Everyday Canvas

On the Love of Writing

I can declare my love for all other beloveds, but it is difficult for me to do so to Writing, because this relationship is, as the movie title says: It’s Complicated! But then, most lasting loves twist and turn in an upward spiral and prosper through their complications.

Although I can't voice what I feel well enough, I find whispers of my love in other writer’s declarations. So, here are a few quotes and sections from those lovers who view writing similar to the way I feel about it.


“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”
Anne Frank

“Writing is making love under a crescent moon: I see shadows of what’s to come, and it’s enough; I have faith in what I can’t see and it’s substantiated by a beginning, a climax, an ending. And if it’s an epic novel in hand, I watch the sunrise amid the twigs and dewing grass; the wordplay is what matters.
Simply put, I’m in love, and any inconvenience is merely an afterthought.
The sun tips the horizon; the manuscript is complete. The author, full of profound exhaustion, lays his stylus aside. His labor of love stretches before him, beautiful, content, sleeping, until the next crescent moon stars the evening sky.”
Chila Woychik, On Being a Rat and Other Observations

“…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. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward….
…So now I teach. This just sort of happened. Someone offered me a gig teaching a writing workshop about ten years ago, and I’ve been teaching writing classes ever since. “But you can’t teach writing,” people tell me. And I say, ”Who the hell are you, God’s dean of admissions?”
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”
Margaret Laurence

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”
Ray Bradbury

“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone - because we have the impulse to explain who we are.”
Maya Angelou

“No man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
CS Lewis

"Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory."
Chateaubriand