I’ve put in an intense writing session today. By the time I finished, I thought my head would blow off. Ever have that feeling? Well, sometimes when I do, it helps to turn to other writers and see how they handle their writing day or, on a grander scale, their Writing Life. It reminds me that the day is made up of moments and out of those moments, we weave not just our work but ourselves as well. As the weekend unfolds, whether you are taking a break from your writing or getting back into it, here are some words of wisdom to inspire, console, and confront you:

“We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.”
Old Japanese Proverb

“The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything.”
John Irving

“To be nobody-but-yourself  in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you somebody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
E. E. Cummings

“In truth, I never consider the audience for whom I’m writing. I just write what I want to write.”
J.K. Rowling

“If you stuff yourself full of poems, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake up early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans.”
Ray Bradbury

“Transitions are critically important. I want the reader to turn the page without thinking she’s turning the page. It must flow seamlessly.”
Janet Evanovich

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
William Faulkner