Dear Gentle Readers,
I think I am going to mold!!! This wet rainy weather is draining the life out of me, all I want to do is sleep...ZZZ...ZZZ...ZZZ...ZZZ.... Being a writer is a tricky business. I have a million stories in my head. Some of them are true and some are made up. The tricky part is just sitting down and putting them on paper. We all have a million stories in our heads. We all have things we experienced that we want to share. We all have feelings that we want to express. We are all writers. The only difference between a "real writer" and everybody else is that a "real writer" just takes the time to put his thoughts down on paper. I think the reason most people don't do that is because they think writing is supposed to be some kind of high and lofty endeavor. It absolutely should not be high and lofty unless YOU are high and lofty. Some of the "best" writers of all time are extremely hard to read and hard to understand. So why does that make them "the best"? Maybe we think, "Boy he must be really deep, way too smart for me! He must be a great writer!" If I have to read every sentence three or four times to figure out what the writer is trying to say, I toss the book! Writing is about communication. If the writer is only concerned about sounding scholarly, then it may be that he is not really communicating what he wants the reader to learn.
Your writing should sound like you. You should not try to sound like William Faulkner because you are not William Faulkner. Just write like you think. Write like you talk. Don't try to be some one on paper that you are not in real life. If you do try to "put on airs" in your writing you will come off sounding foolish. Just be yourself. People love you just the way you are. And they will love your writing if you just sound like yourself.
It is a New Year. And because it is raining and gray and dreary outside, I feel lazy. Nope. I am not in the creative mood, so I am going to share some of my favorite quotes with you. All of these people wrote in such a way that we connect immediately with what they are trying to say. So enjoy these my friend, and then go write something that sounds like YOU and nobody else!
"Everyday of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." Charles Swindoll
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless" Mother Teresa
"The greatest motivational act that one person can do for another is to listen." Roy Moody
"Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker." Zig Ziglar
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt
"I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle." Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lessons afterward." Vernon Law
"The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves." Thomas Edison
"Kindness is the noblest of weapons to conquer with." Unknown
"There is no such thing in anybody's life as an unimportant day." Alexander Woolcott
"The best things in life aren't things." Art Buchwald
"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence." Vincent T. Lombardi
"The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." William James
"The secret to getting ahead is getting started." Unknown
"No one knows what he can do until he tries." Publilius Syrus
"One hundred per cent of the shots you don't take don't go in." Wayne Gretsky
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." Albert Einstein
And so you see this is great writing. Short. Simple. It packs a punch that could change your life. And on that note I am going to get up and keep moving as Mr. Einstein suggested. Happy New Year to all of you writers. It is time to just pull those thoughts out of your head and put them down on paper!!!
Love and Kisses to all and to all a good write....
Suzan with a "Z"
