo. I think back, way back, before Al Gore discovered (!) the internet. Without the internet, NaNo would never have been possible.

Since I like to write--that is just spew out words as I am doing now—I enjoy NaNo, and Heaven forbid, a huge research should come up. During the years I participated, even with the everyday fiction that I put on the computer screen, tiny research projects came up. With the internet's help, I could make the 50K cut.

But yes, research is very important.

"You Have to Write"

This is the title of a book that teaches writing. Although the book explains its title well, I'm going to respond to the title and not to its explanation.

No one has to write. If I tell myself I have to write, I'd be doing me and my love of writing great disservice.

See for yourself. Say, I have to write and sit down to do it. You'll feel the resistance. The resistance against taking orders...even from yourself.

When I think I have to write, I am jamming the traffic in my brain and scaring my muse away. Instead, I try to think, "I get to write. I love to write. I'm glad I could squeeze this small amount of time for my writing from all the other things that I do."

At least, this way of thinking works for me.