For this final day of NaNoWriMo, here are some words of wisdom from one of the most prolific and best known American authors.
![headshot: smiling man with white hair, wearing glasses](https://i0.wp.com/www.notesinthemargin.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ray-bradbury.jpg?resize=113%2C123&ssl=1)
“if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is—excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasm. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches . . .”
— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (Joshua Odell Editions, 1996), p. 4.