Almost all writers are in love with quotes. Some of us are drawn to the most famous quotes that always crop up in literary circles. Others of us like to find our own top quotes every time that we read. We share them with other writers in our blogs, letters, emails and social media accounts. But, most importantly, many of us post them where we can see them on a regular basis.
Why Post Quotes
There are many great reasons to post quotes. For example:
- Quotes inspire our lives.
- Quotes inspire our writing.
- Quotes help remind us of our goals.
- Quotes celebrate the hard work of other authors.
- Quotes celebrate what we love – WORDS.
- In the front pages of your journal. This is a favorite place for me.
- Inside of your favorite books. Write them on bookmark size pieces of paper and you have inspiring, creative bookmarks. Keep blank ones and you can add quotes from books as you read them.
- On desks and laptop stands. This is where you probably do most of your writing.
- On your laptop or laptop sleeve. Adhere them to the outside of your laptop or the sleeve you carry it in.
- On your computer as wallpaper or screensaver.
- As artwork on your walls. I enjoy making collage art and adding my top favorite quotes to it. Then I hang the art around the house.
- Inside of a dresser drawer. Choose a drawer you use daily such as your sock drawer. Read the quotes each day to inspire you.
- In a purse or wallet. Preferably inside of something that you take with you most places that you go.
- Inside of your mobile phone. Add a favorite quote as your phone’s screen saver. Store other quotes inside of the phone as SMS message drafts.
- Taped to the coffee maker or tea pot. Many of us writers fall prey to the need to drink coffee or tea while we do our writing. Since we’re using those machines anyway, let’s make them more useful by adding quotes on to them.
- Promote your blog. A really cool tag cloud that shows what you write about on your blog is going to entice people to read about it. Generate one and post it on your blog, link to it via Twitter, make it a Flickr photo or send it out as a comment or social networking message. The more readers you have the more inspired you’re going to be to write better on your blog.
- Generate story ideas. You can use a tag cloud to get ideas about what you want to write about next. Just enter any URL or chunk of text into the tag cloud generator and see what comes up. Use the words there to get ideas for your next story line.
- Various creative writing exercises. Writing exercises are really good for you to do to keep your writing fresh. There are any number of writing exercises that you can do involving your tag clouds. For example, choose a paragraph from your favorite book and enter it into the tag cloud. Take the top five words that come up largest on the screen. Write five paragraphs of a story with each paragraph beginning with one of those words. Come up with your own creative writing exercises! (I’d love to hear more suggestions in the comments here!)
- Make poetry. You can use tag cloud generators to create visually interesting poems. Do this daily and you’ll find that your writing benefits from doing so because you get a new look at old words.
- Create inspirational word collages. Generate several tag clouds. Print them out. Cut out the words that appeal to you most. Make your own new word collages. Post these word collages all around the area in which you do your writing. Having them there should inspire you to keep on working at your creativity.
- Generate series of articles easily. People who do their writing for the web (or even for magazines) know that it’s very profitable to take one article and re-write it in a fresh way to create a series of related articles. This is done much more easily when using tag clouds. You enter the text of your article into a tag cloud generator. This shows you which keywords are used most in the article. Take the top five or ten keywords and rewrite the article with your focus on each of those words. For example, let’s say that you wrote an article on Celtic history. Your tag cloud shows that you wrote a lot about myths and about jewelry. Write one article about the history of Celtic myths and one article about the history of Celtic jewelry.
- Use tag clouds as an editing tool. When you are done writing a piece of work, enter the text into a tag cloud generator. See which words come up most frequently. Are these words in line with the thesis of your paper? If not then you’ll want to take the information that you have in the tag cloud and edit the work accordingly to make sure that you’re hitting all of your key points in your article.
I am someone who believes in the power of keeping a journal. I got my first diary when I was about ten years old and have kept one fairly steadily since that time. Although I’ve gone through bouts of not writing for awhile, I always return to keeping a journal because I believe that it benefits me immensely as both a writer and an individual.
Some of the top benefits that I’ve experienced as a result of keeping a journal:
- The many benefits of a daily routine. I believe that having daily rituals helps us to get up and get going in the morning. My morning routine starts my day off right and helps me feel like I’m on track with things. Journaling is one part of that routine for me.
- The power of self-reflection. I think that all people, particularly writers, need time to reflect on life and on themselves every single day. It’s hard to do that when we have so many obligations and distractions, Journaling returns us to ourselves day in and day out.
- Unjudged writing practice. I am trying to get in the habit of not judging any of my writing but rather just letting it happen. This isn’t always easy but I’m able to do it with my journal. As a writer, I think this daily period of unjudged writing time is important.
- A collection of my thoughts. It’s been important for me to have this collection of my thoughts. There are memories that I forget but can then access again in my journals. There are patterns of behavior that I only see when I re-read my journals. There are characters and projects that I thought of in passing that I revive when reminded of them by my journals.
I’m not the only one who believes that a journal offers many benefits. Take a look at some thoughts other people have posted on the benefits of journaling:
- 7 Benefits of Journaling. Thoughts on how journaling helps you to identify, preserve and explore your ideas.
- And another 7 benefits of journaling – this one as it specifically applies to writers.
- The Benefits of Journaling as outlined by two women who created their own powerful journal for others to use.
- Uses and benefits of journaling – this is an academic article on the topic.
- Health Benefits of Journaling (including the benefit of stress management)
- And the ultimate post on the topic – 100 benefits of journaling.
Surely we can all get something out of journaling. Do you journal? Does it help your writing? What has been the great benefit?
I tend to be pretty open about myself. I don’t really keep secrets or try to hide aspects of who I am. But there’s something about me that most people in my life probably don’t know. I have a secret place in my heart that loves country music.
I think that the reason that I adore this genre of music so much is because I look at it through a writer’s eyes. Some of the reasons that I end up loving country songs include:
- So many of the lines are so simple. With every other type of music that I listen to, there is a lot of nuanced language and metaphors. That’s great. But I think there’s value in being able to just say what you want to say in a straightforward way. That’s what you get with country music.
- The surprises make me smile. I love writing that catches me off guard. Occasionally, you do get a complex metaphor thrown into these lyrics and it’s shocking and usually amusing.
- The topics are so basic. Country music songs are only really about a handful of different things. And yet they find new ways to say the same things over and over. Maybe this is true of other genres too but I think it’s truer of country music.
- It rhymes. What can I say? I love that I can easily learn the words to a song the first time that it’s played because it rhymes so obviously. It’s basic poetry at its best.
- Personality shines through. The character that is singing really pours out his heart to you. A good writer does the same thing. I love it.
Incidentally, I don’t actively try to keep this a secret. I just don’t ever end up really playing my own music around other people so it’s not something that ever comes up. Truth is, most people who know me probably wouldn’t be at all surprised by it even though they didn’t know.
I love quotations. I love finding those phrases that someone else said which I wish that I would have said myself. I take comfort in the words of other people when I can’t quite say what it is that I want to say. And I enjoy sharing quotes with others who feel this way about writing.
The problem is that I’ve never really been very organized about keeping my quotes written down so that I could return to them. I’ve tried to keep quote journals off and on but I always stop writing in them sooner rather than later. I’ve tried to keep an ongoing Word document filled with my favorite quotes (which is great because I can then search easily through them to find things I’m looking for) but I always stop this too. I’ve also done some wackier things in my lifetime like writing my favorite quotes in Sharpie all over one of my bathrooms and emailing quotes to myself so I’d have them in my inbox.
None of these things really worked. These days, I do a combination of things. I write down quotes that I really like and make collages around them which I keep in a notebook. I blog quotes and post them on my social networking sites so at least they’re online somewhere that I can access them. But it’s still pretty disorganized.
Do you have a good method of organizing your favorite quotes?
We’ve all dealt with writer’s block. I find that professional writers deal with it less than casual writers just because at some point you need to just write in spite of it if you’re going to pay the bills. In my opinion, learning to do this is primarily done through learning about the root causes of writer’s block so that you can just deal with the problem and move on.
The most common cause of writer’s block for me is one of two things. In relation to the work that I’m doing for a living it’s usually that I am burned out on writing. I need to acknowledge this, step away from my writing for a little while and then come back to it when I’m not exhausted of writing anymore. In terms of my creative writing, the problem is more often that I get into the middle of the thing and don’t want to keep going. In this case, the solution for me is to keep writing anyway.
As you can see, the different causes of writer’s block can cause solving the problem to haev radically different approaches. Pushing through the work when I’m burned out isn’t going to get me through writer’s block. Taking breaks every time a creative project gets tough is going to cause me to avoid it completely. To know what to do, I need to know myself and what’s going on with me.
Learn more about my thoughts on dealing with different kinds of writer’s block.
Last year I wrote an article with 25 mantras for writers. These are just short little sayings or affirmations that I believe writers can focus on to stay on track with their writing. Some of them are about being kind to yourself as a writer and others are about honoring your creative drive. The idea is that if you tell yourself that your writing is good and you deserve to write then you’re going to be a more driven and open writer.
These mantras gave gained a lot of attention around the web since the time that I wrote them. Most recently they were re-printed by Write4Kids.com. I’m excited about this because it means that my writing will be shared with people who have children and who write for children – a part of the world of writers that I don’t always get to interact with.
One of those writers who just came to my attention is Susan Heim. She was inspired by the post and decided to write her own set of mantras for parents. I encourage you to check them out as they are also inspiring and affirmative. She emphasizes the fact that it’s okay not to be a perfect parent and that the joy of parenting comes from continuing to try and from enjoying every moment that you can with your kids. Great stuff!
I’d also like to remind you that College in a Suitcase is still doing an elaboration on each of the twenty-five mantras in a series that expands on the thoughts in those mantras and applies them to the author of the blog. It’s also good stuff and worth checking out.
Thanks all for reading! I’d love to know if these mantras have done anything special for you or if you have some of your own to share with my readers!
April is National Poetry Month so I thought I’d share ten great quotations about poetry as a way to celebrate:
- “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” – Audre Lorde
- “Real poetry, the thick, dense, intense, complicated stuff that lives and endures, requires blood sweat; blood and sweat are essential elements in poetry as well as behind it.” – Edward Abbey
- “Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you — like music to the musician… — or else it is nothing, an empty, formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their nots and explanations.” – Fitzgerald
- “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” – Sandburg
- “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” – Aristotle
- “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” – Shelley
- “Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.” – Mary Oliver
- “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” – Frost
- “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” – Don Marquis
- “Any healthy man can go without food for two days — but not without poetry.” – Baudelaire
What is your favorite quote about poetry?
Are you feeling uninspired as a writer right now? Do you need to do something to jumpstart that free-flowing spill of words onto the page?
Here’s a list of fifteen different tasks that you could do immediately to inspire your writing today:
- Grab a headline from the news. Go to your favorite news site, pick a headline and start writing about whatever it makes you think about.
- Go for a short walk. Walking gets our bodies moving and also makes our brains start working better. Many great pieces of writing began as thoughts on a walk.
- Read a poem or short story. Reading a piece of writing that we wish we’d written ourselves is a great way to get inspired to do more writing.
- Send an email to a friend about what you are working on. We often present our projects in a flattering light to others which can inspire us to actually work on them some more.
- Grab your camera. Spend twenty minutes shooting digital photos of whatever things around you are interesting right now. Even the dishes in the sink can look interesting in the right light. This non-writing burst of creativity can inspire your writing.
- Take a shower. If you haven’t showered yet today, go do that. The shower is a great place for developing random thoughts.
- Write some affirmations. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that it’s okay if what we write today isn’t perfect. Sit down and write ten times, “what I write today is enough” or “I am filled with creative potential” or any of the other mantras for writers that exist.
- Write a blog post. If you’re a blogger then you may want to add a short fun post to your blog today. Make it stream-of-consciousness, different from what you usually write and just fun. You should get some interesting responses that may inspire you.
- Color. Get out a box of crayons or colored pencils and spend ten minutes just coloring a page. Then look at your page and write the first ten words that come to mind. What does it make you want to write next?
- Do one task mindfully. Mindfulness is the focus of our full attention on the task at hand. Make your bed with a focus solely on the feel of the sheets and the smell of the room. This clears the mind of all of its clutter which means that you’ll be able to write better today.
- Write a letter. Handwritten letters are some of the most creative things that people write but we rarely do it anymore.
- Listen to music that you love. A little bit of music goes a long way towards making your creative juices flow.
- Ask for inspiration on forums or social networking sites. Just post to your Facebook that you’re seeking suggestions on what to write about today. People will respond and you may find yourself inspired.
- Make a date with yourself for later this week. It’s important to take time to go on dates with ourselves that are all about being fun and silly. You might not be able to take one today but you can set a date to do that and it may make you feel better.
- Brainstorm a list of things that you could do today to feel more inspired. What else could you do right now to inspire your writing?
I have never really done well in my collaborations with other creative people. My brother told me once that this is because I never played team sports. I think that he might be right about that; I always did everything on my own so I never quite learned how to adjust to working with others on things. However, I think that collaboration is a great thing and I’m working on learning how to do more of that. The few projects that I’ve started exploring collaboratively lately really have me excited.
The main one that I want to highlight here is my participation in the I Live Here: SF project which I think is important because it’s not really about writing but it inspired my writing. This is a great local (San Francisco) photo project through which a local photographer (Tangobaby) is photographing the people who live here. She pairs up with San Franciscans from various walks of life, photographs them in the settings here that really symbolize the city for them and then works with them to edit down and choose the photos that will be included in the project. And I was lucky enough to get to be a part of that recently.
The experience of it really inspired me. One of my biggest beliefs about the writing life is that it is crucial for writers to involve themselves in arts that are not about writing. Writing is all about experiencing life and then putting it into words. By attending dance performances and taking sewing classes and playing with fingerpaint and doing photo projects, writers experience the many senses of life and this is what informs and enriches their writing and makes it real and beautiful.
My part of the collaboration in this project, besides just being the one in the photographs and choosing some of the locations and pictures for use in the project, was to write up a post for the project’s blog that is all about how I feel about San Francisco. My writing for that post was directly inspired by the experience of being out and about in the city taking those photographs. Meeting someone new (the photographer), spending time in places I enjoy but don’t visit often enough (like Macondray Lane) and working on something that isn’t just my normal web writing all combined to light a flame of creativity for me. It’s not a flame that can be lit solely by working all day alone on my writing.
What was great about this project as a collaboration for me was that it wasn’t a collaboration with another writer. You see, I think that it’s difficult for people working in the same medium to collaborate effectively. Not impossible, just difficult, and really tough for me to learn which is why I don’t think that it has been successful for me so far. However, this act of combining my writing talents with someone else’s other artistic talents has made collaboration a success for me.
I am exploring other projects that may also allow for this to happen. I’ve been working on a set of fairy tale / nursery rhyme based poems for a long time, playing with it here and there, and I recently gave some to an artist friend to see if she is at all inspired to illustrate them. She may not be but the act of considering this collaboration has given me renewed excitement about the project and made me feel like trying to work more with others at the same time.
I think that collaboration can be a really powerful creative thing. I think it can truly end up being more than the sum of the parts that each individual contributes. And I think that this is something we should try to add to our working lives now and then. (Incidentally, the photographer who does the I Live Here SF project has another collaborative project called The Julie Project that is also worth checking out.)
What do you think? What are your experiences with creative collaboration?
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