Okay, so I just discovered that I had been nominated for the Three Day Quote Challenge. Apparently this is a thing I didn’t know about (how ’bout that!).

The deal is, obviously enough, that I need to post a quote a day for three days. Me. Quotes. Easy-peasy.

But there are also RULES.

The RULES are as follows:

1. You must thank the person who nominated you. — Thank you, Addy! 😉
2. You must nominate 3 other bloggers with each post. — Going by Addy’s posts, it’s permissible to re-use the same three bloggers each time. So I’ll make this a round robin:
   Periodically Demented at:  http://p33d33.wordpress.com/
   Thumbup at:  http://livelovelaughdotme2.com/
   Addy at:  https://adamskistoryblog.wordpress.com/
3. Somewhat confusingly, Addy states that you must “Post 3 of your favorite quotes each per day for 3 recurrent days.” However, there is only one quote for each of Addy’s posts… But that’s okay, I probably have more quotes than I could ever use for something like this, and I find more every time I read something. So I’ll go by the letter of the law (or in this case, the “number”) and post three each day. Addy also states that “The quotes can be of any other people or it may come straight from your own heart.” I’ll see what I can come up with.

Today’s quotes:

1. For every situation there is a suitable line from a song.
   Ever have one of those days? When nothing is going right, and you just can’t do it any more? Been there, doing that, having ENOUGH FUN now, thank you. And then a song comes on the radio, or pops into your head, or whatever — and suddenly you have the strength to go on. Maybe there’s a line in the song that just hits you right. Maybe it’s something about the whole song, or the memories that come up when you hear it. Maybe there aren’t even words to the song, just the melody itself and the way the harmonies reach into your heart and hold it close.
   “Don’t try to explain it, just bow your head. Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.” – Jimmy Buffet
2. Nothing real can defeat us. Nothing unreal exists. – Buckaroo Banzai
   I debated using this one, or the more notorious “No matter where you go, there you are.” But that one has so many correlations: What you are you take with you, you can’t run away from who you are, all that jazz.
   This one, though, is sneakier. BB rejoices in being all zen and enigmatic and turn-your-head-upside-down-and-go-HUH? But despite that, there is an underlying truth to all those weird quotes of his. This one kind of puts things in perspective, once you get your head back right-side up, and I like that. When you have so much going on that you can’t juggle fast enough, realizing that you can leave off half of them in the first place gives you just that little bit of breathing space where you can go “Whew! Okay. Now, what’s left?” and it makes it more manageable somehow. It’s a headgame: you really haven’t gotten rid of anything (nothing real exists, get it?) except maybe useless worries. But recognizing that still frees you up.
3. When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.
   I wanted a quote for my main character, Ari Dillon. There is a whole world of quotes that speak to me of her: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger; Whatever doesn’t kill you is gonna leave a scar; and my favorite, and the one that fits her best, Whatever doesn’t kill me better start running.
   Thing is, what speaks of her speaks strongly to me. I am stronger now than I was when I began writing Black Dog back in November, 2012, because in writing Ari I was looking into myself to find her strength. They always say to “write what you know.” But I keep finding that I am writing what I didn’t know I knew. Each time I reread my WIP(s) I find more things I put in there that I didn’t realize. Sitting in a restaurant, eating something really really yummy, I was bouncing in my seat and swinging my feet. And stopped dead, because I had written that very set of actions for one of my young characters. I knew that motion from the inside.
   And confronting someone who was ready to do violence to a co-worker — I stepped between them (what the FUCK was I thinking?!) because I knew I could talk him down. Or at least I hoped I could. Vaguely knowing that if I could break his target lock on her, I could break his concentration, and then I had a chance. And if not? Well, he was gonna have to go through me or over me to get to her, and by that time help would be there. Yeah, I know. I’m crazy. But there it was — the choice.
   I’ve had bad things happen to me, and didn’t realize that they had strengthened me even when I thought they were breaking me down. And yes, some days I do feel beat down, and I get depressed, and want to bury myself under the covers. (And sometimes I do do that. Need a time out.) But most of the time I know that I don’t really have a choice. If I don’t do it, who will? Ain’t nobody gonna do it for me.And if I’m smart, I put on music.

Well, heck! I don’t know if this was what you had in mind, Addy! Me, going all introspective and verbal like this. But there’s your three quotes for the day; you pays your money, you takes your chances.

We’ll see what I come up with for tomorrow, yeh?