Writerly Things

Happy New Year, everyone!

Today I'm taking it easy.  Doing writerly things like: reading (over 150 pages into Undaunted Courage--a semi-biography of Meriwether Lewis and a history of that era and the Louisiana Purchase--that my better half's mother was nice enough to get me for Christmas), organizing the office (I've decided that I'm going to keep only the books and research materials I need to write the novels and stories I'm working on right now, and store every other book away), sending out three short stories that were finished awhile ago (including one that takes place on Christmas and Christmas Eve--guess I missed the boat on that one), and--oh, yeah--writing!!!

May we all have great writing and even better contracts this year!!!  I leave you with a really good quote I stumbled across recently, applicable to all writers and other artists:

"The truly creative mind, in any field, is no more than this: a human born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create-so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating."

-Pearl S. Buck