Are you creative? Need a spark of motivation or inspiration? Poet Sharon Olds has some things to say about creativity, self respect and being a late bloomer that you won’t want to miss. Here are my top three favorite quotes by Poet Sharon Olds:

There is something in me maybe someday to be written; now it is folded, and folded, and folded, like a note in school.

Poet Sharon Olds also said:

Whenever we give our pen some free will, we may surprise ourselves. All that wanting to seem normal in regular life, all that fitting in falls away in the face of one’s own strange self on the page. […] Writing or making anything –” a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake — has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.

And I devoted an entire blog post to this one last fall. It’s my all-time favorite Sharon Olds quote:

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.

Let’s hear it for late bloomers and for chocolate cakes and for never giving up!

Which is your favorite? If you like this post but are feeling shy, please consider posting it on the social media platform of your choice. xo

P.S. Coming soon: I’ll be giving away a limited number of free audio book versions of Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories and my latest novel Temple Secrets, now available on Audible and Amazon! Whoo-hoo!!