“When asked, “How do you write?” I invariably answer, “One word at a time,” and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That’s all. One stone at a time. But I’ve read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.”
— Stephen King
I refer back to this quote whenever I’m beating myself up over word count. Or like lack thereof in today’s case. Some days, no matter how. Hard. I. Try. I can’t seem to force the wordage. That’s when I put the manuscript away, and focus on other things. Like writing advice from Stephen King.
If you’re finding yourself in a similar situation, it’s okay. Write one word, ten, forty. Two hundred.
Keep adding those stones to your wall. Pretty soon you’ll see that mother sucker from the moon. XO
You’re amazing. Your writing is amazing. You’re writing a FREAKIN’ book! That’s made of so much awesomesauce, never forget that. <333333
I <3 this quote. Thanks for that AWESOME reminder! Now, I'm off to my space shuttle to see if it's true…
Hee
Stephen King always kicks my butt into gear, and don’t you just love the imagery with this quote? And LOL w/the shuttle, tell me what you see from up there! 🙂
Great quote. I have King’s “On Writing” on my bookshelf. I will get to it someday…
Alexis, I just got that book a few weeks ago! I’ve read about half of it, and so far it’s been an awesome writing reference. 🙂
Good to know! Maybe I’ll get to it sooner rather than later.
Can you believe I’ve never read a Stephen King novel? I do have “Insomnia” staring at me and he’s got a few on the banned books list I’m reading through. Every writer I know recommends “On Writing”. I have yet to get my hands on it.
As for writing in general, I’m struggling to put words on the page. If I get 100 words down, I get excited. Too much pressure on myself, maybe?
Let’s hope this writing funk goes away quickly for both of us!
I dig Stephen King, you know he’d sent out his first book dozens of times and finally round filed it, his wife pulled it up and sent out the manuscript again, that was Carrie. At least, that’s what I’ve heard and I haven’t ever tried to look it up and verify it and just in case it’s an urbane legend I don’t bother trying to look it up, I just keep adding at least a paragraph per day, tweak the website, do the SEO work and keep moving forward. 🙂
He was one of my favorite authors growing up. I even named my cat after one of his characters (sick? perhaps) 🙂 If you don’t own it, you should get “On Writing” for all his stories of trials and tribulations before, and after being published. It’s a GREAT reference for your library. 🙂 Thanks for stopping in!