Maybe it’s because I’m working on something completely new, writing a novel without a contract for the first time in six years, that all the quotes in my collection that jump out at me are about failure. < sigh > Reading them is helpful — as was the sight of a hillside full of my favorite wildflower, the arrowleaf balsamroot. I hope the quotes are useful to you, too.

“[Successful novelists] know that success is never a sure thing and that failure is always an option. Writing is intimidating and scary, but also exciting, because the most important things we do in life involve some risk.”

– John Freeman, author of How to Read a Novelist, in The Writer, Oct 2013