Mark O'Brien
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For the benefit of readers who wish to appreciate a "real" writer who struggles to maintain my writing goals on the bad days, I'll share a few details with you.
Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
True. Indeed, the robust writer who is conditioned with finding out why their characters were born will accept without qualms a lavish array of reasons, and the great writers will be shocked, and will in no way dilute that experience for their readers.
It is my quest to be a great writer. But it has been a tragic tale so far. The cynical readers may say well work harder. And they're right. The great mountain of excellence works me hard, and never excuses itself for training me as a mountaineer. As a work of art, the great mountain reminds me of Daniel's dream of a great statue whereby the feet are built of iron and clay, the legs shaped of iron, the torso formed of silver, and the head fashioned of gold. Most writers never make it past the iron and clay, and this is where I am, but I'm starting to create some new tools that hopefully will propel me past those Herculean thighs.
For in this "Rocky" personal pursuit there lurks a general lesson of determination, one where the wayward writer, the headstrong author, and the panting editor each have their place alongside me, and they point out to me with great vigilance and vision why I became a writer in the first place: to entertain, and that is why my characters were born.
“Protect your self-esteem and self-confidence - it is your responsibility!”
“It only takes one thought in one moment to alter the course of your life.”
“Yesterday's shortcuts are today's nightmares. The race is quicker when we're stricter. Keep your eyes on today, and declare what you may.”
“Conditioning was something I always shied away from, now I've learnt that training never stops.”
“When you have acceptance of who you are there is no need to discuss your past.”
“We're all strange in our own strange way.”
“The enchanted day is only enchanted if we ourselves believe that anything is possible.”
“The more you read within a balanced life, the more time you have. Strange but true.”
“Life has two choices: create or destruct. These choices are the backbone for all, within oneself and outside oneself. Too many ways of thinking are described by too many people that have no idea. If you're attached to your ways then detach, so you can change. Use this detachment in your writing, relationships, and understanding of life. Our future as individuals, as nations, and as mankind can only go one way. It's our choice whether we want the painful path or the peaceful path.”
“Intellectuals ponder, philosophize, interpret, and all this is essential to our shared experience, however, to feel the warmth of what lays at our feet within all that can be felt by the heart, is in an instant more powerful than mere words, we need to feel the words, capture the essence of what we see, and revel in the tastes of nature, and let ourselves allow our hearts to sing out loud, wild, and free.”
“Life's choices are wild and free, but sustaining and elevating, or destructive and debilitating. It's up to us to choose.”
“When the flames of life are gnawing away at your butt, run faster, quicker, and harder than you've ever run before, because I guarantee it that life will condition you, harder than any trainer ever will.When you state to yourself with the utter most believe, “I will achieve this,” than you are on the path, and this is when life throws obstacles left, right, straight on and which other way, but keep going. Because you will make it”