Category Archives: Quotes

Saturday Morning

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There is no time like a Saturday morning for curling up with a good book and a cup of tea. To get you in the mood here are some of my favourite quotes on reading.

“We read to know we are not alone.”
– C.S. Lewis

“When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food.”
– Desiderius Erasmus

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”
– Emilie Buchwald

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
– Frederick Douglass

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
– Groucho Marx

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
– Harry S. Truman

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”
– Jerry Seinfield

“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
– Mark Twain

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
– P. J. O’Rourke

Enjoy your cup of tea this morning!

 

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Excitement for the book launch

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So it’s only a few days until I hold my official launch for The Valerious Chronicles. The paperbacks are in boxes, ready to be taken to the venue, business card is ready. The invites have been sent and the champagne is in the chiller. It is finally time to put the pen down for a day and look back on what I have accomplished.

Coming up to the launch I have been asked by so many people, how do you find the time and energy to write a book and work full time as well. I think I will allow Neil Gaiman to answer.

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
― Neil Gaiman

 

 

One always learns from the classics

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“when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

Every once and a while you read a passage that reminds you how powerful the written word is. When you find them make sure to share them with your friends and family. There can be no better way to say thank you to the author, and no better source of motivation.

My eyeballs are melting!

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“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.”
― Flannery O’Connor

 

I feel like I am so close. Only 2 chapters to go and my novel is read for publishing. A cover and some formatting to go and I will be launching my first book! I do look back and realise the ridiculous amount of effort that has gone into this. When I hear others say to me, ‘oh have you written the next one yet’, I feel like slapping them in the face. People who don’t write will never fully understand how emotionally and physically draining it can be!

The world hasn’t ended…yet!

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In a discussion regarding the end of the world as we know it with some friends, I suggested to them;

“Don’t worry about the end of the world, just keep playing Skyrim!”

For those who are not familiar with Skyrim, I am not sure whether to say you are lucky, or unlucky, it’s highly debatable. If you have a partner who is a nerd, you will most likely be familiar with it. If you don’t, I suggest that you go on living real life and don’t become to heavily invested.

On another topic, I have recently scrounged around and found a few more snippets of writing that were packed away in hidden folders of my computer. In editing my novel for its imminent publishing I have been coming across things that I had forgotten that I had written. I will continue to share them on this website (After some much needed editing of course). Revisiting these older works is providing me with added motivation to get Dawn of the Valiant published and continue book two of the series.

For those interested you can find two new stories here.

Tomorrow is a concept

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It’s Friday! Finally…So when I woke up this morning eager to get the weekend underway I thought to myself, why can’t I be this motivated to get out of bed every morning? Obviously we are going to have mornings where even reaching over to press the snooze button is going to be a struggle. But there needs to be a way to get this same feeling on a Wednesday, or heaven forbid a Monday.

I have been reading a lot of posts from other bloggers about motivation recently. I always find a good quote gives me motivation. But I realise the big issue for me is the concept of tomorrow. I am one of those people that too often is looking forward to tomorrow, or in most cases the weekend. When Friday afternoon hits, my endorphins are high and I am ready to take on the world. Then I seem to blink and its Monday morning and I wonder to myself how the hell those two days passed so quickly.

I recall reading a great article about how tomorrow will never come. Essentially tomorrow is a human concept, much like the idea of yesterday. If we drill down to things we only ever have the present. So we need to start living in it. Make sure that every day you have something to look forward to, even if it’s just having a hot chocolate and reading a book for an hour or two.

I need to start treating everyday like a Friday and getting up with the motivation to have a great day. And, much like Kung fu Panda, I think I need to take Oogway’s philosophy more seriously;

Quit, don’t quit? Noodles, don’t noodles? You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the “present.”

Friday Motivation

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As it is Friday and motivation levels are at an all time low. Here is a quick quote to keep us going until we can stop working for the man and enjoy our insufficiently sized weekend.

“Don’t give people what they want, give them what they need.”
― Joss Whedon

I will endeavor to post my first meaningful post this weekend.

“Read, read, re…

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“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

And with that note, I announce this Blog began…begun…whatever!