“Some of this book — perhaps too much — has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it — and perhaps the best of it — is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”
~Stephen King (On Writing~A Memoir of the Craft)
Stephen King, American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Taken at the 2007 New York Comicon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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May 8, 2013 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, art, Stephen King, Writers Resources, Writing, Writing and Editing, Writing Tips | 4 Comments »
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
~ Neil Gaiman
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April 16, 2013 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Author, Fiction, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Literature, Neil Gaiman, Quotes | Leave A Comment »
Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
~ Joseph Conrad
English: Joseph Conrad Print Collection portrait file. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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April 9, 2013 | Categories: Inspiration, Life, Novel Writing, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Arts, Fiction, Inspiration, Joseph Conrad, laney mcmann, novel writing, Quotes, Writer, Writing Advice | Leave A Comment »
“If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”
~ Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
The Graveyard Book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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March 29, 2013 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writer, Writing | Tags: American Gods, Arts, books, Coraline, Graveyard Book, laney mcmann, Literature, Neil Gaiman, Quotes, Writing Advice | Leave A Comment »
“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”
~Neil Gaiman — The Graveyard Book
** I am a such a Neil Gaiman fan if you guys haven’t noticed.
Neil Gaiman, signing (Photo credit: Jutta @ flickr)
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February 28, 2013 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writer, Writing | Tags: American Gods, Arts, Author, Coraline, Fiction, goal accomplishment, laney mcmann, Neil Gaiman, novel writing, Online Writing, Sandman, Twitter, Writers Resources, Writing Advice, writing quotes | 3 Comments »
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds… Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
~Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol: 5, A Game Of You
Neil Gaiman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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February 21, 2013 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Life, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Dream, Neil Gaiman, Sandman, The Sandman: A Game of You | Leave A Comment »
“No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”
~ Gone with the Wind
One of THE best lines ever written in my opinion. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. 
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February 14, 2013 | Categories: Author, Books, Life, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Arts, Author, Gone With The Wind, laney mcmann, novel writing, Relationships, Valentine, Valentines Day | Leave A Comment »
“If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me? You are a human being with a unique story to tell. You have every right.”
Richard Rhodes 2 (Photo credit: afagen)
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January 16, 2013 | Categories: Inspiration, Novel Writing, Quotes, Writing Tips | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Arts, Author, Blog, Education, Fear, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Richard Rhodes, Writers Resources, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Exercises | Leave A Comment »
We make so many promises as writers with a hope we can fulfill them all.
~Laney McMann
**As I sit finishing my final blurb for TIED, I’m reminded of this fact. Thought I’d share it.
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January 13, 2013 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, J Taylor Publishing, Novel Writing, Quotes, Thoughts | Tags: blurbs, Book, excerpts, J. Taylor Publishing, laney mcmann, teens, The Fire Born Novels, TIED A Fire Born Novel, TIED by Laney McMann, YA Fiction | Leave A Comment »
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know how to. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
William Faulkner, 1954 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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December 20, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writing, Writing Tips | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Author, Dream, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Quotes, William Faulkner, Writing Tips | 1 Comment »
“You must be prepared to work always without applause.”
~Ernest Hemingway
English: Hemingway posing for a dust jacket photo by Lloyd Arnold for the first edition of “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, at the Sun Valley Lodge, Idaho, late 1939. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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December 5, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Novel Writing, Quotes | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Arts, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Quotes, Writing process | Leave A Comment »
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
~j.K. Rowling
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November 28, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Author, Fiction, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, J.K Rowling, laney mcmann, Writer Resources, YA Fiction | Leave A Comment »
“Anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”
English: J. K. Rowling, after receiving an honorary degree from The University of Aberdeen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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November 21, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes | Tags: Author, Children's literature, Fiction, goal accomplishment, Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Inspiration, JK Rowling, laney mcmann, Literature, Novel, Tales of Beedle the Bard, Writers Resources, ya fantasy author, YA paranormal romance author | Leave A Comment »
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.”
~ Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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November 16, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Arts, Author, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, Joseph Campbell, laney mcmann, Literature, Mythologists, Mythology, myths, Myths and Folktales, Power of Myth, ya fantasy author, YA Fiction, YA paranormal romance author | 1 Comment »
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.
~Erica Long
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November 9, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writer | Tags: Fiction, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Quotes | Leave A Comment »
“I believe legends and myths are largely made of truth …”
Tolkien’s monogram, and Tolkien Estate trademark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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November 7, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writing | Tags: art, Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, laney mcmann, Literature, Lord of Rings, Middle-earth, myths, Myths and Folktales, Quotes, YA paranormal romance author | Leave A Comment »
“It’s always too early to quit.”
Norman Vincent Peale, Christian preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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November 5, 2012 | Categories: Publishing, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Editing and Proofreading, Inspiration, laney mcmann, New Age, Norman Vincent Peale, Power of Positive Thinking, Quotes, Rewrites, Writing and Editing, Writing process, Writing Tips, YA paranormal romance author | 1 Comment »
Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the honesty of your vision, the unsentimental acknowledgment of the endless interest of the life around and within you. Virtually nobody can help you deliberately — many people will help you unintentionally.
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October 29, 2012 | Categories: Quotes, Writing | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Editing and Proofreading, Inspiration, laney mcmann, novel creation, Quotes, Writer, Writer Resources, Writers Resources, Writing, Writing process, YA paranormal romance author | Leave A Comment »
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.
English: Vita Sackville-West, ancient style (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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October 19, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Advice on writing a novel, Arts, Author, Canada, Dalloway, Inspiration, laney mcmann, London, New Brunswick, Virginia, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Writing Tips | Leave A Comment »
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
English: Oscar Wilde, three-quarter length portrait, facing front, seated, leaning forward, left elbow resting on knee, hand to chin, holding walking stick in right hand, wearing coat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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October 16, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Arts, Author, Fiction, laney mcmann, Literature, Oscar Wilde, Quotes, Writing | Leave A Comment »
“Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another. The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world.”
Joseph Campbell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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October 12, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Arts, Joseph Campbell, Joseph Campbell Foundation, laney mcmann, Mythology, Power of Myth, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, ya fantasy author | 4 Comments »
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Virginia Dare
~Michael Scott — The Warlock
Michael Scott promotional photo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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October 8, 2012 | Categories: Author, Inspiration, Quotes, Writing | Tags: Author, Creativity, Destination Imagination, Fiction, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Michael Scott, Psychology, Quotes, Virginia Dare, ya fantasy author, YA Fiction | 1 Comment »
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling ~~The Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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October 4, 2012 | Categories: Author, Books, Quotes | Tags: Author, Deathly Hallows, excerpts, Harry, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Inspiration, JK Rowling, laney mcmann, Literature, Quotes | Leave A Comment »
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.
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October 2, 2012 | Categories: Author, Quotes, Writer, Writing | Tags: Arts, Author, Communications, goal accomplishment, Henry David Thoreau, Inspiration, laney mcmann, Leo Rosten, Writer, Writers Resources, Writing, Writing and Editing, YA paranormal romance author | Leave A Comment »
