We’ve all heard the saying “lightning doesn’t strike twice” (which is actually not true, at least in the literal sense), lucky for us writers inspiration does! No matter what sort of funk you get yourself in or how deep your doldrums are, as long as you are open to it then inspiration will come again with a fever unlike anything you have ever known. There is just one catch. You have to be motivated. You have to want it. Inspiration is useless if you don’t act on it. So you have to tend to that inspiration. Make sure that it doesn’t burn out too soon or fade too fast. You have to feed it and the only way to do that is to have motivation. The only way to do that is to write.

Ten Quotes to keep a Writer’s Fire Burning:

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

― Lisa See

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.

That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

― Octavia E. Butler

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

— Louis L’Amour

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

― Sylvia Plath

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.”

— Orson Scott

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”

— Richard Bach

“I believe myself that a good writer doesn’t really need to be told anything except to keep at it.”

— Chinua Achebe

“I write to discover what I know.”

— Flannery O’Connor

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”

― John Steinbeck

“I am I because my little dog knows me.”

“You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don’t dance. So you might as well dance.”

— Gertrude Stein