Susan Wise Bauer on cooking, writing and glamor:

Cooking, I think, must be like writing. You do the same thing day, after day, after day, after day. You’d better enjoy it for itself, not for the rewards. There are certainly high points, and of course we all look forward to them… Occasionally I get to go to book parties, or swan around New York in a really nice dress, and you’d better believe I enjoy it. But there’s no way that those very occasional rewards make the day-to-day slog worthwhile.

SO true. I talked a few months ago about how I took the summer off from writing to  get back to my love of creating stories, instead of yearning for validation/publication/a readership. Because, much as it is thrilling (or so I imagine ) to get The Call (from an agent or editor), to see your book cover for the first time, to find your book in a real-life bookstore, or receive fan mail, those moments are few and far between. For some of us, they haven’t even come yet.

Thank goodness I love writing for its own sake. Otherwise I’d be miserable or have given up a long time ago.

Speaking of slogging, I’m 4.5 K words into Rainbird. I think I can wrap it up in two or three scenes, but I have a tendency to underestimate that sort of thing anyway.