I often ask people what is their definition of a “writer.” They usually tell me: “Somebody who has published books or articles” or “A person who makes their living by writing.” I disagree. I think somebody who writes everyday and looks at the workaday world through the prism of literature and words is a writer. Period. If a person everyday honestly strives to get at the heart of a matter and glean the truth out of the complexity of this world and we human beings through the written word, than that person is a writer, in my opinion. It is a matter of attitude and a way of life, not how you pay your bills or whether you have talent or not.

“To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.”

“You must write every single day of your life.”

“You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next.”

“You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.”

“I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.”

“I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.”

“May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories – science fiction or otherwise.”

“Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

-Ray Bradbury