--WORDS FALL SHORT AT TIMES LIKE THIS

 

…Tomorrow I go into the city for the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference.  To be honest, it’s my least favorite conference.  There’ll be nearly 8,000 writers there and I won’t know anyone.  The conference specializes in niche fiction—Romance, Historical Romance, Memoir, Young Adult, Sci Fi, Cookbooks, Children’s books, etc. 

They don’t even mention the word poetry and short stories get a breeze by.

But what’s good about it is the speed pitching which is like speed dating whereby you get three minutes to pitch your project to a string of 25 agents all lined up, nearly shoulder to shoulder in a room.

I’m going to pitch The Hailstorm, the novel I wrote last year.

Fingers crossed.

 

…I’ll be back here Sunday or most likely Monday.  Until then, here are some things I like midweek:

 

To be alive, to be able to see, to walk,...it's all a miracle." Arthur Rubinstein

"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do." Helen Keller

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." Dale Carnegie

"Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success." Oscar Wilde

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." Thomas Jefferson

"The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them."  Benjamin Jowett

"Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad experience."  Robert Packwood

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."  Thomas Jefferson

"We are fallible. We certainly haven't attained perfection. But we can strive for it, and the virtue is in the striving." Carlos P. Romulo

"The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." William Wordsworth

"You can have anything you want -- if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose." Abraham Lincoln

"Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is hard to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline." William L. Shirer

"Never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be -- usually is, in fact -- a false alarm that leads to nothing, but it may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance."  Sir Alexander Fleming

"I don't think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it. I think if you are determined enough and willing to pay the price, you can get it done."  Mike Ditka

"Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not." Henry Fielding

"As long as a person doesn't admit he is defeated, he is not defeated -- he's just a little behind and isn't through fighting."  Darrell Royal

"In the final analysis there is no solution to man's progress but the day's honest work, the day's honest decisions, the day's generous utterances and the day's good deed."   Clare Booth Luce