writing

'Writing is a strange synthesis between the two parts of your mind: the analytical side and the side that knows nothing at all, and you have to allow the dreaming side free rein.’ Rose Tremain

Writing a book takes me a long time. There are ALWAYS times when it feels too hard, too unimportant, too lonely. My process seems to be: take a few steps in the dark, fall, lie there, eventually get up, take a few more steps. Slowly, the landscape of the story becomes easier to see, almost...

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter. Edward Albee

“Any creative writing teacher worth their salt will tell you that a great story never starts at the beginning, it starts when something changes.” Juno Dawson

Writing is the supreme solace. W. Somerset Maugham

'Writing shouldn't come between the reader and what's being described. It should be as transparent as possible.' Diana Athill

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators. William Saroyan

In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel...

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Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do—to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street. Stephen King (from On Writing: A...

The writing life is one long, never-ending search for narrative. Well, it's not even a conscious searching. It happens even while you're busy buying groceries and when you're fast asleep. It's a curse. Miriam Toews

"Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it." David Sedaris

Writing is turning one’s worst moments into money. J. P. Donleavy

'The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.' William Styron

'In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies. L. Sprague de Camp

'Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.' Lucy Ellmann

“Writing, ideally, is recognizing your bad writing.” August Wilson

[Writing] is lunacy. . . You have to be obsessed. People write me all the time, or get in touch with me about “what should I do if I want to be a writer?” I say well, do you really want to be a writer? It’s not like something you’d want to be—it’s rather something you couldn’t help but be. But...

Walter Mosley on learning to love rewriting: Writing is rewriting. The first draft is the jabber you forced on that blind date. She was hoping for someone to ask her what she was feeling, but all you said was, and then I, and then I, and then I, and then . . . The first draft is meant to be...

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals. Don DeLillo