“And…I learned an important lesson: Books are the fastest way to learn the basics. Yes, you need to dig in and do the work, but following the well-worn path walked by others saved me years of my own trailblazing.”
– Dan John, 40 Years With a Whistle
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“It struck me that we humans see only a part of what’s going on, we never see all of what’s going on. Because of our varied experiences, because of where we sit, stand, live, who we know, how we were brought up, what we read, because of all these factors and many more, we can’t help but see things differently from other people. What does this mean for beginning writers? It means that every human being is unique, and if a beginning writer is willing to write what he thinks, feels, observes and imagines, a distinct voice will emerge. So don’t worry about discovering your voice—it’s already there. All you need is the willpower to write, to keep on writing and to publish your work for the world to read someday.”
– Joseph Sutton, This Writing Life
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Books give me confidence to be myself.
I can admire, be inspired by, and be instructed by a book.
But rather than escaping into books to ignore myself, I find books bring me closer to who I am.
I can follow behind the words of others, picking up ideas as I go along.
I then use them to help structure my own creative efforts.
Dan John has guided my understanding of fitness and strength training for over a decade.
Joseph Sutton was the tipping point who, last year, inspired me to write every day.
The more I write, the less I want to write like anyone else.
I have my own voice, point of view and my individual, idiosyncratic way of constructing a sentence.
It’s not better, but it’s me.
But I need the words of others.
If I rub two quotations together, blow on them with words of my own.
A unique way of seeing catches alight.
Conversations With Quotations 