On Writing ~

This From John Steinbeck, "Of course I want the new book to be good.  I have wanted all of them to be good.  But with the others-- all of them -- I had a personal out.  I could say -- it is just really practice for "the book."  If I can't do this one, the practice was not worth it.  So you see I feel at once stimulated and scared.  The terror of starting is invariable but I am more terrified now knowing more about technique than I did. There's a kind of nauseated stimulation about going ashore under fire that is not unlike this feeling.  You know you're going to do it and it scares the shit out of you."

~ John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968)  Pulitzer Prize winning American writer. In a letter to George Albee, Dec. 19, 1950.

From Samuel Johnson, "A man may write at any time -- if he will but set himself doggedly to it."

Also this,   "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

~ Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) English Author. (Thank you, Laurie Miller for Johnson quotations.)

File Photo:  lbwalker, Stephen Leacock's Old Brewery Bay, Orillia.