Fresh Quotes for Fresh Writing

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” ~ E. L. Doctorow

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on” ~ Louis L’Amour

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. Ernest Hemingway

 

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” ~ Ray Bradbury

 

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” ― Franz Kafka

 

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” ~ Anais Nin

 

 

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ~ William Wordsworth

 

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. -Robert A. Heinlein

“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” ― Ray Bradbury

 

Ray Bradbury’s Greatest Writing Advice

ESCAPE

 

 To all writers, bloggers, artists and creative types:

Do you ever yearn to get away from it all? Do you have a yen for some nice quiet time to create, contemplate the universe or just be?  Do you crave simplicity; an out from the unnecessary complexities of the modern world?  Do you need more free time to explore the possibilities? Do you feel as if you are you living up to your full creative potential?

Do you feel the aching desire to just escape and never look back?

Real life sure gets in the way of being a sensitive artist…

And so here I am. It is around 7 am. I have gotten up early before work to write for an hour; just sit and let the universe dictate my hand so to speak. I quiet my mind and allow the flow to manifest. The words fill my brain and I just record them. It usually doesn’t take much and my mind and fingers are going at full speed. I am in my own little world; a very happy little world where I am content and then it happens…

…it is always something. The kind of something that go with life typical of a busy working mom living in an interesting neighborhood in one of the weirdest cities in America;  some minor “crisis, malady or goings on. I try to take this all in stride and most of the time I can keep the flow going.  I have amazing powers of concentration…haha.  It gets out of hand when Mario, my famous but pesky cat, decides to jump up and sit on the keyboard in an effort to get my attention, he does, then sneezes all over. (he’s a sneezer that one)

I gaze out the window…my imagination travels to far and distant places…ahhhh….a misty mountain forest, a beach, a villa, a tropical retreat perhaps. I am not picky on this.  A  nice atmosphere is just that; nice.  At this point I’d take a room at fairly decent hotel with excellent room service…haha, really…okay a budget hotel on the coast, a pot of strong coffee, a sandwich….and peace and quiet, maybe the roar of the sea and the gurgling of the ice machine outside the door….

 Ohhhh how delightful…

I am an introvert although I play an extrovert on the screen and I am solitary by nature. I do like people, as a whole and individually, some more than others. I wouldn’t be able to live alone but sometimes I yearn for a little solitude.  Just gimme some peace…no distractions…just nature…

Being on the spectrum doesn’t help. I am sensitive to sounds. That above all else impairs me. Sounds seem amplified, some more than others. I have sensitive hearing and I can get distracted by noises. It is like my mind is in tune to a dozen or so radio stations at once. I can live in harmony with this. My mind is active.  I like to think. I like to create.   Real life is louder–much louder. It is difficult to explain but it becomes harder and harder to endure until it becomes too much and I get an overwhelming urge to bolt.

I have to get away. I yearn to flee but unfortunately real life doesn’t allow for that…

I would love nothing more than to be holed up in a nice and comfortable cabin in the woods.

I would love to not count the seconds as I contemplate the mysteries of the universe or the colorful hues of a symphony. The cabin would be well supplied with piles of books, spiral notebooks and bars of dark chocolate. I would lock myself away for a month or a few and emerge from this cocoon anew or at least with something to show for it. I would eat healthy, honest and pure food, drink lots of good coffee, keep strange hours and write to my hearts content.

Every day I would walk in the woods and at night I would admire the blackness of the sky and the brightness of the stars. I would have the time to explore my other creative sides besides writing which there are many.

I would paint the trees and the stars and the essence of hope. I would lie in soft green moss and dream the dreams of the enlightened. I would run and swim in a serene lake and hike into the hills. The only sound I would hear would be nature’s music. The crickets at evening and the breeze through the leaves of the trees, the rush of the wild river and the songs of the birds in all their varied loveliness….

From all that yumminess I would emerge renewed and bursting with creative juices. Like a happy Jelly doughnut.

Alas my dream must be put on hold . The practicalities of my life do not allow for any of this getting away from it all and I must deal with real life for now….but  it is nice having a vivid imagination and this will suffice for the time being.  Perhaps I can achieve that Happy Jelly Doughnut effect with that alone. Time will tell…

  Not having all the answers  but being fine with that right now.

~NLM

Aspire to Inspire

ASPIRE:  To seek to attain or accomplish a particular goal.

Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle Frenchaspirer, from Latin aspirare, literally, to breathe upon, fromad- + spirare to breathe.

To aspire is to dare. To dare to want more. 

Aspire is the desire to propel oneself skyward. It is born in the heart like a flame that burns hot with the passion of want. Dreams fuel aspiration. Passion drives it and hard work makes it so.  With care and feeding  aspirations can grow wings and set flight to all points amazing…

 

 

We are what we aspire to. Our dreams define us.

I have a dream; one I never knew I had until fairly recently. I found it huddled under a pile of forgotten hopes that I had neglected to remember I’d left it in the back of my closet.  I could exaggerate and press upon you this jive about a noble truth that propels me. I might confess a deficiency I have and this need to make up for what I’ve felt I have lacked in my life. The truth is I did not purposely seek this road.  In the beginning all I sought was my own salvation.

I had walked in darkness for many years and yearned to find my way back into the light. I knew fulfillment and happiness lives there but in the dark it’s difficult to see.  It’s lonely out there, at least it seems so…but I learned something important. I realized I wasn’t alone and there are others out there in the dark reaching for the light just the same as I… and not knowing where to find it. This simple truth eluded me for years. It is my truth but not mine alone….

By helping others we help ourselves.

It is tempting to take credit; to say that my stirrings to inspire are purely unselfish but the truth is; I aspire to inspire because it feels so damn good..besides I really don’t know any other way.

I have found that people who have struggled, who have fought something bigger than themselves…who have had life hurt them have a yearning to light the way for others, to say: “I’ve been where you are now and there is a light at the end of the tunnel…I know because I can see it.” 

 

We all need help from time to time…

I believe greatness abounds. There is greatness in you and there is greatness in me but the greatest greatness lies in we. Our fullest potential is alive and well and it is just within our grasp. Sometimes all we need is a pat on the back, a smile and a reassuring voice.  Everybody needs this..no one is above it. It is basic. It is human and it is beautiful.

 

We are the content creators; the writers, the artists, the dreamers. We are a unique breed who yearn to inspirit and inflame others with that magic spark that burns so bright in our hearts and souls.

 

 

This wonderful planet of ours is teeming with inspiration. One just needs to know where to look and one need not look far. I have found much inspiration in the words of many of you in this wonderful creative community of ours.  Through your posts and comments I have learned so much!  Time and time again I’ve experienced firsthand that no matter how different we may seem on the outside, we are alike on the inside. We all need insight and inspiration from time to time and I have surely gotten this from you. Thank you for sharing your world with me.

 

 

Wishing you an inspired day

♥

Nancy

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” 
― Louisa May Alcott

Fresh Quotes: Pablo Neruda

He was a poet, diplomat, bohemian and political activist.    He was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto but borrowed his pen name from another poet; Jan Neruda.  He was a controversial character. A diplomat and senator from Chile he embraced communism and wrote poetry in tribute to Stalin and Castro. You don’t have to agree with his politics to appreciate the sincerity  in his work. The man was an artist; a heartfelt poet who won the Nobel Prize in literature.

 Words are words no matter who wrote them and some messages are bigger than the messenger.  As a writer there are times I feel I am only a conduit for something else. A something that whispers ever so softly in my ear.  I only write what is given to me; words.  And it’s the words of Neruda that I celebrate today.  The dark dreamy words that evoke images of a hothouse world; a lush tropical jungle where love scintillates along the cool breeze of the night.   He brought to his poetry a sense of quiet longing, of sadness and regret but with a spirit that burned… fiery passion and darkness; wanton and thirsty.

When I read his words I am transported to this world….I become a hothouse flower sipping in the cool night air, gazing up at the midnight stars that dare shine through the gaps between the leaves of the trees.  Themes of  bittersweet longing; of lust and love and all in between. Neruda puts his heart out there with brushstrokes of raw emotion tinged with the fragility of love that weaves itself between the lines of this beautiful poetry.

Fantastic writing.

😀

Have a nice day and enjoy the Neruda. 

.

Nancy

.

 

FRESH QUOTES:  PABLO NERUDA

The words of Pablo Neruda

 

 

“I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.”

◊

“And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.”

◊

“And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.”

◊

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

◊

 

“At night I dream that you and I are two plants
that grew together, roots entwined,
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,
since we are made of earth and rain.”

◊

 

 

 

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

 

◊

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.”

◊

◊

 

“So I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.”

◊

 

 

Pablo Neruda July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after the Czech poet Jan Neruda. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

 

***

Inspired tunes

 

Francisco Tarrega – Capricho Arabe by Andrés Segovia

BOLERO-RAVEL

 

References and related articles

 

Pablo Neruda (wikipedia.org )

Pablo Neruda Bio (infoplease.com)

Passiflora vitiflora, the red passion flower, is like a scarlet beacon in the dim rainforest understory. These large flowers are pollinated by hermit hummingbirds. While searching for nectar

Fresh Quotes: June: WRITERS

“Writers are completely out of touch with reality.”

Joss Whedon

Writers

What could I possibly write about writers that hasn’t already been written. Writers are famous/infamous for many reasons, most of them true. Many of we scribblers are a little cracked  but rest assured…I’ve heard from many reliable sources that it’s the cracked ones that let the light into this world.

Writers have lots of interesting bits inside them; odds and ends and little pieces of themselves that under the right circumstances will spill out unto a bright white sheet of paper, like drops of blood on a canvas.

It takes a certain amount of courage to put your words and thoughts out there for others to judge or criticise. It puts one in a vulnerable situation. It takes a certain force of personality, a confidence and sheer niavety with a touch of egotism to put one’s heart and soul out there…innnermost thoughts and beliefs ripe for dissection.

It is a thirst, a need to express oneself. To send the little bits of ourselves off to have lives of their own, floating around in the collective consciousness where we all share everything. To reach out to others with words..conveying hopes, dreams and ideas…

The need to be heard.  It is a compulsion. A strong maybe not so logical compulsion but it is powerful….and words are inspiring…this month’s set of quotes are devoted to some of my favorite people: Writers.

It is a blessing, a curse or the best thing ever to be a writer….perhaps it is all three!

This month’s edition

WRITERS

…here they are…and pictures too…

Happy June!

~Strawberrryindigo.

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”

― Albert Camus

“A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”

― Jorge Luis Borges

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

John Updike

“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”

― Franz Kafka

“At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.”

― H.P. Lovecraft

</

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.”

― Neil Gaiman

Everybody is writing, writing, writing-worst of all writing poetry. I’d be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers-every damned one of us-were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work.”

~Walt Whitman

.

*Sometimes writers need help too. Thanks for that!  YOU know who YOU are…

~SBI

*

Related articles

Quotes From Franz Kafka (consilientinterest.com)

Hemingway On Training For Aspiring Writers (thenewwritersjourney.wordpress.com)

On Writing – Having someone that will call you on your bullsh.(swampofboredom.com)

A Colorful Person: Andy Rooney

Old Whatshisname: that cranky guy.

I am starting a new monthly feature similar to Fresh Quotes. I will be publishing this right in the middle of each month and I thought The Ides of March would be the perfect time to introduce it.  I am calling it A Colorful Person for now. If I come up with a better name, which I hope I will, I will change it. Ideas anyone?  Every month I will feature a different person. Someone who has made the world a bit more colorful. Someone who I personally admire. Some of these people will be quite obvious, others not so much. Every one of them will be people who have shaped my thinking and helped make me the me I am today. (So you’ll know who to blame. haha)

This month’s Colorful Person is Andy Rooney; the cranky old guy who was a fixture on the TV show 60 Minutes for what seemed like 60 years. He passed away at the end of 2011 at the ripe old age of 92 and I miss him terribly especially on Sunday evenings.

He was at heart a writer who said what he meant and he meant what he said. I started watching his stories on 60 minutes as a child and I continued watching until his last in October of 2011. He was an influence on me as a writer and as a person. He was the cranky Grandfather I never had.  He had tons of common sense and I’d like to share some of his plain talk wisdom with you today.

~SBI

…..and so, Here’s Andy…

Say What?

“If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.”

♦

Credit: Scubamom

“I’ve  learned ….  That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.”

Credit: Public Domain

“People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.” 

Credit: Public Domain

“I’ve learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.” 

“Did you ever hear one of those corny, positive messages on someone’s answering machine? ‘Hi, it’s a great day and I’m out enjoying it right now. I hope you are too. The thought for the day is share the love. Beep.’ ‘Uh, yeah, this is the VD clinic… speaking of being positive, your test is back. Stop sharing the love.”
 ♦

Credit: Public Domain

“Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”, here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!”
♦

Credit: Public Domain

“The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.”
♦

“Writers don’t often say anything that readers don’t already know, unless its a news story. A writer’s greatest pleasure is revealing to people things they knew but did not know they knew. Or did not realize everyone else knew, too. This produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and is the best a writer can do.”

*All of the above quotes are credited to Andy Rooney

♦

Andy Rooney was born on January 14, 1919, in Albany, New York. During WWII, he wrote for the Army’s Stars and Stripes newspaper and was one of the first American journalists to visit and write about the German concentration camps. Rooney joined the staff of CBS’ 60 Minutes in 1968 and began his iconic “A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney” segment in 1978. Rooney’s final 60 Minutes essay aired in October, 2011. He died a month later at age 92.

Credit: Biography.com

Related articles

Andy Rooney: My Lucky Life ( His last one) (youtube.com)

*** In the Andy Rooney spirit, I just hate deceptive packaging. (dakotatoday.typepad.com)

Andy Rooney Dead at 92 60 Minutes Commentator Dies (binsidetv.net)