Don’t let negative thoughts assault your gift and calling. If you’re new at this, you must think like a writer from now on. Perhaps this quote will help:

“You are a writer. Right now. With only what you have in your head as it is. You don’t need anything else. You are a writer. You just need to keep writing. Don’t let the Writing Fairy tell you that you aren’t. That you need something more, that you’re pretending to be something you’re not. Hemmingway wasn’t Hemmingway when he started. He was just a guy named Ernest who sat down at his typewriter.” ~ Joseph Devon

Writing is a lonely occupation. It’s necessary to pull away sometimes to connect with real people, particularly friends who understand the nature of writing and support your endeavors. Rather than talk to characters in your head, you probably need a reality check now and then:-)

Seriously, every good writer needs love and support.

“If you find yourself emotionally empty, go to a caring friend. If you are bruised and bleeding, the empathetic response of another will stem the hemorrhage of emotion and begin the process of healing and filling,” writes Dr. Richard Swenson, author of Margin: Restoring Emotional. Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives.

Swenson’s book addresses stress and overload, something most writers deal with, especially as we juggle family, day jobs, health issues, and deadlines, among other things. Margin is full of practical guidance to help restore balance through contentment, simplicity, rest, better health, and relationships.

Be sure to put this book on your ‘to read’ list, and don’t forget to call a friend.

Thanks to Tricia Goyer for two excellent quotes that challenge our thinking about the writing life:

“Writing is like religion. Every man who feels the call must work out his own salvation. I might add that while many are called, few are chosen.”

“Many beginners think that if they can acquire style, the fight is won; but style without ideas is as useless as an edge tool without material to carve. On the other hand many men who have ideas think they can write acceptably without serving an apprenticeship. They must learn how to use the tools of their trade. ~ Horace Lorimer, Adventures in Interviewing

But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. ~ Ann Lamott, Bird by Bird

Lamott says she’s managed to write nearly every day of her adult life “without impressive financial success.” She would do it all over again, though—mistakes, doldrums, breakdowns, and everything else. It wasn’t until her fourth book came out that she stopped being a starving artist. Few writers make enough money to live on, so that can’t be the motivating factor. Curiously enough, Lamott tells her students that when her writer friends are working, “they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time.” When they’re writing well, she says, they feel that they are living up to something.

Do you sense this as well?

While re-reading John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life, I’m painfully convicted of wasting time, caving into fear, and thereby postponing the very meat of writing that God has called me to do. But Piper’s words invigorate my heart. They call me to account. For instance:

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes Him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that He really is.

“…magnifying God in all spheres of life…” This truth renews the passion and purpose for my writing. Not all will share my sentiments, but one day we’ll all give account for our words, even the ones we failed to write.

Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Piper says: “Not to aim to show God is not love, because God is what we need most deeply. And to have all else without Him is to perish in the end.”

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.~
Gilbert K. Chesterton

In matters of truth, the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets in the future. ~ Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

Was there a certain time in your childhood when you knew what you wanted to do with your life? Maybe you sensed only inklings. Looking back, I can frame the things that brought me joy: Devouring library books with a flashlight under the covers after Mama turned out the lights, filling my diary with tears, throwing my soul into book reports, writing the silly 4th grade play. From the time I learned the alphabet, my fascination with words and the hunger to create caused my heart to flutter. Weird, huh?

Frederick Buechner has stated: “The voice we listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness.”

Has writing called you by name? God plants seeds, even in our childhood, that eventually point us to the future. We need only eyes to see and faith to follow.

When you write from the heart, you not only light the dark path of your readers, you light your own way as well. ~ Marjorie Holmes

The writer is a priest called to administer the sacrament of words. ~ Bruce Lockerbie

Suffering has always been intimately linked with creativity. Limitations force us to yield, to abandon ourselves to our Creator God. And when we do, His creativity flows! ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure—just a big field to wander in. ~ Natalie Goldberg

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ~ Ray Bradbury

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. ~ Bill Cosby

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. ~ C. S. Lewis

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and an invisible labor. ~ Victor Hugo

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion. ~ Arnold Bennett

The beautiful is as useful as the useful, perhaps more so. ~ Victor Hugo

Running a quart low on inspiration today? Then visit Camy Tang’s blog where guest blogger Allison Bottke shares the story behind her debut novel by Bethany House: A Stitch in Time. After publishing 20 nonfiction books under the God Allows U-Turns umbrella, Allison’s dream to write and publish a novel has finally come true!

Here’s an exerpt from Allison:

I love to read all genres of fiction, particularly contemporary women’s fiction. After I had lost 120 pounds from having gastric bypass weight loss surgery (WLS), I had the idea that it might be rather unique to write a novel with a character that also had WLS. Plus, all the writers’ conferences I ever attended stressed that we should “write what we know.” I know a lot about fundraising and fashion and special events, so I figured I’d incorporate that into the book as well. I developed a chapter outline and wrote a few chapters and took an intensive fiction writing workshop at a writer’s conference. One thing led to another and A STITCH IN TIME released this month (June 2006). . .

There’s LOTS more about Allison’s incredible life story and writing success, so click on over to Camy’s Loft. Allison shares great tips for aspiring novelists.

Creativity is part of our nature; we, not the ostrich, have been given the ability to create. God breathes life into our dusty forms. His Spirit hovers over us, calling to the depths and leading us into abundant living. We are creative because we are made in God’s image. ~ Alice Bass, The Creative Life

To enjoy a creative life, we need to be free to experience more of Christ’s inspiration and less of our own inhibitions, fears, and sin patterns. ~ Alice Bass, The Creative Life

What is hindering your creativity? For me, and very recently, it’s painful emotions in response to situations beyond my control. The answer? Let go. Let go, forgive, and let the God of mercies reign in my heart. Then I’m able to write again.