Doug Marlette Said
Today’s writing quote comes about in a little different way. Each day has a slice of time spent searching and reading about writers and books, and lists of those things. I enjoy stories of how writers found their paths and what obstacles they overcame. Those tales sustain my muses. I’m always behind on reading, dashing up a treadmill that never lets me catch up. I’m fortunate to have met some wonderful writers and editors, and I’ve casually dropped some of their quotes into my posts.
Today comes along those lines. A friend of mine is a struggling writer and a former editor who deals with some health issues related to his mind and disposition, conditions which deliver heavy doses of worry to his friends and family. After he and I chatted over drinks one day, he told me about editing The Bridge by Doug Marlette and gave me a copy of the book to read. This week found me unearthing that novel in my list of books to read. I’m pretty astonished that my friend, a reserved but friendly man, was involved in bringing such a book to the shelves.
Anyway, as part of reading the book, I researched and read about the author. So here is a quote. Cheers
The Writing Moment
Energizing and enervating
Exhilarating and debilitating
He wrote until his coffee cup was empty
and his veins had gone dry
The Writing Moment
Waiting to fall asleep, he wrote throughout the night, scribbling in his mind, traversing back and forth over story lines. Now, daylight is here. Time to recall all that he mentally wrote and add it to the manuscript, carving and recurving the previous pieces to make this fit. Daylight has bleached out the night’s confidence that he knew what to do and how to do it.
Even the new book title that arrived as he fell asleep doesn’t seem as perfect as it did then.
But he begins working on it because that’s how it must be.
The Writing Moment
The best thing he could do is write with the conviction that he was telling the best possible story in the best possible way. Thoughts such as is it too long, too complicated or convoluted or boring to others had to be shoved aside. He needed to write it like it was ordained to be wondrous.
Otherwise, he would just stop. And then, what would he do?
Yes, he had to write with that conviction.
Michael Seidel, writer 