The mind of the believer grows stagnate. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe. -Heretics of Dune, by Frank Herbert
Here is one of my absolute most favorite quotes. It’s suggestive of how we should never ‘settle’ with thinking we know things, that we should always be learning and growing and evolving. At least, that’s how I take it.
What do you think?
What’s your second edit look like? For some reason, I was thinking I’d been all brilliant with this latest project, that my editing would go faster and smoother than the last book because I’d nailed it the first time through. Yeah, well, let’s just say I overestimated my brilliance by just a micrometer. A micrometer to the eleventy-billionth degree.
Sure, I got the basic story going, but I’m rewriting whole chapters into intelligible language, rather than basic phrases that might be understood on a certain dosage of hallucinogenics laced with droplets of my blood. Needless-to-say, editing is not going to be a quick once over.
How could I possibly think it would be easy? Mostly, I think it was just over-eagerness, or simple optimism. I’m way behind on my deadline, so I convinced myself it was fine because the edits would be smooth and I’d be able to catch up some time. Riiiight. Maybe for my next book I can just think really hard at a blank page and the story will fall right out all neat and clean and full of genius. I won’t even bother crossing my fingers…
We have to put in the work. Every time. Every time this is the process. Every time it comes in stages, slowly sculpting it out to its best form. Rushing is a mistake I’ve made, and I won’t again. Sure, some people will be disappointed to have to wait longer, but they’d be more disappointed to get a rushed piece of work. Still, I need to focus and get the work done, regardless of where I’m at with it.
I hope all your projects are moving forward, regardless of the pace that happens.
We’re tethered. Bound beyond reason. And because of that bond, we owe each other an enormous debt of care and kindness. Whatever one of us chooses becomes the other’s reality. -Kingdom of Shadow and Light, by Karen Marie Moning
This quote always hots me hard. I wish more of us would realize how much our choices, just our general behavior, effects those around us, especially those closest to us. I think love is when we realize it to the point that we act out of care for that. Too many of us don’t understand that, instead creating co-dependency and calling it love.
…between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what ife does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic.” -The Goldfinch, by Donna Tart
I won’t lie. I basically forgot I had a website. A blog? But I’m back to share some book quotes, my writing progress, and maybe some words of wisdom (unlikely). I may be repeating some book quotes, but if you love great blocks of words like I do, you won’t mind 🙂
Share your favorite quotes with me in the comments!
My book comes out in less than 2 weeks! Check it out here
It is obscenely difficult—if not impossible—to make something that nobody hates…Conversely, it is incredibly easy—if not expected—to make something that nobody loves.
What a great quote for us creatives, huh? Hits a little close to home, but puts a smile on the face, too, so it’s fine.
My obsession with collecting and sharing book quotes continues. Share your favorites with me, or at least, your favorite book so I can find a great quote from it on my own 🙂
