"Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead."

Gene Fowler

"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little."

Anne Lamott

"Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep."

Catherine O'Hara

"One has to live a life that creates a writer."

Erno Paasilinna

"I believe that the chief gift from Africa to writers, white and black, is the continent itself, its presence which for some people is like an old fever, latent always in their blood; or like an old wound throbbing in the bones as the air changes. That is not a place to visit unless one chooses to be an exile ever afterwards from an inexplicable majestic silence lying just over the border of

memory or thought."

Doris Lessing

Man is a “symbolizing, conceptualizing meaning-seeking animal”…”suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun."

Clifford Geertz

"All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at."

Hannah Hubbard

"Poets do not go mad; but chess players do."

G.K. Chesterton

"You are very kind in your hints as to the sort of composition which might recommend me at present, and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe-Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other."

Jane Austen

State of Maembe13's Unfinished Stories (as of March 17, 2023): Spring Break. Three kids. It will be a miracle if any writing happens between now and April.

The Remnants is up for the next round of awards on Twificfandom's 2022 awards. You can vote for it under "undiscovered gem" and "scream fic" categories. Can I just say again, Twilight fans are the best ever! Always an honor, people. Thank you for teaching me to write and for your enduring grace, openness to new authors, and willingess to encourage new ideas. I cannot thank you enough!

Shadow of Death: Done! Complete! Finished! Miracles do happen! After nearly three and a half years, that beast is done. It was a good run. I learned a lot. I think I need to officially retire from this fandom. It's been a good run, though, and I enjoyed writing this story. Goose is still my favorite.

Guardians of the Water: I think I am on the last chapter? I don't know. This one has no plot. It just is. I don't really know where it is going. I'll finish the chapter I am on at some point and see if the story wants to go anywhere else.

Thunderbird and His Cumulonimbus: I need to work on this story again. Trying to avoid hard work of research by taking up another story that's full of hard work and research is a little silly. However, I have even more books than I had before. Seriously. I have like fifteen books to read. It will be great. Though, I kinda want to rewrite everything I've already started? I don't know. This one will go somewhere, though. It's important, though I do not quite know how or why yet.

Measure of a Man: Write a quick P story, they said. It will be fun, they said. Heavens above, I did not know what I was in for. Cue existential writer's identity crisis and three hard months of facing relentless, dauntless, and unforgiving bludgeoning by a very unwilling audience. Well, here's for another unexpected learning curve. This story will be finished, no matter what it takes and no matter how many people try to convince me to stop writing. This story wants to be written, therefore it will be written.

Note, part of my existential writer's crisis was throwing a bunch of stories out the window. If I did not see a purpose in finishing a story or I did not see a purpose in keeping a story posted, I removed them. Thus, there are fewer stories than I used to have (though I don't think anyone will miss the ones I removed).

Future stories: If I survive the P fandom's attempts to bludgeon me into silence, I honestly do not know what I will write next. I've thrown some of my old ideas out the window. I may need to take a break from new stories for a while to recover and finish my existential crisis. Maybe it's time I do "real" writing. Maybe not. I really don't know.