carrying home the KW coals in a copper box

Now I’m home, which means playing catch-up, unpacking suitcases, and setting my sights on the work again. Thank you to everyone who made Kindling Words such a special experience!

I have more photos, but frankly, Kate Messner’s are much better, so you should look at hers. Thank you, Kate, for being so handy with a camera and posting quickly.

As requested and promised, here are the two quotes that I used at the end of my presentation on Sunday.The first is from Scottish mountaineer William Hutchinson Murray. He was talking about planning and executing mountain climbing trips, but it applies to writing, too:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!””
[A loose 1835 translation of Faust]

And the second, a comment made by William Faulkner when speaking to a group of eager writing students at Princeton.

(You might want to tape this to your desk)

“Don’t be ‘a writer’. Be writing.”

8 Replies to “carrying home the KW coals in a copper box”

  1. Today my art professor said, “Notice what you are noticing” and I thought about writing, not art….but I thought you’d like it. It’s simplistic but interesting!

  2. I snagged the Faulkner quote when you posted it quite a while back, when I first started reading your blog. I loved it then and love it still- it keeps me working.

  3. Thanks for the shout-out, Laurie. I may have the fire photographs, but I can’t touch your dessert pictures. Those were pure art!

    Thank you SO much for the gift of your words this weekend. I can’t begin to tell you how much your talks each morning lifted me up as I worked each afternoon. You’re truly an inspiration.

  4. Thanks for posting this! I have pictures too, but I wasn’t sure if it was okay to blog them. Now that I see others blogging them, I’ll go ahead and post. But maybe not tonight. Tonight, I sleep, doing the reverse jet lag thing.

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