writing

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

Bad writing is not easier than good writing. It’s just as hard to make a toilet seat as it is a castle window. Only the view is different. Ben Hecht

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. Jules Renard

'Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.' Iris Murdoch

In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, Instead of telling us a thing was "terrible", describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description...

"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted." Jules Renard

Writing is my vacation from living. Eugene O’Neill

Hi folks, This is a pretty open question (perhaps also a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string? question), but I know some of you write historical fiction, so I thought I'd ask. At what point do you say, "Enough already, these are my sources and now I must write"? I appreciate that research is an...