Quotes, Meditating, Reading, and Writing

Notes on a writer’s life

This is day two of my 40-day journey writing every day during Lent and a little beyond. Lent is a 40-day journey, but the thought to do this did not occur to me back on Ash Wednesday when Lent began, so I’ll tack on some days after Easter to complete the journey. (The idea to do such a journey was inspired by my friend Trista Ainsworth and her 100-day journeys.)

An online friend, recently posted a link to 150 quotes about books (reading them and writing them). Since I love to read and write, I dove right in. Here is my favorite quote and the link:

119. “Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx

That quote, like most nuggets, expresses something I’ve known for ages, but now, seeing it in print, I say, ah yes. It’s so clear now. Why didn’t I think to write that?

Quotes are one reason I like the Bible, which is marked off in book, chapter, and verse. So many good quotes to guide a person’s thinking and living.

One of my favorites these days is Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” I often sit with that verse and try to calm my mind and not think about anything. Just BE! Such meditating is difficult for me.

Still, clearing my mind is one of the best preludes to writing. Like erasing the blackboard (for us older types) or erasing the whiteboard (for you modern folk), it gives me a clean slate to write on.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think in words or phrases. My mind is like an electric typewriter I still have. It boasts a new feature, a buffer, which holds a few dozen keystrokes. I think it does that because the mechanism is too slow for the average typist. It drives me nuts, so thankfully I don’t have to use it anymore.

Using that typewriter, I discovered my brain tunes into my ears. It expects to hear a clack of the letter striking the paper for each click of the keys. When that 1:1 correspondence is lost, my mind signals “ERROR.” Though I’m a reasonably good touch typist, I had a horrid time using that machine and could never get up to my typical 40–60 words per minute.

But my writing mind acts like that typewriter. It has a buffer of a few words. I’m never really sure what comes next until I key in the words and see them appear on the screen. Oh, I may know what the next sentence is, but that’s about it.

I see some of you nodding and saying, yeah and your writing shows it.

Perhaps my muse, who hides somewhere in my subconscious, has it all worked out, but if he does, he certainly doesn’t share it with me. I have to wait and see it on the screen. I sit and key, coaxing out one word at a time.

I think the last time I outlined something before writing it was in high school. The teacher forced us to outline our term papers and hand in the outline for grading before we wrote the paper. Still, I would often cheat and write the paper, or most of it, before I did the outline. I always found it easier to outline the writing after the fact. If I did outline before, I’d veer off track before I reached the halfway point.

Though I sometimes have a notion of what I’m going to write before I sit down at the keyboard, the inspiration often comes from something I read online or off. This morning that article on quotes got my attention. I had to stop and read the entire list. I’m glad I did because there are several good ones at the end.

I loved the last 5 since they pertain to writing as much as to reading:

146. “Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” — William Faulkner

147. “Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read.” — Jorge Luis Borges

148. “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” — Robert Frost

149. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King

150. “Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.” — George R.R. Martin

I don’t think anyone can be a writer unless they’re also a reader. After all, isn’t it the reading that inspires our writing? It surely works that way for me.

I have three offline reading periods each day. After lunch, I sit in my recliner and read for half an hour, often topping it off with a nap (I fall asleep). I do the same after dinner. Then in bed at night, before turning off the light, I read for as long as my eyes hold out.

Since I’m retired, I have plenty of time for reading and writing. But even when I was working, I’d read at my desk while eating lunch. I’d close my eyes for a few minutes and rest them afterward, too.

For those of you joining me on my Lenten journey (40 days of writing every day but Sunday), I hope these quotes and my thoughts on reading, writing, and meditating help you on your journey today.

Again, I’m happy to invite the following writer and poet friends along on my journey and hope you’ll visit them and read their work. These writer-friends are a great source of inspiration for me.

Afiyah The Poet, Amy Marley, Ana-Maria Schweitzer, Annelise Lords, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Beth Stormont, Caroline de Braganza, Carolyn Riker, Charlene Fate, Chris Hedges, Dipti Pande, Eli Snow, Estrella Ramirez, FILZA CHAUDHRY, Harley King, Holly Jahangiri, Ibrahim Alkuraya, Indra Raj Pathak, Joanne Troppello🌿, Jill Ebstein, Joe Luca, Dr John Rose, John C. Davis, Kevin Buddaeus, Krissy Ruiz ☽✪☾, Lisa Bolin, Mary Holden, Neha Sandhir S, Patrick M. Davis, Priyanka Srivastava, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Riku Arikiri, Robert Nelson, Sarah E Sturgis, Selma, Simran Kankas, Sydney Koel, Vinitha Dileep, Willem-Jan Ageling, Wolfie Bain, Yousef Mehdi Zavareh, Zachary Burres

Happy Reading, Writing, Meditating and Connecting!

The journey started here:

A bit about me

And a thank you for past help, encouragement and inspiration