Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.
Lynne TrussRead
All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.
Interpretation
Protect your creative work until it is complete to avoid discouragement.
Lynne Truss emphasizes the importance of keeping your creative endeavors private until they are fully developed. Sharing early ideas can lead to external criticism or doubt, which may undermine your confidence and motivation, potentially derailing your project altogether.
In practice
A writer may use this quote to encourage fellow authors at a workshop.
Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.
In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.
Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.
I believe you are your work. Don't trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That's a rotten bargain.
Life is too short to read a bad book.
Obsession is a young man’s game.
When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.