Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“When we wake up in the morning we are inspired to do some certain thing and we do do it. The difficulty lies in the fact that it may turn out well or it may not turn out well. If it turns out well we have a tendency to think that we have successfully followed our inspiration and if it does not turn out well we have a tendency to think that we have lost our inspiration. But that is not true. There is successful work and work that fails but all of it is inspired.”

—Agnes Martin, “On the Perfection Underlying Life,” lecture, Institute of Contemporary Art, February 14, 1973



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is a sort of spontaneous combustion—the oily rags of the head and heart.”

—Stanley Elkin, The Paris Review, Issue 66, Summer 1976



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.”

—Jack London, “Getting Into Print,” in Practical Authorship, ed. James Knapp Reeve, 1905

This quote is often paraphrased as, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:


"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."

—attributed to Leonard Bernstein




( Illustrated version, with extras at page end. )

I may be the last person on earth to do this, but melinda_goodin finally got me.

1. Total number of books owned?

sigh I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2000—or more. And no, none of them are in storage. I have six bookshelves in my one bedroom apartment. I think a visual aid may be in order (since I'm camera obsessive these days):

Visual aid.

[broken link]

This is my combination dining/office/library area and it's a scandal. In addition to the three and a half bookshelves shown here, I have two more 4x4 bookshelves elsewhere in the room. The books stacked sideways are my TBR books. I stopped counting them at around 400. Please note that behind the TBR books the shelves are full of other books. I am a book junkie. I'd hang my head in shame...but I'm not ashamed.

2. The last book I bought?

I bought four at once. This is why my floors are sagging:

♥ One for the Money (A Stephanie Plum Novel) by Janet Evanovich

♥ Found : The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World by Davy Rothbart

♥ Dead as a Doornail (Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris

♥ Do You Believe? by Ann Lawrence

3. The last book I read?

Storm Front by Jim Butcher. And I'm about 50 pages away from finishing his Fool Moon. These Dresden Files books are fun.

4. 5 books that mean a lot to me?

As others have said, this is tough and depends on the time of my life...In a way, they all mean a lot to me, even the bad ones, but I'll try to think of 5 that mean a lot to me at this juncture in my life.

♥ Kage Baker's Company series. (Okay, I cheated because that's more than one book, but it's really like one really long novel.) She's funny and profound and earthy and lyrical and a native Californian and I want to be her when I grow up.

♥ The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It meant a lot to me many years back because it helped me out of writer's block of four years duration.

♥ The Damiano trilogy by R. A. MacAvoy. I'm cheating again, but it's really one big novel. Heartbreaking, beautifully written, sweeping historical fantasy ultimately about the redeeming quality of love. I want to be her when I grow up, too.

♥ A Fine and Private Place and The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle (How can you choose just one Beagle?) Oh, and I so want to be him when I grow up.

♥ Andre Norton's Witch World series. (I'm cheating again!) These books inspired me so much when I was a kid and made me want to write sff and be just like Ms. Andre when I grew up. (Little did I know I would never grow up.)

♥ To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. (Oops, appears I've done six books.) (Greedy.)

5. Tag 5 people and have them fill this out on their ljs:

frigg Have you?
maggiemotley If you're around a feel like it.
sollersuk You've already done a version of this. Want another?

I think everyone else has done this. If you haven't and feel the need, consider yourself tagged.