I'm a writer--and, if I'm being honest, a rather deprecating one, at that. I didn't go to a fancy school (or any school) to surround myself with other wordies and revered classics. Honestly, I haven't even rubbed the pages of most classics because I went to a private school that shunned most of those tomes due to their wordly content. Still, I did my best to annihilate every Scholastic book flyer I got my hands on, reading anything and everything that didn't set off my mom's well-honed radar. 

The silver lining to this is I have not wasted time reading books I'll inevitably loathe just to say I'd read them, like some hoity-toity literary To-Do List. I don't feel the pressure to write like Homer or Dickens (or anyone else) because I write what I want to write. I write with a voice no one else can stake claim to, and I'm comfortable in my storyteller skin. 

But my writing sucks. 

Everyone's writing sucks.

At least, in the beginning.

No matter what they think, very few writers exude brilliance and bring readers to tears on their first try. As in most things, practice makes perfect. Writing is a learned art, where the artist learns how words bend and shift in the hands and on the page. Writers push limits and strive for balance--but this license comes with trying and failing, with crumpled pages and pounding your head on the keyboard. If you want to truly be successful in writing--or anything, really--you must keep on keeping on. You must embrace that the first draft of anything is likely crap (even, and maybe even especially, if it feels brilliant). If you get caught up on making the first sentence of anything perfection, you'll struggle to move past that point. Make friends with the concept that you must start somewhere, and the longer you twiddle the words around in your mind, the more at home they will feel. If you keep at it, what you consider now to be your best writing will be the stepping-stone for greater writing in your future. The key is to be persistent.

Keep trying, even when your word faucet is only trickling.

Keep trying, even when you don't feel smart enough.

Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is untouchable genius.

Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is garbage.

You're in good company.  This is how we all get better--by getting comfortable in our creative skin. 

To read more favorite writing quotes by my writing tribe, visit thewritepractice.com/become-a-better-writer-quotes

Today I'm thrilled to share my friend Anne Marie Andrus' cover for her upcoming book, MONSTERS & ANGELS. Isn't it gorgeous? Read on to learn more about the book and Anne Marie... and make sure you follow her on her social media pages!  

“Rouwrrrrrr!” Something tackled my legs and pushed me down on the bed. “Yahahaha…”

I swung my arms in the dark, but it was on top of me, its wet mouth snarling in my ear. Was it…?

“What’s going on in here?” Papa rushed through the door holding a lantern. The room lit up with the pale glow of kerosene light.

“Hah, I got you good.” Jesse stood up over me.

“Papa, Jesse tried to scare me.” My voice trembled.

“I did scare you.” Jesse jumped around on my bed. “Hahahaha.”

“Did not! I knew it was you.” I threw my legs over the side of the bed. “Papa, you’ve got to get him out of my room. I can’t have anything. He’s always in my stuff.” I jerked my finger at him. “And now he’s on my bed. I can’t even sleep!”

“It’s not that bad, is it, Tadpole?” Papa usually called me Tadpole unless he was being serious, then it was Nikki, or Nicole Elizabeth Landry if I was in big trouble.

My face felt hot and my eyes watered. “This has been my room since I was born—eleven years and four months to be exact.” I took in a long shaky breath. My brother was almost six, and Papa had moved him in with me last summer, promising to put the houseboat on land and build a room on for him.

“As long as our house is on the water, there ain’t no place to build another room,” Papa said.

“Well, park us on land,” I whined. “You promised.”

“I haven’t decided if I want to stay here permanent.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “The crabs are biting real good here, but that could change any time. I have to stay mobile.”

“But you got the job as game warden so we didn’t have to move. You ain’t leaving that job, are you?”


Papa was in the habit of moving our houseboat to a new place a couple times a year, until I talked to the sheriff about that game warden job in the paper. Papa had been raised in the swamps and bayous all his life and he was smart enough to pass the tests to get that job, even though he said it didn’t pay as much as being a swamper when the times were right. I think he just liked being his own boss and being able to move when he wanted to.