5 inspiring quotes from poets and novelists Kwame Dawes, Zakes Mda, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Wole Soyinka. Selected to inspire writers who are feeling a little stuck.

1. For when you feel like giving up…
5 inspiring
quotes

2. Kwame Dawes
poet, actor, editor, critic, musician

3. “Take inspiration and throw it out of the window… I don’t
believe in waiting for inspiration. I believe in starting to write
and inspiration will find you on the way.”
Zakes Mda
Playwright, novelist, painter

4. I can write days on end, not wanting to do anything
else. And at other times gestate. I consider the
process of gestation just as important as when
you're actually sitting down putting words to the
paper… [A]llow [your]self to be overwhelmed by
phenomena, by experience. In other words, the
ability to submit one's ego, one’s personal self-
awareness, to the phenomena around one.
Wole Soyinka
playwright, poet, novelist

5. Part of writing is not so much that you’re going to actually
write something every day, but what you should have, or
need to have, is the possibility, which means the space
and the time set aside—as if you were going to have
someone come to tea. If you are expecting someone to
come to tea but you’re not going to be there, they may not
come, and if I were them, I wouldn’t come. So, it’s about
receptivity and being home when your guest is expected,
or even when you hope that they will come.
Alice Walker
author, activist

6. I realized that for me this ritual comprises my preparation
to enter a space that I can only call nonsecular . . . Writers
all devise ways to approach that place where they expect
to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or
where they engage in this mysterious process. For me,
light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light,
it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some
sense.
I tell my students one of the most important things they
need to know is when they are their best, creatively. They
need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look
like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos
outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in
order to release my imagination?
Toni Morrison
novelist, editor, professor

7. http://blog.blackletterm.com
What are your
writing challenges?
Share them on our facebook page: Black Letter Media – and we’ll blog the
answer