(Note: Part 1 of this post appears below this entry. Blame the logic of the publishing software.)Since I don't know anything about the audience for my Tools & Tactics for Creative Writers lecture next week, I thought I'd start out with a quotation that most writers could relate to.
It could be a fairly neutral "call to arms," like Ben Franklin's: "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
Or one that just adds to the conundrums writers face: "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are." That one's courtesy of Somerset Maugham.
Probably not a good idea to start with a downright discouraging one: "Millions find their voice; few find an audience." Robert McCrum, former Observer literary editor.
There's one I like to tell women audiences, who arrive at my classes looking simultaneously weary and frantic. It's by Linda M. Hasselstrom, author of Windbreaker: A Woman Rancher on the Northern Plains. She's referring to the question women ask her whenever she gives a reading.
"The first question is always, 'How do you find time to write?' I'm always very polite, because I know people have varied priorities and most of these women are wives, mothers, and/or grandmothers. But I want to shout: Don't have children, don't clean the house, tear the telephone off the wall, throw a brick through the TV. Say NO; say it again, all together now: NO! NO! NO!
I will NOT bring a hot dish to the Ladies' Aid Society meeting.
I will NOT pick up your child or your cleaning.
I will NOT serve on a committee, no matter how high minded its purpose."
Wonderful, huh?
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