12 Motivating Quotes to Keep You Writing No Matter What

Need some inspiration for a new year of writing?

It’s become a yearly tradition on Writing and Wellness to gather some of the most inspirational, thought-provoking, and encouraging quotes from this years’ author features into one grand end-of-the-year post.

If any of the quotes grab you and you want to read more, simply click on the author’s name and you’ll be taken to his or her full feature.

You can view past quote pages at the following links:

• 24 Inspiring and Encouraging Qutoes for Writers
• 30 Quotes to Inspire a New Year of Writing
• 30 Quotes to Boost a Writer’s Spirit
• Quotes to Encourage, Motivate, and Reassure Writers

Here you go—our quotes from 2019. Thank you to all the authors who contributed!

“What has kept me true to my writing roots, and why I persist, is the belief that I’ve healed every wound of my life with writing. Writing is my map. It’s the best remedy I know for making sense of this baffling, mysterious world.”
~Cynthia Harrison

“Almost everyone (in any field) who’s ever been called an overnight success by the media can point to years of “backstory” of hard work, learning, and dogged determination. If you love to write, keep going. Be kind to yourself, and remember that time fragments add up.”
~Pauline Wiles

“Don’t feel like you need to know everything before you start, you can learn as you go. You will never stop learning. But the most important thing is to just start.”
~Sara Snider

“The bottom line is that no one is going to believe in your book more than you do—no agent, no editor, no readers. You have to believe in what you’re writing and be willing to finish those books and promote them, no holds barred. Then you let the chips fall where they may.”
~Heather Day Gilbert

“Focus on the work, because in the end, the work is the only thing that matters. Everything else is noise. Learn to tune it out. Keep going, keep writing.”
~Anita Kushwaha

“The only way to get good at anything is by doing it as often as you can and as well as you can. Your first attempts will always be your toughest challenge and your worst result, but don’t be discouraged. There’s nowhere to go from there but up.”
~Ken Stark

“…during better times nothing quite beats the delight of enjoying the process of getting words down on a page, of experiencing a story falling into place or a character coming to life. That moment when the words are finally arranged in the order you need them to be and you say yes, that’s it.”
~Georgia Rose

“Better to find it hard to sell the book, rather than write something that feels foreign. A book needs to inspire, not just to entertain. It needs to stir passion in the heart of those who read it. And this cannot be possible unless the writer experiences the same when writing it.”
~Effrosyni Moschoudi

“Writing is the only thing that has reliably helped me to make sense of the chaos of Being Alive, and so I write honestly and selfishly and with my whole heart involved.”
~Sienna Tristen

“Stories are the fire that warms the soul. They melt fear, ignite hope, and spark relationships like nothing else. Never let those embers within you die out. No. Send your fire’s sparks flying like so many fireflies into summer’s night, and invite more out of the cold darkness.”
~Jean Lee

“Enjoy the journey. Never give up. But don’t do it for the money–if it comes, good for you. But trying to make a living as a novelist is like a musician trying to become a rock star: A tiny percent of a tiny percent of us actually earn a living writing. Write because you love to write….”
~J. P. Choquette

“Even if I don’t feel like writing, I push myself through it and feel better about myself for my accomplishment. The only way writers fail is if they stop writing. As long as I keep going, I’ll be a ‘real writer.'”
~Melanie Hatfield