A Quote by Dorianne Laux

Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice. It won't magically burst forth in your poems the next time you sit down to write, or the next; but little by little, as you become aware of more choices and begin to make them -- consciously and unconsciously -- your style will develop.
The title says it all: 'Little House on a Small Planet.' With population, pollution and environmental pressures weighing heavily upon us, our planet grows smaller every day and the need for thoughtful, lower-impact housing becomes more urgent. This delightful book is full of inspiring ideas that will help you simplify your housing choices, make more environmentally responsible product and material choices and bring down the square footage of your next home. Or maybe you'll decide to take your current home and turn it into several. You won't be disappointed.
One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. You may think you are more talented then the next guy. Which is exactly what the next guy thinks as well. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself stand out. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths. Always remember that no matter how many times you get shot down, you will get smarter, better and you only have to be right once to be successful.
What are your choices? Whom are your choices for? Not just for yourself. Chose now whom you will serve, and that choice is going to affect the next generation, and the next generation, and the next. Choice never affects just one person alone. It goes on and on and the effect goes out into geography and history. You are part of history and your choices become part of history.
The future turns out to be something that you make instead of find. It isn't waiting for your arrival, either with an arrest warrant or a band, nor is it any further away than the next sentence, the next best guess, the next sketch for the painting of a life portrait that might become a masterpiece. The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation, you can make of it what you will.
If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers ... becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul. And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.
When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.
Write like you write, like you can't help but write, and your voice will become yours and yours alone. It'll take time but it'll happen as long as you let it. Own your voice, for your voice is your own. Once you know where your voice lives, you no longer have to worry so much about being derivative.
Every time you connect, a little bit more clarity stays around the love, a little bit more space opens up around it. your mind becomes clearer. you experience expanded possibilities. You become a little more confident, a little more willing to connect with others, a little more willing to open up to other people, whether that means talking about your own stuff or listen to theirs. And as that happens a little miracle occurs: You're giving, without expectation in return. Your very being becomes, consciously or not, an inspiration to others
Throughout our lives, we develop our character consciously or unconsciously. In your journey to a life beyond amazing, you'll learn to develop your character in ways that bring remarkable rewards.
You see, writing down your meanderings gets something started deep in the recesses of your brain. That distant part of your mind knows that you want to write stories or poems or plays and not endless jabber, and it will get to work. It may take a while. You may have to write this stuff for hours or days or weeks, but eventually that subterranean part of your brain will come through and begin to send you ideas.
You have total control of it, and when you're an actor, you're subject to production design and costumes and directors and studio choices and producer choices, but when you're writing it, you're creating your own little world in your head, peopled with your little characters. No one is in there monkeying with it, at least not at first - though they will. With this and the other projects I'm working on, it'll have to be given away, and it'll have to be someone else's property.
Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit.
You and I are infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. But the best way to understand and maximize the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of the choices we make every moment.
I try to keep my eyes and ears open all the time for the bones of my next song: things people say, melodies I hear in my head, and little musical parts I may stumble across. I write them down or record them on my phone. Whatever I need to do to keep the idea for later when I have the time to sit down with it. So writing for me is a 24/7 pursuit.
After assessing what's in your closet, make a list of what you need. Not want, but need. Write down the basics missing from your wardrobe. It could be a classic white shirt, a trenchcoat, or the perfect little black dress. Whatever the blank spots, write them down. This will be your reference for shopping.
The next time you find yourself racing quickly down the street, know that you're not only running to your next appointment, you are literally running from contact with your truest feelings, deepest needs and most valuable insights.
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