"God recites spells and incantations over the spirit.  When He recites spells over things nonexistent, they begin to stir, and dance joyously into existence.  He speaks into the ear of the rose and makes it bloom.  He speaks to the stone and it becomes a precious jewel.  He speaks to the body and it becomes spirit..."  Rumi

I love anything to do with creation, don't you?

"I do not wish you joy without a sorrow,
Nor endless day without the healing dark,
Nor brilliant sun without the restful shadows,
Nor tides that never turn against your barque.

I wish you love and faith and strength and wisdom.
Goods, gold enough to help some needy one.
I wish you songs but also blessed silence
And God's sweet peace when every day is done."

Dorothy Nell McDonald
from a wonderful book of quotes called "Hope Happens" by Catherine DeVrye

"Worry is the darkroom where negative experiences are created."

Saw this on a church billboard and had to agree - focusing on worst-case-scenario is a good way to manifest what you don't want.

 

I have altered a very well known one (to try and help me get going etc).

Ok, the original is of course ... a journey starts with a single step.

My amendment is ... a story starts with a single word.

This is meant to remind me to put one word after the other (and of course I expand in my head to paragraph, chapter etc etc).

Nicky

That's so true, Nicky - a variation of Nora Robert's famous line about editing: 

"I can work with a bad page, but I can't work with a blank page."

Louise, I love that one. In fact I've been sent a whole pile with that similar vein of thought (hmmmmmmm does this mean I'm the friend that goes along to jail, or am I the one that drags her friends to the jail in the first place lol <-- deep thoughts huh?)

Nicky

Came across this quote today.
"Take my hand and walk with me in the world of my dreams"
L.E.ANTON

Chantellie

This was taped to the monitor of one of my writing friend's computer:

JUST DO IT!

Simple, but she swears it keeps her from procrastinating.

 

 

So true Louise.

I have a bit of advice my mum gave me years ago that stuck :o Amazing really lol. Basicaly amidst a conversation was "Be Bothered" akin to the just do it line of thought.

Nicky

Nicky, I'm going to go for option # 2.

There was a good one in Quotable Quotes (Reader's Digest) this month:

"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally." (David Frost).

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke." ~Arthur Polotnik

....imagine what you are writing about, See it and live it. Do not think
it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just
look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it ,
When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic. If you do
this you do not have to bother about commas or full-stops or that sort
of thing. You do not look at the words either. You keep your eyes, your
ears, your nose, your taste, your touch, your whole being on the thing
you are turning into words. The minute you flinch, and take your mind
off this thing, and begin to look at the words and worry about them
....then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each
other. So you keep going as long as you can, then look back and see what
you have written. After a bit of practice, and after telling yourself a
few times that you do not care how other people have written about this
thing, this is the way you find it: and after telling yourself you are
going to use any old word that comes into your head so long as it seems
right at the moment of writing it down, you will surprise yourself. You
will read back through what you have written and you will get a shock.
You will have captured a spirit, a creature.

"It is not the critic who counts - not the one who points out how
the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done
better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood… Who strives
valiantly… who errs and comes short again and again… who knows the
great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a
worthy cause - and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" Speech (April 23, 1910)

I like that one, Louise.

This one is (sort of) attributable to me, with apologies to the writers of "Field of Dreams":

If you write it, it will sell.

... But it won't if you don't!


xx

And can I add "Life's like a box of manuscripts" with apologies to Forrest Gump

"The number one reason people don’t already have what they want is that they have learned not to let themselves want what they don’t think they can have."

Internationally renowned success coach Michael Neill

'We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.'
18th Century English Proverb.