I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.

Sara Zarr

Categorized in : Littles Writing Example

. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

unfinished-business heart life

Forgetting isn't enough. You can paddle away from the memories and think they are gone. But they will keep floating back, again and again and agian. They circle you, like sharks. Until, unless, something, someone? Can do more than just cover the wound.

fear memories thinking

The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a persona... by Sara Zarr

The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal note every day.

notes kind want

That's how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I'm still waiting.

moments waiting feels

That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.

stuff interesting thinking

I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude.

rocks attitude believe

Life was mostly made up of things you couldn’t control, full of surprises, and they weren’t always good. Life wasn’t what you made it. You were what life made you.

good-life surprise made

Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

love-is memories order

Sometimes rescue comes to you. It just shows up, and you do nothing. Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don't. But be ready, when it comes, to decide if you will take the outstretched hand and let it pull you ashore.

rescue sometimes hands

he's a story i want to know from page one by Sara Zarr

he's a story i want to know from page one

pages stories want

Life needed a fast forward button. Because there were days you just don't want to live through, not again, but they kept coming around and you were powerless to stop time or speed it up or do anything to keep from having to face it.

buttons faces want

Because love, love never finishes. by Sara Zarr

Because love, love never finishes.

I grew up in San Francisco in the 1970s. We were part of a church that belonged to the California Jesus movement.

san-francisco california jesus

My first published book, Story of a Girl, was the fourth book I w... by Sara Zarr

My first published book, Story of a Girl, was the fourth book I wrote.

girl stories book

No one measures a life in weeks and days. You measure life in years and by the things that happen to you.

week happens years

In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.

journey trying way

Katy skipped over, her low-rise jeans threatening to fall off her skinny hips. With some girls, that was a sexy look. With Katy, it made you nervous.

sexy girl fall

It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows after his miracle. You don't spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.

miracle waiting thinking

I wonder how you're supposed to know the exact moment when there'... by Sara Zarr

I wonder how you're supposed to know the exact moment when there's no more hope.

moments knows wonder

I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If wed had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.

violin passion discipline