"The thing you must do now, over the next few months, no matter where
you are in your writing life, but especially if you are in a writing workshop
or program, is to figure out how you are going to make writing a continuing
part of your life.
"Get up at dawn? Go to bed after everyone else? Weekends
only? The lunch hour? Two hours after dinner? Nobody else’s advice or pattern
matters. Figure out how you are going to do it.
"Because although you are busy
and beleaguered, you will never be less so. There will be a job, marriage,
children, divorce, loss, illness. None of those will stop you from writing if
you have established a pattern that will let you continue, and if you continue,
writing will help order your life.
"Unlike sports or dancing or acting, writing
is a source of knowledge and pleasure that need not diminish with age. You’ll
never need complain of boredom when you retire. Still, so many talented writers
just drift away or stop, which is not a mere loss for them but a national
diminishment.
"What matters is not publication or success (success is bad for
your prose) but the practice of the imaginative act. Our damaged values depend
on it."
—Janet Burroway
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| Quote and photo are inspirations from here |