Like you, I’ve cocooned, sheltered-in-place, hibernated and thought of nothing else except when can we get back to a new normal, whatever that will be. We know staying put is the right thing to in order to save lives and stop this blasted COVID-19.
All we can do is make the best of it.
I’ve been practicing what I teach and preach to you and in my spare time, finished yet another draft of my current WIP, work in progress, an historical novel of about 75,000 words. It’s not half bad if I must say so myself and will be out to my beta readers this week. It needs another few edits yet it’s nearly there.
In light of the current, sinister situation, I decided to lift my mood and hopefully yours with some inspirational quotes, jokes, puns and quips. Feel free to snatch ‘em and share ‘em with other writers.
Sit back, allow your funny bone a little elbow room and enjoy.
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A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.
She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.
“Oh my,” said the writer. “Let me see heaven now.”
A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.
“Wait a minute,” said the writer. “This is just as bad as hell!”
“Oh no, it’s not,” replied an unseen voice. “Here, your work gets published.”
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“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time–proof that humans can work magic.” Carl Sagan
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Q: What’s the difference between publishers and terrorists?
A: You can negotiate with terrorists.
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“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Douglas Adams
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You know you are a writer when the people you’d most like to invite to dinner is the characters from your book.
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The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
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“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” John Steinbeck
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“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country
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Q: What do you get when you cross a writer with a deadline?
A: A really clean house.
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“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” Annie Proulx
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“A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” Sidney Sheldon
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“I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” Erica Jong
