Quotes About Process

I always say that the way you write a novel is for the first 83 drafts you pretend that nobody is ever, ever going to read it.

For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning?

On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away.

Process is nothing; erase your tracks. The path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back.

Leadership isn't something that people hand to you. ... [i]t's a gradual process, one where you take responsibility years before you are given authority. And that's something we can teach.

The magic of the creative process is that there is no magic. Start where you are. Don't stop.

It's foolish to expect that one exposure to your message will instantly convert someone from stranger to raving ideavirus-spreading fan. So plan on a process. Plan on a method that takes people from where they are to where you want them to go.

Finding security in mediocrity is an exhausting process. You can work only so many hours, fret only so much. Being a slightly better typist or a slightly faster coder is insufficient. You're always looking over your shoulder, always trying to be a little less mediocre than the guy next to you. It wears you out.

It's more about a five- or ten- or fifteen-year process where you start finding your voice, and finally you begin to realize that the safest thing you can do feels risky and the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe.

Managers manage a process they've seen before, and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast and as cheap as possible. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.

The hard work and big money you used to spend on frequent purchases of print and TV advertising now move to repeated engineering expenses and product failures. If anything, marketing is more time-consuming and expensive than it used to be. You're just spending the money earlier in the process (and repeating the process more often). This is worth highlighting: The Purple Cow is not a cheap shortcut. It is, however, your best (perhaps only) strategy for growth.

There's a practice available to each of us—the practice of embracing the process of creation in service of better. The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output

marketers have turned advertising into an interactive process. Using relationships and frequency and permission

You need a formal business reinvention process. Put it in your calendar. Every three months, take your most trusted advisers, employees, backers, and even customers and get away from the phones for a little while. Start from scratch. "If we were starting over—no office, no employees, no customers—would we choose to be where we are today?" If the answer isn't, yes, then it's time to take a hard look at the path you took and the impact it has had on your business.

Creativity Is an Action, Not a Feeling Marie Schacht points out that we can't always do much about how we feel, particularly when it's about something important. But we can always control our actions. Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today. On the other hand, committing to an action can change how we feel. If we act as though we trust the process and do the work, then the feelings will follow. Waiting for a feeling is a luxury we don't have time for.

Nine women can't have a baby in one month, no matter how closely they coordinate their work.

A Nine-Year-Old Kid Can Do Edgecraft While the edges always change, the process never does. Here's how you do it: Find a product or service that's completely unrelated to your industry. Figure out who's winning by being remarkable. Discover which edge they went to. Do that in your own industry.

What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Meditation is a cyclical process that defies analysis, but demands acceptance.

We cannot instantaneously force ourselves to forgive—and forgiveness happens at a different pace for everyone and is dependent on the particulars of any given situation.

Forgiveness is a process, an admittedly difficult one that often can feel like a rigorous spiritual practice.

Even when it hurts like hell, hold fast. The pain is the arrow coming out, not the arrow going in. Faith is not about trusting a God who will rescue you from arrows but trusting in the process. Faith will center you, not rescue you. As the pain and fear pass, I hold fast.

Let go of me, Celt, or I'll rip your arm off. And you know what? I don't care if I lose both of mine in the process. That's the difference between us. Pain is my friend and ally. You fear it. (Zarek)

I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life, but for me, the process of writing is really chaotic and decadent and indulgent.