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by Alycia W. Morales   @AlyciaMorales

One of my favorite things to do at the end of each year is reflect back and look forward. Below, I’ve gathered 25 inspirational quotes about writing, business, and life. Each is followed by a reflection question. Pull out your journal, grab a pen and your favorite drink, and take a look deeper within to discover how far you’ve come this year and where you can go and grow in the next.

1. “A writer is a world trapped in a person.” — Victor Hugo

What idea roams your mind, tugs at your heart, and creates a deep longing inside of you? What do you need to write?

 

2. “Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” — J.K. Rowling

What’s one sentence you wrote this year that you know is a key to unlock something, somewhere, in someone else’s heart?

3. “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” — Jodi Picoult

How many blank pages did you fill this year?

 

4. “A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.” — Susan Sontag

What have you noticed in the world this year that needs to be written about?

 

5. “That’s the thing about books, they let you travel without moving your feet.” — Jhumpa Lahiri

Where’s one place you long to travel that you could include as a setting in your next book?

 

6. “No need to force yourself to do something the ‘right way’ if it’s not your right way. Your job is to honor your process.” — Andi Cumbo

In what way have you tried to write that someone else recommended but you found didn’t work for you? What does work for you?

 

7. “Give me books, fruit, French wine, fine weather and a little music.” — John Keats

What do you consider the perfect setting for you to be able to sit and write five pages without stopping? Do you have access to that setting? If not, how could you arrange your writing area to create it?

8. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ―Anaïs Nin

What have you experienced this past year that you need to taste a second time, in retrospect?

[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none” inject=”#Writing #BRMCWC #Writinglife”]25 Writing Reflections for 2025 with Journaling Questions by @AlyciaMorales on @BRMCWC[/tweet_box]

 

9. “A word after a word after a word is power.” ― Margaret Atwood

What have you read this year that transformed you? Or transported you?

 

10. “If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things.” — Anne Lamott

What’s something you’ve been holding back from fear of how others will receive your work and respond to it? When will you write and release it 

 

11. “When you’re stuck, go back to your characters’ motivations.” — David Mamet

What’s your motivation for writing?

 

12. “Address the people you seek, and them only.” — Claude C. Hopkins

Have you strayed from writing for your people in an effort to grow your numbers? If so, how can you get back to writing for the people you seek, and them only?

 

13. “The difference between the ‘almost right’ word and the ‘right’ word is really a large matter … ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” — Mark Twain

What ‘right’ word would you use to define your life this past year?

 

14. “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” — Caterina Fake

What do you need to lay aside in order to work on the right thing?

 

15. “The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.” — Robert Benchley

What’s one thing you need to write whether you get paid for it or not?

 

16. “A big reason so many businesses compete on price is because they can’t prove what value they offer, so they’re stuck with the one selling point that’s a breeze to communicate: cheapness.” — Mish Slade

What’s the one selling point that proves your/your writing’s value? How will you communicate it with others in the new year?

 

17. “I write to discover what I know.” — Flannery O’Connor

What did you write this year that surprised you? That was a discovery of what you knew?

 

18. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” — Ernest Hemingway

What was most difficult for you to write this year because it was deeply personal?

 

19. “You fail only if you stop writing.” — Ray Bradbury

How many times have you failed this year?

 

20. “Half my life is an act of revision.” — John Irving

What in your life needs God’s revision this year?

 

21. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” — Herman Melville

According to 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, you are a living epistle. What’s your mighty theme?

 

22. “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E. L. Doctorow

What’s the next right step for you in your writing journey?

 

23.”Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress…” — Nick Hornby

What needs to be cut from your day so you can prioritize writing?

 

24. “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” — Isaac Asimov

Set the timer. You have six minutes to live. What did you write?

 

25. “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” — Winston Churchill

What difficulty must you master in order to gain an opportunity in the new year?

 

 

 

Alycia Morales is the award-winning author of  Surviving the Year of Firsts: A Mom’s Guide to Grieving Child Loss. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and several compilation books and devotionals. Thanks to her mad editing skills, her clients have found publication and won multiple awards in several national contests. Alycia is also a sought-after book coach and loves helping authors create successful careers.

When she isn’t busy writing, editing, and reading, Alycia enjoys spending time with her husband taking hikes and fishing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Carolinas or running off to the beach with friends. She loves coffee, crafting, and crime shows.

Alycia can be found at alyciawmorales.com. She hangs out on Facebook and Instagram.