Fibro Friday week 331

Thanks for visiting the Fibromylagia link up.

Fibromyalgia syndrome is a common and chronic disorder characterised by widespread muscle pain, fatigue and multiple tender points. There is so much more to fibromyalgia and you can learn more about it by clicking on the links below.

Last week we broke a few records. 330 weeks of the Fibro Friday link up and the highest number of entries ever! Also we had a new badge to thank you for being a contributor there. You can find it here along with some interesting articles.  

Writing tips from the rich and famous

First of all, you have to agree with me...

blogging is writing.... yes?

If we are in agreeance then I offer you these blogging tips from those who are well-read. 

I hope you find some helpful advice for all your blogging efforts. These tips have been handpicked by me and for me. Maybe you will like them and find inspiration here too among the famous and well-read writers. 

• Work on one thing at a time until finished.
• Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
• Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
• Discard the Program when you feel like it but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
• Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

From Henry Miller's book Henry Miller on Writing. His most read book is Tropic of Cancer.

• Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
• Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

From Kurt Vonnegut. Most famous for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five. 

• Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realize that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be ashamed of not being ‘outgoing’. But a writer’s job is ingoing.

From Ursula K. LeGuin. Best known for the EarthSea books. 

• The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

From Neil Gaiman in an article in The Guardian. Famous for American Gods. On my must read list is Art Matters.

• It is, actually, a hopeful act just to write anything, really, because you’re assuming that someone will be around to [read] it.
• All writers feel struck by the limitations of language.
• If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending…
  But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone.
  You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else. Even when there is no one.
• The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself.

From Margaret Attwood. Most famous currently for The Handmaid's Tale. 

• I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.
• You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
• Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out'.
• I’m trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence.

From Maya Angelou.  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is her 1969 autobiography.

• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

From George Orwell. Most well known book is Animal Farm. 

• One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

 From Annie Dillard. Pulitzer Prize-winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

• I still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don’t really care how many books I’ve sold.
• I spend my life essentially alone at a computer. That doesn’t change. I have the same challenges every day.

From Dan Brown. Wrote the possibly top selling novel of all time The Da Vinci Code.

• When you finally start to write something, do not let yourself stop...even when you are convinced it's the worst garbage ever. This is the biggest caveat for beginning writers. Instead, force yourself to finish what you began, and THEN go back and edit it.

From Jodi Picoult. Her top seller is My Sister's Keeper.

• I don't know the nuts and bolts of writing. I studied medicine. I was a pre-med nerd. So everything I learned, I know about writing is very instinctive.
• Writing for me is largely about rewriting.
• I would give them (aspiring writers) the oldest advice in the craft: Read and write. Read a lot. Read new authors and established ones, read people whose work is in the same vein as yours and those whose genre is totally different. You've heard of chain-smokers. Writers, especially beginners, need to be chain-readers. And lastly, write every day. Write about things that get under your skin and keep you up at night.

From Khaled Hosseini. Wrote The Kite Runner which hit the international stage with a blast. 

I hope you enjoyed these writing quotes from famous writers and that they gave you some inspiration for your own blogging endeavors. 

Fibro Friday week 330

Thanks for dropping in. This week we are celebrating 330 weeks of this Fibromyalgia link up! That is coming up to six and a half years.  These numbers alone don't mean very much but they represent alot to me -  connection with a wider and growing community of people who live with fibromyalgia, interaction with so many fantastic people, and the dedication and work of so many caring people who are creating meaningful content about fibromyalgia. 

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing over the years.

Thank you to everyone who has been reading & sharing the articles.

You have all contributed so much. This badge is for you.

PLEASE JOIN IN AT THIS WEEK'S FIBRO FRIDAY

Fibro Friday link up week 329

Thank you for joining us at the weekly Fibromyalgia link up. We hope you are safe wherever you are in the world. 

Did you get a chance to visit some of our wonderful bloggers in last week's link up? 

Glenys in Australia at 18. With tea, morphing I am, Catherine in England with a poem at 20. When I'm Not Working I'm resting, and Irma a spanish speaking blogger with 13. Dolor y Cansancio, 'sensiblizacion Central' to name just three. 

We hope you can join in this week...