Melanie Bates

“Writing is the hum. Writing is laying track. Writing is the high. Now imagine that hum, that high, that track to be laid is behind a door. And that door is five miles away. Those five miles are just . . . writing crap and doodling and trying to have an idea and surfing the internet and hoping like hell not to get so distracted that you give up. Worse? Those five miles are lined with brownies and cupcakes and episodes of Game of Thrones and Idris Elba waiting to talk to only you and really good novels to read. Every time I sit down to write, I have to mentally run those five miles past all of that to get to that door. It’s a long, hard five-mile run. Sometimes I am almost dead by the time I reach the door. That’s why I have to keep doing it. The more often I run the five miles, the fitter I become. And the fitter I become, the easier the run begins to feel and the less fresh and exciting all that stuff on the side of the road seems. I mean, how long has it been there? More important, as I get fitter, I can run faster. And the faster I can run, the faster I can get to that door. The faster you can too, writers out there. When you sit down to write every day, it becomes easier and easier to tap into that creative space inside your mind. The faster I can get to that door, the quicker I can get to the good stuff.”
― Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes

“I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“I have always found there to be a certain sadness about mirrors, since they double the space in a house which needs to be filled with love.”
― Alan Bradley, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd