The Saturday Writing Quote — on practice

“Everything in life worth achieving requires practice. In fact, life itself is nothing more than one long practice session, an endless effort of refining our motions. When the proper mechanics of practicing are understood, the task of learning something new becomes a stress-free experience of joy and calmness, a process which settles all areas of your life and promotes proper perspectives on all of life’s difficulties.”

– Thomas Sterner, Swedish economist, quoted by David Allen in Getting Things Done (rev ed 2015)

The Saturday Writing Quote – on finding motivation

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, Argentinian writer (1899-1986) (hat-tip – PJ Coldren)

The Saturday Writing Quote — on staying motivated

Under a Dark Sky: A Novel by [Rader-Day, Lori]

“The boss is happy when the words are written. Sure, she gives out hearty handshakes when other things get done, but she only gives raises when the words get done, when the edits are made and sent back to the press, when the publicist’s emails have been answered. She doesn’t care as much when the Facebook status is updated or the Twitter account is humming. All of it is business, but some of it is in the mission statement, and some of it isn’t.”

Lori Rader-Day, award-winning author of The Day I Died, Under a Dark Sky, and other novels