I read this on Elizabeth Gilbert's Website and it pretty much catapulted me into a dimension that has me so overwhelmed with joy, motivation, and love for writing that I may never leave my writing desk again, or at least until spring.
"The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows."
....and MORE GRAVY!
I found this on The Bloggess' page:
I'm ordering this T-Shirt. You can never have enough Gravy.
Inspiring, yes. Easy? No.
It's hard to step up and forgive myself as a writer for not keeping my commitments, tho. I'll just take it from a NYT best selling author that its a good idea and give it a shot.
Posted by: CAELAN HUNTRESS | January 06, 2011 at 07:36 AM