Yep. I was sickly last week. Very much so. Got a grand total of zero words written. (Mostly over the sickness now, though, and looking forward to making progress this weekend.)

But the week was not without a learning experience. I’ve been nibbling my way through a truly delightful book called One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers by Gail Sher. It’s one of those books where every single sentence deserves to by framed and displayed over my work area.

This is the one that stuck with me the most:

Writers are always writing whether they are writing or not. You are either writing, or doing what you need to do in order to write.

I like that. I like that! (And not just because it makes me feel less guilty about lying in bed sniffling and marathon-napping while my characters grumble to each other about feeling neglected.) The mentality of “I need to stop writing so I can make dinner” becomes “I need to make dinner so that I can continue writing later.”

Anything becomes easier to me if I think it benefits myself as a writer. If someone told me that editors were more likely to accept your query if your bedroom is clean and organized then I might not have to vault from the hallway to get to my bed. But, adopting that quote above, everything does benefit my writing in some way.

So, instead of lamenting how I lost a week of words because I caught a virus, I’m going to say that I spent the week allowing my immune system to fortify itself so that I can dive into editing this week. Let’s do this.

Does anyone have any other good writing quotes? I do love quotes…

(PS – the unlit candles are symbolic of my wordless week. They are also symbolic of my being too lazy to find my matches just for this one picture.)