On writing

I don't in any way consider myself a "writer." Maybe because I think that word encompasses publication. Or maybe it just sounds too pompous. Either way, all I know is that I love to write. But lately I'm finding that my three creative writing classes leave me more than just exhausted by the end of the week. It's like a little bit of my soul has died. Don't get me wrong... I love writing and most of the time, despite the critiques, I'm proud of my work. But when your pieces get workshopped 2+ times a week, you're writing over 4,000 words a week (on top of trying to journal and maintain friendly email correspondence), and you're still taking other classes, you're half dead by the end of the week. 

It's all I can do not to curl up in a ball and sleep away the weekend. But just recently I read some great quotes by writers and felt inspired again. 

Fantastic quotes from famous writers:

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” 
― Mark Twain

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” 
― Mark Twain

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”
― Virginia Woolf

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” 
― Stephen King

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”
― Neil Gaiman

“The first draft of anything is shit.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” 
― Anaïs Nin

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

“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

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” 
― Jack London

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.” 
― Neil Gaiman

“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.” 
― Franz Kafka

“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” 
― Stephen King

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” 
― George Orwell