Welcome to May’s writing quotes. It took me a bit of time this month to narrow down which ones I wanted to share. I was distracted by the desire to post them all, or at least everyone I put in my stack for this month. My love for words makes it hard to narrow my choices down to just a few. I even had some quotes that had nothing to do with writing that made me sigh with happiness that I thought of sharing, but in the end I pulled myself together and chose just four beautiful (to me) quotes to share with you for May.

Once again I’ve made them into small square images, so if you right click you should be able to save them if that’s something that interests you.

My first quote, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one that makes my heart sing. It reminds me of the tagline to Ink Stained Paper Cuts: Sharing The Power Of Words. Words have power to spread light or darkness, love or hate, good or bad. It’s how we align them next to each other that makes all the difference in the world.

This next quote gives me pause because it’s so true. I know we live in a world where people can easily be offended. Sometimes with due cause, and other times because we’ve forgotten how to accept that people are allowed to feel and think differently from one another. It’s always interesting to walk the rows of a library, to see the plethora of books and know that I could be fast friends with the characters or content of some, and others I’d have to work hard to really hear their stories. 

Oh, this beautiful quote… It was on my writing vision board for 2019. It hangs on my wall just above my writing desk. I’ve paused several times in writing this small sentence just to stare at it. It reminds me of the recent article I shared about how I am not the characters I write about, but how they have touches of real people in them. And it reminds me that sometimes I write about things that really terrify me, and somehow putting the words on paper makes it all just a little less scary.

Here’s a quote that I actually quote often! When my writing group is in the depths of NaNo, and someone mentions that everything they are writing is garbage, I spit this quote out. I’ve been known to quote it to myself while writing— sometimes in a quiet whisper, sometimes in a loud shout. It hangs above my desk, and when I lean back in my chair dissatisfied with how something I’m writing is unfolding, I read it. Again, and again and again. Then I get back to writing with a renewed sense of confidence.

Dear Readers,

After composing this post I stumbled upon a new quote about first drafts that made me squeal. Maybe I’ll share it next time, but it was just what I needed to pull myself together, and get back to the task of revising my current manuscript.

Remember those writing goals I shared about, and how the second one was to work hard on those two stories I wrote for Nano 2022. The idea was to wrap one of them up by the end of Quarter 2, and I finished part of that goal this week. And by finish I mean, I finished collecting the missing scenes and letting it breathe so I can actually begin revising it.

I’ll be in need of both first draft quotes come July when I dig into the second Nano project, cringe at writing that likely occurred during writing sprints, and guffaw at some hideous typos. All while reminding myself, that as a first draft it’s perfect simply because it exists.