Tag: Writing

Writer’s Words

~ Meg ~ 63 Comments

That photo is of WB Yeats’ desk at Thoor Ballylee.

I’ve had a difficult week. I’ve been under a lot of pressure both personally and professionally (and when I say professionally, I mean my writing).  The weekend is bringing some positivity, by way of my dear friends and some much needed fun and games. Neverthelesss, my WIP is never far from my mind. The next week I hope to have the fog lifted, the cobwebs cleared and the Muse whispering to me again. (Hear that James? I’m counting on you…)

In the meantime, when I can’t write, I sometimes read about writing and writers. I found these quotes in my travels and figured I’d share. Profound truths in an economy of words:

Losing Words

~ Meg ~ 51 Comments

Reworked and reimagined…

The pretty words rattle and quiver
They shake the walls
And give you the shivers

Bless those words and damn the silence
Tap the inkwell
Cover the blankness

They flow like a river, swollen to flood
Burn like a wildfire
Drip like blood

Over the precipice they tauntingly hover
The chasm is deep
And seductive as a lover

To lose those words is just like a death
For the writer would leap
Not save his last breath

Reading For Writing

~ Meg ~ 87 Comments

I’m not one for making resolutions. However, I don’t avoid them if they seem like worthy goals. In that spirit, I have been taking on the Goodreads reading challenge each year. Personally, I think writers ought to be avid readers, as well. Reading is what inspired me to try writing so why on earth would I give it up?

Nevertheless, the more involved I’ve become in writing and blogging, the less time I’ve devoted to my books. Last year, I set the goal of reading 25 books for the Goodreads challenge: 2 per month (plus one). I am sorry to say, I fell short by 5 books. But with researching for my writing, I still did a lot of reading. At any rate, this year, I’ve lowered the bar to 20 books and I thought I’d share the ones I’ve chosen to read:

  1. A Line In the Sand – The Anglo-French Struggle For the Middle East, 1914-1918; James Barr
  2. Living – Henry Green
  3. Loving – Henry Green
  4. Party Going – Henry Green
  5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
  6. Down and Out In Paris and London – George Orwell
  7. Storm Of Steel – Ernst Junger
  8. Devil’s Brood – Sharon Kay Penman
  9. The Man In the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
  10. The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson
  11. The Gods of Guilt – Michael Connelly
  12. Princess Margaret: A Biography – Theo Aronson
  13. The Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney
  14. Blue Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson
  15. A Farewell To Arms – Ernest Hemingway
  16. Garden Of Lies – Eileen Goudge
  17. On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King
  18. W. B. Yeats and the Muses – Joseph Hassett (started, but not finished)
  19. The Crimes of Love – The Marquis de Sade (started but not finished)
  20. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath (started but not finished)

If I manage that, I will clear the precariously stacked pile on my bedside table! Yes, I still read paper books. I consume books in three formats, actually: paper, e-book and audio-book. I also usually have several going at the same time. For example, I listen to an audiobook while exercising, read one non-fiction/biography and one fiction book all at once. As long as I keep the genres distinct, I can keep from getting them confused.

So, my writer friends, what are you reading this year?

Artwork: ‘Serenity’ – Sheree Valentine Daines