Good morning. I’m having trouble getting my engines started this morning, or as Steven Wright once quipped, “I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” So I was trolling for inspiration and started with proverbs:
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
~ Japanese ProverbTalk doesn’t cook rice
~ Chinese ProverbThe first step binds one to the second.
~ French ProverbIt is not enough to know how to ride. You must also know how to fall.
~ Mexican Proverb
Frankly the proverbs didn’t do the trick. So I turned to these guys who had some pretty straightforward advice:
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.
~ Leonard BernsteinYou can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
~ Jack LondonThe great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn’t waste time waiting for inspiration.
~ Ernest Newman
Well: time is short; waste not, want not; and all that jazz. I’ve got to get some work done and then I’ll be back with more postings.