The Roughest Draft Quotes

...sometimes relationships don't die. They just don't grow. Kept from sunlight, from nourishment, they never flourish.

There's no truth to these pages, but the trick of fiction is to make you think there is. I let myself fall for it as often as I can.

Never leaving someone isn't the same as loving them.

Forever is about reaching into the future, into years far away and unknowable. Always is about every second of every day. It's as far reaching as forever, it just starts sooner.

She smiles, and my heart ignites.

Fiction comes from truth. It is a wonderful, imaginative, flourishing thing grown from a seed of real feelings, real desires, real fears. No artist ever creates from nothing. We work from what we've experienced, inspired by the unique piece of the world we see. It's why art cannot be replicated.

Reading and loving books are the fingerprints of who I am—no matter how much I change, they'll stay the same, betraying me to myself for the rest of my life.

...in the end, the best part of a love story isn't having it. It's getting to keep writing.

think it’s possible for people we love to quietly, even unknowingly, snap some tether holding us together.

We've written the rough draft of our love together, the draft with loose ends, unfinished edges, mistakes every other page. But every writer knows there's magic in revision, where your work changes from a manuscript into a book. Where intentions, emotions, missed connections coalesce into something complete. It's where what you mean to say becomes what you have said. The characters deepen, the details shine, the prose sparkles. Suddenly, from nothing, you find your story.

It can be both. Fiction is fiction, and it's real. They're not opposites. They live within each other.

Of course I love him. I have novel's worth of what I want to say.

Today isn’t your entire life. Today is one day of your job. Do your job the best you can, then do the next thing. Okay?

I would risk dying of thirst to save myself from drowning.

I want to say she's gorgeous. Heart-stopping. If I started, I don't know how I would stop. I've worked my entire adult life to marshal the English language into whatever I wanted. But were I try to capture Katrina with it, it would best even me.

But with Katrina—was it romantic when you instinctively knew someone’s very existence fascinated you, made you grateful? Finding it romantic would be missing the point, like valuing the sun because it was bright. I’m glad for the light, but really, I’m grateful for the fact it sustains life on Earth. Not that Katrina sustains my life on Earth. I— No. Inelegant metaphor. It’s over with Katrina.

It’s funny how people can sit side by side, separate whirlwinds each self-contained.

I’ve realized a life lived with you is the best story I could ever tell.

I learned sometimes relationships don’t die. They just don’t grow. Kept from sunlight, from nourishment, they never flourish.

The true, true horror, the one seemingly no one realizes but me, is that once you have your dreams, all you have left is the chance to lose them. It's inevitable.

Fiction comes from truth.

There's not truth to these pages, but the trick of fiction is to make you think there is. I let myself fall for it as often as I can.

No matter how much success you've had, insecurity is never far from reach when you're being judged on pieces of your soul.

Writing is where our--where everyone's--purest truths lie. On the page, thoughts and feelings can be expressed without interference, without ineloquences or fear or fumbling. There's no room for turning back or losing your nerve. Only one thing remains--what you want to communicate.

Honestly, I think every single word I’ve written since the day I met you has in some way been leading up to this. To you. To say you changed my life is the kind of understatement I could never permit myself to put in writing—you changed my entire world. You reached inside me with your words and your stories and wrote yourself onto my own soul. Before you, I was whole. I was one being, one heart. Now, I’m half of everything and greater for it. I’m in love with you. I know we can’t be together. Not yet. But if you tell me you feel even remotely the same way, then we will. Maybe you’ve never considered it, but I find it hard to believe that my feelings, screaming in my head night and day, leaking into my writing with a vulnerability that would embarrass me if your eyes weren’t the ones reading them, sound only like a whisper to you.

For years, I was trying so hard to want only the things I thought were safe enough to have. But it wasn’t wanting, I’ve realized. It was hiding. Hiding from myself, from what my heart craved so desperately it terrified me.

was it romantic when you instinctively knew someone’s very existence fascinated you, made you grateful? Finding it romantic would be missing the point, like valuing the sun because it was bright. I’m glad for the light, but really, I’m grateful for the fact it sustains life on Earth.

I didn't need to be in a love story -- I only needed to be in love.

Yet if someone had told me love wasn't just the sum of those parts, but rather the exponent on the end of the equation, I don't think I would have understood what they meant.

Oh god,” she moans. “You kissed. Somehow that’s worse.

Never leaving someone isn’t the same as loving them.

What, cheat on me?” He smiles like he knows I never would. “Of course not. Though it would be rather thematic.” “Life imitating art,

I have so much practice wanting and not wanting at once.

Reading and loving books are the fingerprints of who I am—no matter how much I change, they’ll stay the same,

you can’t just pretend feelings that are inconvenient don’t exist,

It was like fiction. It was magic and it was life.

Resigned, I close my computer and sit alone with the wound in my heart.

Forever is about reaching into the future, into years far away and unknowable. ‘Always’ is about every second of every day. It’s as far-reaching as ‘forever,’ it just starts sooner.

I don’t make a habit of drawing inspiration from real people’s physical characteristics. Katrina is the exception. I can’t help reaching for her hands, her eyes, her smile when writing.

Except “baggage” shouldn’t be the metaphor for this sort of thing, because you can put baggage down. When you’re weary or your hand hurts, you can say “wait up” and drop the baggage to the ground until you’re ready to carry on.

What we have is a fairy tale. It is a dream come true. And it’s imperfect. I wish you could understand it can be both. Fiction is fiction and it’s real. They’re not opposites. They live within each other.” His voice is raw, his expression naked.

Which wasn’t easy when some days I felt like I was flunking an exam on myself. I would find myself literally unable to decide whether I wanted to read or rewatch old Gilmore Girls episodes or run in the park. Some days, I dutifully picked plans and executed them.

presence. Once in Italy, needing two hours of not talking to each other, we went to the movies, not realizing there wouldn’t be subtitles. We stayed and enjoyed the cinematography. On the walk home, we pitched each other ridiculous ideas to fill the gaps in the plot we hadn’t understood. Those weren’t dates, though. Dates hold intention. They’re not just occasions—they’re declarations. I’m interested

Here’s what you really don’t want to hear,” he goes on. “What we have is a fairy tale. It is a dream come true. And it’s imperfect. I wish you could understand it can be both. Fiction is fiction and it’s real. They’re not opposites. They live within each other.” His voice is raw, his expression naked. While anger is the fire in him, I recognize pain is the kindling. “The worst part is, I think you love me, too. I think you know we’re soul mates. But we’ll never be together as long as you’re afraid of your own happiness.

I'm going it not because it promises an unfraught future, because it's free of pain or peril - I'm doing it because it demands to be done.

what if the height of their passion is gardening or making pasta? What does it have to be sex?

For once, I want to live the pain instead of dressing it in fictional clothing. It might heal cleaner. It might make me better.

Pero con Katrina, ¿fue romántico cuando instintivamente sabías que la existencia misma de alguien te fascinaba, te hacía sentir agradecido?

NORA AND LIBBY’S ULTIMATE READING LIST Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole The Editor by Steven Rowley The Siren by Katherine St. John A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria Verity by Colleen Hoover The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore The Fastest Way to Fall by Denise Williams So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park By the Book by Jasmine Guillory Payback’s A Witch by Lana Harper A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare

It’s a Porsche, per usual.

No one creates from nothing,

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works. —Virginia Woolf

A felicidade é apavorante

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.

I’m scared of being nothing. Not becoming nothing, in the sense of dying. I mean the life-in-death of being no one special. Being nobody’s person. Being worth nothing.

We’ve written the rough draft of our love together, the draft with loose ends, unfinished edges, mistakes every other page. But every writer knows there’s magic in revision, where your work changes from a manuscript into a book. Where intentions, emotions, missed connections coalesce into something complete. It’s where what you mean to say becomes what you have said. The characters deepen, the details shine, the prose sparkles. Suddenly, from nothing, you find your story.

Sonrío, reconociendo mis propias descripciones plagiadas en mi boca. Sabemos exactamente cómo le gusta al otro que lo toquen. Hemos leído cada beso, estudiado cada caricia. El resultado es la sensación de un primer beso con alguien a quien has besado cien veces.

There’s no truth to these pages, but the trick of fiction is to make you think there is. I let myself fall for it as often as I can.

No reacciono combativamente, ni a la defensiva. Instantáneamente, siento que mi mente despierta. Estoy lleno de energia, hambriento de juntar sus ideas y las mías.

Reading and loving books are the fingerprints of who I am—no matter how much I change, they’ll stay the same, betraying me to myself for the rest of my life.

was it romantic when you instinctively knew someone’s very existence fascinated you, made you grateful? Finding it romantic would be missing the point, like valuing the sun because it was bright.

Forever is about reaching into the future, into years far away and unknowable. 'Always' is about every second of every day. It's as far-reaching as 'forever,' it just starts sooner.

was holding on to the ghost of a feeling, telling myself it was real when it wasn’t.

Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t figure out why I existed. Which sounded dark whenever it crossed my mind, but it wasn’t, really, not to me. Just confusing.

Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole The Editor by Steven Rowley The Siren by Katherine St.